So...How Do I Actually “Romanticize My Life”?
In the summertime, sparkling birdsong often lifts me from my slumbers, tricking me into believing I’ve reincarnated as a Disney princess. Though I look like anything but one as I lay in bed with ratty hair and day-old mascara on my cheeks, I love turning this part of my daily routine into a main-character moment.
“You have to start romanticizing your life, you have to start thinking of yourself as the main character,” goes the viral 2019 TikTok adage. In the year of COVID, the year when our lives felt like dystopian novels, we were being encouraged to make them look like glorious coming-of-age movies instead. It was sort of a brilliant survival tactic; with a months-long lockdown, how would we survive without finding sunshine in the little things?
Romanticizing one’s life means over exaggerating the happenings of everyday life — making the ordinary EXTRAORDINARY. Examples include getting dressed up in your fanciest clothing for a takeout dinner, going on long aimless walks blasting your favorite soundtrack, or spontaneously redecorating your space. At its core, though, romanticizing your life is a mindset that propels you forward, motivating you to find joy in the simplest things and care for yourself with excessive love.
Seemingly perfect, groundbreaking notions are often double-edged swords, which begs the question: is it even healthy to romanticize our lives? Does it make us out of touch with reality if we delude ourselves into thinking everything is beautiful and wonderful like a Disney movie? My answer: it’s complicated. We should romanticize our lives to the point where the beautiful seems more beautiful, but not to the point where we start completely ignoring the bad. After all, what’s an interesting main character arc without any conflict? Disney movies only have happy endings because the protagonists have to struggle through unhappy middles. Remember: with the good comes the bad, but that also means with the bad always comes the good! Romanticizing your life is kind of like a little self-care bible, by which to live your life by and lean on during the most challenging moments.
One of my favorite ways to brighten up a cloudy day is baking. Though I can’t say I’m doing much of it in the lovely High Rise 5, Floor 4 kitchen, baking was my go-to de-stress activity back home. I loved pretending I was on The Great British Bake Off and making my parents blind react to my pumpkin chocolate chip cookies as if they were Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry critiquing me in the Technical (spoiler alert — I always got first place!).
Singing is another joy of mine. When I’m down, I love yelling to early-2000s-rom-com-vibe karaoke (think: Avril Lavigne, Kelly Clarkson, and Natasha Bedingfield). Sometimes, it just makes me laugh to think about my problems while Complicated blasts in the background.
Now it’s time for you to figure out how you’ll romanticize your life. It can be incredibly simple or something more challenging. Don’t worry, I have a couple ideas if you’re in need:
Anjali’s Guide to Main-Character-izing Your Life
Randomly text your friends and family that you love them
Read a book, curl up in bed, and make a cup of hot tea
Listen to holiday music in August
Wear matching pajama sets, just cause.
Plan a fun event or trip with a friend for a year in the future
Create a log of one good thing that happened every day for a year
Smile at strangers
Have a rave in your room in the middle of the day
Learn to knit (www.woolandthegang.com has kits!)
Learn to do accents to live out your Love Island dreams
Make a color pencil self-portrait of yourself
Read a children’s picture book
Make a bouquet out of wildflowers and leaves on campus
Call your childhood friends or grandparents
Wear a blazer to class on a Monday (to make it clear it’s not just Hotelie Friday)
Literally, just sit in the Uris A.D. White library with a hot drink in hand
Don’t feel pressure to make your life a movie or perform in the role of some unique, groundbreaking main character when romanticizing your life. Somedays, I stay in bed until the late afternoon watching my comfort shows, and that’s beautiful, too. You already ARE the main character of your life, without even needing to try. So make your narrative fun! After all, we are on this beautiful planet quite fleetingly. The birds that sing me awake in the summertime are here quite fleetingly. For right now, I think I’ll love them as much as I can.
