I have spent time in my life trying to convince myself that greek yogurt is nice, when, in reality, I largely do not like greek yogurt.
The world is wide and full of wonder. So many things that we cannot even dream of happening, will happen. And we will smile and laugh millions and trillions more times with people we love. And we will taste the tang of a freshly picked blueberry from the blueberry patch up the street a hundred times over. People will fall in love and follow their dreams and do the thing they’ve always been scared to do and eat vegan sloppy joe. We wil do all of our favorite things and celebrate birthdays and milestones and weddings and random Fridays and new album releases and anniversaries and the purchase of a new Japanese kitchen knife and a reunion with our best friend that lives in San Francisco and loving someone so much it scares you and learning statistics and breakups and graduations and making enough money to turn the heat up higher than 64 degrees without worrying about the heating bill and our first love and the release of GTA 6. There is so much joy in this world. Why would I let greek yogurt take even a milliliter of that joy away? The birds chirping from the tops of their spruce trees in the light of the early summer sun and the disappointment of eating a bite of the wreched substance first thing in the morning. It cakes my teeth and gets stuck in my esophagus–an experience I would not wish on my worst enemy.
One of my dreams is to feel the joy that I know wearing a bolo tie would bring me. As much as I would like to fulfill this dream now, I know that it is not the right time. It wouldn’t feel right. Maybe not everything needs to happen right now. Do I get scared that I might die before I ever get to feel the feeling that I know wearing a bolo tie at the right time in life would bring me? Of course. Would I rather wear it now and have it feel non-magical just for the sake of doing it? Maybe, but I am leaning toward no. Would I rather spend every waking moment of my day thinking about what to put on my greek yogurt to make it not tase like a horse ate four hundred bottles of glue and pooped it out?
If realizing greek yogurt is not for me taught me one thing, it’s that all we can really do is what feels right in the moment. Things will change and we will change with them. The cottonwoods will grow their leaves and lose them and grow their leaves and lose them over and over again. And each time they grow again, we will all be a little bit different. We will see things we hadn’t seen the last time around. We will taste new bowls of ramen and think new thoughts and have new dreams. This year, when I witness the leaves emerge from their winter hibernation for the twenty third time, I can say for certain that I will be different than who I was last year when the leaves emerged and even different than I am right now. Why? Because I have decided that greek yogurt is no longer something I will spend willpower trying to make myself like. This likely will not be forever, but I think it is what is right in this moment.
This is a freeing feeling
This has all made it sound like I really hate greek yogurt. I do not. In fact, I like many kinds of greek yogut, especially flavored ones like coconut and honey. These flavors occasionally bring me joy.
I find solace in the fact that God does not need me to want or even like greek yogurt. And He has granted me the freedom to make this choice for myself. Because after all, we all can do whatever the hell we want in life, can’t we? There’s a lot of world out there and not a lot of days left before the ants go marching one by one, so we might as well do whatever we friggin want. As Mr. Daugherty used to say, “The world is full of decisions, make them safe and sane.”
Maybe someday I will give greek yogurt another shot at being something that brings me joy but, at least for now, I do not plan to carry it with me as the leaves grow again.