Each day for the last few weeks, I’ve woken up with a stomach ache and a headache, likely from grinding my teeth in my sleep. It’s a problem I can probably partially solve by just going to the dentist, but I’m saving that for a more worthy occasion - a cavity, or a root canal, or something.
When I was laid off back in 2024, I had an abnormal recovery process because I was grateful enough to have received a temporary job with Secret Base, something that completely revitalized the creative bones in my body, followed by a job offer for a full time role writing about the Cleveland Browns.
I don’t think I realized just how much of that layoff would impact my already existent anxiety disorder once I had time to…settle. Now that I’ve done that, every waking moment, I’m looking for a sign that that’s going to happen to me again. Being left off emails by mistake, ominously labelled work calls, messages from colleagues feeling short. They’re all making me want to vomit, or curl up in a ball for days, or fall off the radar entirely. I’m positive this fate, another layoff, is going to befall me.
It sucks existing in that way, every day, while also having the keen displeasure of doomscrolling through oodles of news articles or video clips featuring folks plotting on targeting people with your ideology, or your identities. It’s impossible to stay off of social media with my job, so it’s just been a daily serving of football data, threats to my livelihood, and then a clip of another kicker making or breaking a game. And yet, I wonder why I can’t stop picking at my lip, or I can’t turn off the constant stream of negative consciousness in my mind when I’m going to bed at the end of it all.
However…
When I turn on Great British Bake Off, and I see Iain somehow construct a beautiful landscape out of what previously look like a pile of cake-flavored dirt, or I hear Alison Hammond’s laugh after using an absolutely ridiculous pun involving a baker’s creation, or even when I’m waiting with baited breath to see if Paul Hollywood is going to show an inch of emotion behind those terrifyingly steely eyes, I feel ever so grounded.
Reader, I cannot bake. I can’t really cook, either. My mother, unfortunately, didn’t pass down those skills to me, and she unfortunately did not live long enough to even attempt to correct my far-too-measured style of seasoning that doesn’t involve my Puerto Rican ancestors telling me when to stop.
But, I did love to watch her in the kitchen. It was probably some of our only positive memories, and that’s not to make you sad or anything. It’s just the truth. She was happiest when making some arroz con gandules, or pastelitos, or banana bread. And so I naturally wanted to be around her at her happiest. When I watch GBBO, I get the same feeling of, “holy shit, I cannot believe you people can put yourselves in this kitchen voluntarily and have fun doing it,” because again, that’s just not something I have ever been able to do.
It’s been a lovely escape. I have other escapes planned, like some lovely concerts coming up between now and November, some trips with my wife planned to see family over the next few weekends, and some beloved TV shows returning (Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, specifically). The anxiety is still there, always. My chest and stomach hurt writing this, because my brain is telling me my inbox has a layoff notice likely sitting in it without my knowing. As a treat, I’ll probably throw on the latest episode of GBBO, to ignore the horrors of…just about every aspect of being a gay, Puerto Rican, working class writer in 2025. I would love to hear what your distractions are. The more remote, the better.