The Mean Reds
In search of a reset button – I found it in the form of a deli lunch at home.
I tried to write this yesterday, when I was knee deep in what Holly Golightly would call The Mean Reds. I spewed out 500 words of self-flagellation and sadness. Aimless. Hopeless. Not necessarily ‘bad’, just a punishment of feelings. The Mean Reds can come about for a multitude of reasons: hormones, tiredness, stress. But also more specifically: a would-be anniversary, an inability to ask for help and a severe state of self-perpetuated isolation. The answer was not found in the chilli-soaked prawn wontons or spicy beef dan dan noodles that I ordered after three hours of crying. Or the walk I told myself to go on. Perhaps in the ten episodes of a Netflix show I binged until my eyes were too sore and swollen to hold open.
I’ve been hesitant to put words to these feelings, for fear of over-indulging in them, but also because it feels like I’m carving out this sad girl identity, and even if I don’t want to admit it, perception matters, especially when you’re writing online, where people don’t know you and can only form opinions based on the words that end up on the screen. The reason I don’t pre-write these newsletters earlier in the week, or that I end up sending them a little later than expected, is because I really am trying to figure it all out as I write. Much like why I pen different versions of unmeasured recipes, because each time I make something, either in a rush or more intentionally, I’m working out what works for me at that time.
I sometimes wonder why something I’ve made tastes different each time – it’s not just because I use different measurements or ingredients depending on what’s in my fridge; but it’s because our moods and environments affect how something tastes. To me, taste is just feeling in a different language. The jambon beurre sandwich I wolfed down at the train station tastes one way today in the station that takes me home home; on this particular day, it reminds me of the deli lunches we would have each weekend as kids. Thick pats of soft, salted butter. Big circles of ham from the deli counter, not the aisles. Tart, crunchy cornichons. Soft, floury baguettes. Yesterday, this sandwich would have tasted different. Because I was different. A shell looking to stay empty.
A reset is necessary. I’d like someone to shut me down for a couple of days, holding down the button until I fall asleep and forget this device, this heartbreak, this loneliness, this confusion, this wondering of what’s next and what’s the point. I feel a little too full – like how you do when you’ve eaten two too many servings, and you’re wondering when you’ll feel normal again. When your stomach will digest everything so you can start again.
My dad picks me up from the station. I can’t be sad when I see him. Perhaps this is why I refused to go home yesterday. The thought of him seeing me so upset, so futile, so empty would make the mean reds even meaner. It would stain our time together. We start driving and three songs come on that we used to listen to together growing up. Something by The Monkees. Suspicious Minds by Elvis. American Pie by Don McClean. We sing along together, my dad speaking the lyrics before they’re sung, as he always has done. It’s funny the way memory works. Every minute or so I say, ‘do you remember this…’, and he laughs and nods, whether it’s the bus stop that used to take me to school, the silly little dancing hound dog Elvis figure I bought him for Christmas or the pub that my brother used to work at on the roundabout.
I get home and my mum is frying sage leaves and anchovies wrapped in rice paper. ‘Just like Cafe Cecilia,’ she grins, referring to the snacks we ate there a few months ago. Her Korean take.
We sit down for lunch. It’s a deli spread, of course, because it’s a weekend, and things don’t change much around here. Mortadella, green melon wrapped in parma ham, a tomato salad (“the small ones are from our garden,” Mum says proudly), and soft, fluffy, floury white bread to mop up the juices. Spicy cornichons, too. We talk about Pachinko, which we’re about to watch that afternoon, and mum tells meandering stories about Korea. I tell her I’m learning Korean on Duolingo, and she tells me I’m a good girl, then her stories continue to wander like water trickling from a waterfall, rushing over rocks and slipping down cliff faces.
The maelstrom I’d been in yesterday simply passes. The reset I’d been searching for has arrived in the form of returning to old, familiar places from before all the chaos of adulthood began. The prospect of a barbecue where we’ll grill Korean chicken and slabs of steak and eat potatoes with too much butter, and sink a few beers together is too good to be ruined by the sadness of yesterday.
“I’m really not doing okay,” I wrote to three friends yesterday. It took me hours to compose these five words, feeling ashamed to admit it, to lay myself bare in front of them. My best friend Emily asks me to call her, and she offers practical advice as I cry down the line. I can’t quite explain it to her, but it doesn’t matter; she tells me I’m doing fine, and asks if I’ve got any nice food I can eat. I tell her I’ll get something, even though I know it won’t matter, because nothing tastes good when you’ve got the mean reds.
Later in the evening she checks in on me and asks if I want to go for dinner on Tuesday. We choose Jolene out of habit and comfort – the place where we met two days after the heartbreak started. I check the menu and see the pasta alla gricia is on. I hope it’s on in two more days, I say to myself, happy to be excited about something again.
I really recommend "I want to die but I want to eat tteokbokki" by Baek Se-hee for sad days/times.