One thing that living alone is slowly changing about me is how I’m starting to appreciate and genuinely celebrate my little triumphs. Sometimes I lay in bed at night after a completely unproductive day, and right before I start feeling bad about my existence, I find myself smiling at how I’ve managed to open a very tight jar lid on my own that day. Or how I’ve finally remembered to take the trash out before the smell forced me to stay out of the house that week. Sometimes it’s enough to realize that I’ve stopped forgetting the lights on before leaving to work, or that I’m now able to bring home all my groceries without needing to write down a single list. It’s an entirely different story to find out I haven’t even locked myself out of the house for one month straight.

Those, and other similar occurrences, are the kinds of accomplishments that can have me sleeping with a smile on my face. Those little things that I’m rarely expected to share when asked about my experience, because of how “ordinary” they might seem. Those are my very own sources of pride. Adulting is hard, it truly is. Yet constantly holding ourselves accountable for changing the world – after having taken only a couple of steps into similar phases, makes things so much scarier. Because we’re always expected to achieve something big. Something huge. Even if no one asks that of us, we unconsciously start building our own expectations of who we should start being, and it sucks so bad to realize we still continue to fail. We keep getting in our own way of noticing the little successes and applauding ourselves for them, despite knowing we deserve every bit of that praise.

So, well.. ordinary is slowly becoming my very own great. For right now, I genuinely feel happier about celebrating simply finding clean PJs to wear to bed, more than I do about trying to fulfill most of the unrealistic expectations I keep setting for myself all day.

Basma Zaki