J. Kenji Lopez-Alt has this video where he makes a one-pot braised chicken dish, with potatoes and cabbage and onions and bacon.

I have attempted to recreate this several times. I say "attempted" because I can never really do it, because his recipe requires an oven, and I don't have one. But it's not as if I can't cook it all on the stove top. I'll just have to let go of the concept of chicken thighs that are crispy on the outside and moist on the inside, something I cannot do on the stove since I'll have to cover the pot to make sure the whole dish braises properly, and that means condensation would form on the lid and most certainly drip down on the skin. If it's not that, then it's the steam.

But, again, that hasn't quite stopped me from doing the dish. It's not, by all means, a quick one to make - there's a lot of chopping to do - but I've done it enough to not need to watch the video again to remember how to do it, and it's now become part of my arsenal. Sure, I am not certain if it's what it's really supposed to taste like, but at least I have a dish that feels both fancy and homey, and more importantly, is not Filipino. (Nothing against Filipino food, of course, but that can't be the only homey thing I can do.)

I cooked that again last night. The problem is, though, I haven't been myself the past few days.

Okay, that's probably a misnomer, since I am sure I have spent more days feeling down than not in the last few years or so. By that baseline, I must be feeling great, right? But in this universe, being happy, or at least being content, is an ideal, so feeling beneath that is "off". Me, I don't know why I've been feeling off. I just don't think it's the whole "January blues" thing.

Unfortunately, that does not absolve me from cooking dinner. Sure, I can just have something delivered, or I can cook something far easier, like that packet of longganisa I have stored in the freezer. Potatoes can survive another week in the fridge, and cabbages are hardy, too. But I already put the chicken and bacon out to thaw. There's no turning back.

In the end, I may have fucked up the dish. It's not bad, but I honestly can't believe I forgot to salt the chicken before I seared them. The dish felt off-balance, as a result. I can eat it, don't worry. I have to. I live alone, anyway, so there's no need to impress anyone, and there's no need to be compared to... you know. But it's not one of my best, or my just all right.

That's a very long, roundabout way for me to think about the last few years, particularly about the people who refused to show up, the people who stopped showing up, and the people who decided to show up. It's a cliché, saying this, but it really was a time when I found out who my real friends are, and I say this because I had lost so many. Like, I pretty much lost my entire social support system in the process, so you'll have to bear with me if, up to now, I am still in the midst of rebuilding; the damage the cheating ex-girlfriend had done is just way too much to comprehend.

Something difficult I've had to realize over and over again is that, while there will be people who choose you, who show up for you, they won't always be able to, and that doesn't mean they are leaving you behind forever. (It's a distinction I continue to learn and relearn, because more often than not I don't immediately realize that people are tossing me aside. I guess I wouldn't be this hurt if I, for example, kicked the cheater out of my flat immediately.) I'll try to say this without resorting to therapy-speak: sometimes they just can't, and I should realize this because sometimes I just can't, too, with the people I consider to be friends.

But what if I can't show up for myself, because I'm just feeling out of it?

"You have to always show up for yourself," I'm sure someone out there has told me, "because you're the only one who can do so."

But, again, what if I can't? I barely survived cooking dinner, and I forgot to salt the chicken. It's not a big thing, but it's something. If I can't show up for myself, not for lack of trying, then who does? Do I just languish and die? Do you leave me to languish and die? Because that's as good as leaving me, isn't it?