Comforts
There are certain comforts that have become routine for me, that should I be deprived of them I will (and have) go a little mental and find myself unknowing what to do until I can have them again.
The prominent one right now is tea.
I have always liked tea, though it wasn't until the recent discovery of milk in tea that really fed my love of it. Tea was a daily thing until I ran out of honey, and then it was just something I didn't have until I bought another cold can or a bottle of clover honey and whatever packet of green tea I happened to have. I had bought a tin of Republic of Tea green tea pomegranate years ago, and only finished it this year upon the discovery of milk in tea.
It was added with raw sugar then, and it became this very soothing routine of how I made the tea; Put the kettle on, put the bag in the tea mug (and I have a very special and purposeful mug for this- I will not drink tea in any other cup if I can help it, and nobody else is allowed to use this mug at all), put in one and a half teaspoonfuls of raw sugar, pour hot water, let it sit forever, add milk.
It's become such a comfort, I'm drinking more tea than I can afford to replace. A cup in the morning if there's enough time, a cup when I get home because I'm tired and cranky and just so glad to be home. A cup when I'm sad, or cold, or lonely, or angry and need to calm down, or happy, or with friends, or about to watch a movie, or sometimes just with dessert. I'm usually a coffee with dessert person but when I'm not somewhere else, and I'm at home? It is replaced with tea every time.
When I run out of tea, or milk, or sugar, I feel like I'm not sure what to do with myself. The act of drinking and preparing tea has become so ingrained and part of just the simplest of routines in an otherwise chaotic life that when it is taken from me I feel a little lost. I can't drink tea to make the feeling go away. So I sit and I lament and I just keep going over and over in my head, fuck fuck I really want some tea. I really want some tea. I REALLY WANT SOME TEA. I will make jokes about how Ianto would know how I liked my tea and I would never be without, and mum never hears the end of my mantra of "lipton cinnamon apple" because when I can't get the Republic of Tea stuff I like, that's a good second best and is 5 times cheaper.
I only have one bag left after this cup, which I will save for tomorrow. It's a little disheartening to know I only have one day left before I start feeling a little out of sorts due to this break in my comfortable routine.
The other comfort that if broken would drive me mental is my fabric.
I call it my Wonder Cloth, based off the Persona 4 game item. It's a yard of white rayon-like material with frayed edges and cigarette burn holes that I still get angry over (as it was my careless sister who put them there, and not myself). I have to touch it- that is, place the fabric between my forefinger and thumb and rub. Sometimes I will mix it up by placing it between other fingers, and I switch hands. At home, it rarely leaves my side unless I have friends over. When I'm in my bed watching telly or reading a book or doing my homework, it's there. When I'm sleeping, it's there.
I even have a corner of it cut off to take on trips (especially airplanes) so I won't carry and accidentally leave behind the whole damn thing. I haven't found a fabric like it since.
I once left it in LA, at my best mate's boyfriend's place. I took the whole thing with me because it was only an hour away from my place and I never forget it. Only I forgot it. When I found out on the train home I felt disoriented, lost, unsure what my next action would be. My breath hitched. I felt... panicked. I was able to pretend I was fine, because why shouldn't I have been fine? But the one thing that can ground me so perfectly was gone and it would be a month until I could afford to go back and get it again.
I had the cut off corner, but it wasn't the same. Too easily lost, and without the main one to back it up I feared taking it anywhere. It could even get lost in my own bed, which had happened once and I nearly flipped my lid. Another best mate of mine gave me some rayon ribbon and I tied that around my wrist to satisfy the urge, which came so frequently with the knowledge of my main one lost, that I even wore it to school and would rub during classes. It wasn't the same but it was close.
This has been going on since I was five. I remember clearly, too. I was in bed and had just finished a Goosebumps book, and was feeling a little on edge. I curled the blanket around me, and noticed it had the blanket edge around it, that ribbon-like material encompassing the front. At the time I didn't know names of things like that or whatever, but my fingers grasped the coolness of it in comparison to the warmness of the blanket. I don't know what encouraged me to rub but I did and it was made of the rayon material. I've been doing it ever since, from blankets to a pair of shorts I used to ALWAYS wear because it had squares of rayon sewn in, to the ratty blue jacket I stole from my dad before he left us.
I broke the habit only once. A friend was tired of me wearing the ratty jacket and gave me a new red one. I wore it instead because it was warm and a friend gave it to me and that made it feel special. I threw the jacket away. I didn't touch another fabric like that for years.
Then someone gave me a bag of fabric and the Wonder Cloth was in there, waiting for me. I tried not to touch it, knew exactly what it was. But the allure was too great, and it felt better than any other type of fabric like it I had ever touched. It's an addiction, I know it is. I sometimes rub so hard and so long my fingertips go numb.
They're both comforts I don't want to leave me. They're two things I can rely on- tea and fabric.
The prominent one right now is tea.
I have always liked tea, though it wasn't until the recent discovery of milk in tea that really fed my love of it. Tea was a daily thing until I ran out of honey, and then it was just something I didn't have until I bought another cold can or a bottle of clover honey and whatever packet of green tea I happened to have. I had bought a tin of Republic of Tea green tea pomegranate years ago, and only finished it this year upon the discovery of milk in tea.
It was added with raw sugar then, and it became this very soothing routine of how I made the tea; Put the kettle on, put the bag in the tea mug (and I have a very special and purposeful mug for this- I will not drink tea in any other cup if I can help it, and nobody else is allowed to use this mug at all), put in one and a half teaspoonfuls of raw sugar, pour hot water, let it sit forever, add milk.
It's become such a comfort, I'm drinking more tea than I can afford to replace. A cup in the morning if there's enough time, a cup when I get home because I'm tired and cranky and just so glad to be home. A cup when I'm sad, or cold, or lonely, or angry and need to calm down, or happy, or with friends, or about to watch a movie, or sometimes just with dessert. I'm usually a coffee with dessert person but when I'm not somewhere else, and I'm at home? It is replaced with tea every time.
When I run out of tea, or milk, or sugar, I feel like I'm not sure what to do with myself. The act of drinking and preparing tea has become so ingrained and part of just the simplest of routines in an otherwise chaotic life that when it is taken from me I feel a little lost. I can't drink tea to make the feeling go away. So I sit and I lament and I just keep going over and over in my head, fuck fuck I really want some tea. I really want some tea. I REALLY WANT SOME TEA. I will make jokes about how Ianto would know how I liked my tea and I would never be without, and mum never hears the end of my mantra of "lipton cinnamon apple" because when I can't get the Republic of Tea stuff I like, that's a good second best and is 5 times cheaper.
I only have one bag left after this cup, which I will save for tomorrow. It's a little disheartening to know I only have one day left before I start feeling a little out of sorts due to this break in my comfortable routine.
The other comfort that if broken would drive me mental is my fabric.
I call it my Wonder Cloth, based off the Persona 4 game item. It's a yard of white rayon-like material with frayed edges and cigarette burn holes that I still get angry over (as it was my careless sister who put them there, and not myself). I have to touch it- that is, place the fabric between my forefinger and thumb and rub. Sometimes I will mix it up by placing it between other fingers, and I switch hands. At home, it rarely leaves my side unless I have friends over. When I'm in my bed watching telly or reading a book or doing my homework, it's there. When I'm sleeping, it's there.
I even have a corner of it cut off to take on trips (especially airplanes) so I won't carry and accidentally leave behind the whole damn thing. I haven't found a fabric like it since.
I once left it in LA, at my best mate's boyfriend's place. I took the whole thing with me because it was only an hour away from my place and I never forget it. Only I forgot it. When I found out on the train home I felt disoriented, lost, unsure what my next action would be. My breath hitched. I felt... panicked. I was able to pretend I was fine, because why shouldn't I have been fine? But the one thing that can ground me so perfectly was gone and it would be a month until I could afford to go back and get it again.
I had the cut off corner, but it wasn't the same. Too easily lost, and without the main one to back it up I feared taking it anywhere. It could even get lost in my own bed, which had happened once and I nearly flipped my lid. Another best mate of mine gave me some rayon ribbon and I tied that around my wrist to satisfy the urge, which came so frequently with the knowledge of my main one lost, that I even wore it to school and would rub during classes. It wasn't the same but it was close.
This has been going on since I was five. I remember clearly, too. I was in bed and had just finished a Goosebumps book, and was feeling a little on edge. I curled the blanket around me, and noticed it had the blanket edge around it, that ribbon-like material encompassing the front. At the time I didn't know names of things like that or whatever, but my fingers grasped the coolness of it in comparison to the warmness of the blanket. I don't know what encouraged me to rub but I did and it was made of the rayon material. I've been doing it ever since, from blankets to a pair of shorts I used to ALWAYS wear because it had squares of rayon sewn in, to the ratty blue jacket I stole from my dad before he left us.
I broke the habit only once. A friend was tired of me wearing the ratty jacket and gave me a new red one. I wore it instead because it was warm and a friend gave it to me and that made it feel special. I threw the jacket away. I didn't touch another fabric like that for years.
Then someone gave me a bag of fabric and the Wonder Cloth was in there, waiting for me. I tried not to touch it, knew exactly what it was. But the allure was too great, and it felt better than any other type of fabric like it I had ever touched. It's an addiction, I know it is. I sometimes rub so hard and so long my fingertips go numb.
They're both comforts I don't want to leave me. They're two things I can rely on- tea and fabric.