So there we were, mid-dinner, minding our own business, just having a nostalgic chinwag about our high school days. Then Dustin, bless him, goes:

“You know, I used to put my head down on the desk, close my eyes, cross my legs, and imagine I was floating in space. All the noise would disappear, and I’d just relax.”

I just stared at him like he’d grown a second head.

“I’m sorry, what now? You did what in double geography?”

Apparently, this boy had mastered deep-space meditation at the tender age of 16 while the rest of us were panicking over acne and Pythagoras.

He described it like it was nothing: “You just float, innit. You relax. The voices fade.” I mean, this isn’t some mindfulness app. This is enlightenment in a school chair and I’m expected to be impressed? (I was, a bit.)

He tried to teach me. Genuinely. He was like, “Just close your eyes and shut off your brain.”

Mate, I can’t even shut off my thoughts long enough to pick a Netflix show. Within seconds I’m thinking about whether ducks have best friends and what I’d say in my Oscars speech.

I reckon I’d need six months in a remote Scottish cabin, surrounded by sheep and silence, before I could manage five minutes without mentally redecorating my kitchen or reliving that one embarrassing thing I said in 2012.

Now, to be fair, Dustin is ex-military. He was an AE which stands for Aviation Electrician, apparently, not Alien Enthusiast as I had hoped.

He spent years sleeping through chaos on ships during deployments, and the military taught him how to knock out on command. Now he can fall asleep in five minutes flat ten if he’s feeling dramatic.

He just shuts his eyes and boom out like a light.

Me? I need herbal tea, a hot bath, six hours of overthinking, and a 45-minute guided meditation read by a man called Nigel.

Do Men Ever… Think?

Naturally, I spiralled.

Is it just Dustin? Or do all men just… not overthink?

They don’t lie in bed analysing every text they’ve ever sent. They don’t worry about whether Karen from HR secretly hates them. They use one bottle of mystery goo for face, hair, body, and soul and somehow they’re glowing?

I swear, they don’t even wear sunscreen and still have better skin. How? Is it the lack of emotional baggage? The refusal to care? The military training?

Men, I beg explain yourselves. Do you just not think?

A Message to My Girlies

Maybe we’re doing it wrong. Maybe we need to start caring less.

Close our eyes. Cross our legs. Float in space like Dustin.

Ditch the five-step skincare routine.

Use the 5-in-1 mystery shampoo.

Sleep like a Navy SEAL.

Or… at the very least, just stop giving so many damns. Inner peace might just be one eye-roll away.

okeh bye

Hannah x 

P.S. I woke up this morning absolutely convinced it was Friday. It is not Friday. It is Monday. I feel betrayed by the calendar. Send help.