Olivia Loving
Sep 8, 2018 · 3 min read

Today I woke up at 7:55 for a babysitting job that started at 8:15. I dressed quickly and drove to the family’s home, which was surrounded by other identical clapboard houses that looked like they belonged in the Midwest. I watched the 4-year-old tumble around in gymnastics while his dad, who works out of a Marine base 40 minutes north, sat next to me. His schedule is unpredictable so he ended up being home this weekend. The mom asked me yesterday if I wanted to take the day off, but I needed the hours. I wanted to read my book (Normal People by Sally Rooney — which arrived last night!) but didn’t want to make a bad impression. I worried that I did make a bad impression, anyway, by texting Julia throughout the day. Whenever she texts me I feel an urgent need to respond, even though we have been friends for 15 years.

After gymnastics we went to Kohl’s and I bought a chocolate bar at the register, which I quickly regretted. I was so hungry for some reason. I’m trying to lose weight on a medication that makes me gain it. So it’s been difficult. We went to the library and I picked up Lost City Radio, which I have to finish for my Global South class next week. Outside the library there is a nice garden and some musical instruments that I never noticed before; one is a sort of table that has slats in it and pebbles collected on the ground underneath, and you’re supposed to push the pebbles through the slats and make the metal spokes underneath chime. There were drums, too, but the humidity had made them useless. I’ve been to the library many times, but I’d never noticed the instruments before; that’s one of the nice things, I guess, about hanging around a child.

I had a headache by the time work ended, and I was afraid of driving, as I am all the time these days. But I drove to the gym, where I read my new book on the stationary bike, and it helped time go faster. My mind felt clearer. Then I drove to the bubble tea bar and to Target, where I picked out a vegetable steamer and some food for the week. That’s pretty major for me, because last year I was spending $20 a day on food from restaurants. I also bought knives, which terrifies me because I have an (OCD) fear of sleepwalking and stabbing someone. But I needed them to cut the broccoli I’d just bought.

I have a party to go to tonight but part of me wants to stay home and write the article I’ve been planning in my head for months & to read Normal People & to chat on the phone with Chloe and Brittany and Kristen, who are all hanging together at Brittany’s house in Rhode Island. (I’m jealous.)

Exercise is so difficult sometimes, but I can’t deny that it makes my day feel so much better, when I do go to the gym.

Olivia Loving

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reader, writer, copy editor. obsessed with swamps. currently in wilmington, nc.