What Do You Like Most About Your Life?

I recently came across an article (see references) that gave 21 questions to ask ourselves and decided to use them as writing prompts!

Here’s the final (finally!) question, #21:

What do you like best about your life? Least?

I am still not 100% over Covid, but I’m feeling better enough to whip out a quick piece to answer this final question!

So, considering everything I’ve been dealing with the last week (Covid symptoms in various guises — flu-y chills and body aches, irritated throat, coughing, sneezing, headache, congestion, blocked ear, loss of taste and smell, tiredness/fatigue, general blah-ness. Like a weird mix of a cold and flu together… what I’d say RIGHT NOW, right this moment I like least about my life? I’d 100% most definitely say my lack of smell and taste as an (unexpected!) Covid symptom. Yes, I knew that that is a potential symptom, but I’ve also read that with Omicron, that specific symptom is less common than with other, earlier, OG variants of Covid. Plus, my husband didn’t get it, so I was confident I wouldn’t be hit with it.

And you know how they say you don’t miss it til it’s gone? Well, ain’t that the truth! It’s definitely something that we ALL take for granted (as I’m sure that most of us have the ability to taste and smell the world around us!). When I was having a shower this morning, I was sniffing the nothingness of my white peach and cherry blossom bodywash, and the invisibility of my charcoal and various herbs shampoo (that clarifies and volumizes) and my Aveeno Fresh Greens conditioner. And there was nothing. Nada. Zero. Zip. Zilch.

Which was almost, ALMOST more frustrating and heartbreaking than not being able to taste my food for the last 2.5ish days and I’ve now resorted to talking about my food in terms of textures: today’s lunch was crispy and spicy and spongy! Yesterday’s dinner was crispy flakey soft mushiness with a side of runny mush! My coffee this morning was hot black liquid with white foamy stuff on top, topped with gritty/grindy powder!

Yep. This is my life now! (Insert laughing emoji here). I’m trying to keep a bit of a sense of humour about it. And I’m not writing this as a ‘poor me’ thing for pity, but I’m just writing about it because I’m experiencing it and it helps to write about it and get it off my chest and let it fly away out of my head and thoughts into the wider world.

I just blew my nose a few minutes ago (is that TMI?) and the congestion in my blocked right ear moved a tiny little bit, so that’s something? And maybe that means my congestion is going to clear up soon, and maybe, just maybe, I might be able to taste again fairly soon!

Okay, so that’s what I’m liking least about my life — but I do have to say I’m grateful that overall, it seems like a fairly mild case of Covid, thanks to having been fully vaccinated and boostered (x1), and I’m also grateful it’s the milder Omicron variant. Still not fun and not pleasant, but I’d take this any day over OG Covid!

What do I like best about my life? Well, again, in the context of Covid, I love everything about my pre-Covid life! When I was well, which again, I 100% took for granted (as I know we all do at some point).

I am grateful for my health (when it is good), and grateful for my relationships, grateful for my dog, and my friends, and all the friends I’ve met here on Medium. I’m grateful for my 800+ followers so far on here (thank you all!). I’m grateful for my day job (office work, even though it’s not overly exciting, I’m happy to be helping support others do their jobs!), and for my side hustles of writing and editing for Psych2Go on topics of mental health and psychology, and also my work managing the Facebook group for the meditation app Calm (which I highly recommend! I’ve been using it daily for the past 6ish years).

I first learned of it when I was learning to meditate during my Yoga Teacher Training back in 2016, and found it really helpful for that, but also it has so much great content like Sleep Stories — I haven’t taken a nap or gone to sleep at night once for the past 6ish years since getting the app without listening to one of their Sleep Stories (to my husband’s chagrin! Though sometimes he does enjoy the odd story himself).

Okay, I’ve rambled into a tangent…but, at the same time, these are the things I enjoy best or most about my life. Things that help support my overall wellbeing and happiness — along with my daily yoga practice.

I think I most enjoy my relaxing morning routine, that I’ve been doing, again, basically for the last 6.5ish years — since my mom died, really. It’s something that helps set me up for the day, on the right foot. I’m sure I’ve written about this plenty of times in the past but here’s my morning routine:

Get up. Drink water. Take meds. Unroll my yoga mat and do a short morning at-home yoga practice (anywhere from 5–20 minutes depending on time, day and energy levels), followed by a bit more movement in the Calm app, and then followed by my daily 10ish minute meditation session (Calm, again), and recently, (again with the Calm app) listening to the new-ish feature — some daily short wisdom by life coach Jay Shetty — 7 minutes of some mindful wisdom to take on the road with me to work that day or just to head into the rest of my day with.

Then if it’s a work day, I pack my lunch, grab my coffee and head to work. If it’s the weekend, I make coffee and breakfast and then get on with the rest of my day! It’s a routine that takes about half an hour (give or take) each morning, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world. And right now that’s the best part of my life because it’s a comforting routine that brings me stability and peace and wellbeing, that the rest of my life can slot in around! Plus, it’s something I can do anywhere and even take on holiday with me. Wherever I am, I have the ability to do my daily morning routine, and to me, that’s awesome. I like stability and familiarity.

What about you? What do you like most or least about your life?