Originally published in The Clifton Courier October 4, 2017

The other day I had a confronting thought.

This is nothing out of the ordinary. I have confronting thoughts all the time. Sometimes they’re deep unanswerable questions that only lead you down a rabbit hole of despair and confusion like “what would my life have been like if my parents decided to move to Allora instead of Clifton?” or “what if gravy powder didn’t exist?”*. Other times they’re rather uncomfortable involuntary visualisations of political leaders, people on television and whoever happens to be near me in various states of… the human condition. And then you get those startling revelations that hit you like a medicine ball* to the guts.

* And I’m not talking about those medicine balls you get at the gym. I’m talking about the ones from primary school that were full of dust and smelt like mice after being locked up in the sports shed for the past 37 years. They were not pleasant. 

And my most recent confronting thought was one of those starting revelations.

I realised the most exciting part of my day was taking probiotics.

Like the thing that got me bounding out of bed was the idea of 26 billion live bacteria having a gatho in my guts. I mean it. I open the fridge in the morning, see that little brown bottle of capsules and it gives me this weird flutter of excitement.

I don’t have any significant health issues this is going to magically solve. I wasn’t urged by a doctor to host a probiotic par-tay inside my digestive tract like that slightly dodgy best mate in Year 10 trying to con you into turning your carport into a rave cave while your parents are away.

Nothing particularly dramatic is going to happen. Maybe my immune system might be stronger. Maybe my digestion will run slightly smoother. Maybe this slight increase in my overall health will help me sleep better.

But I feel this gradual change won’t be something I can post a before and after selfie of.

And yet, I still get so excited about taking those capsules that look like they’re filled with dried yoghurt flakes/superfine dandruff.

You could take this gut-health-buzz as confirmation that I’m some kind of holistic health nut. And there is evidence to support this hypothesis. I buy bags of carrots for snacks. I jog often enough to own a pair running shorts with inbuilt bike pants. When the after-work hunger binge kicks in of an afternoon, I opt for walnuts over the slab of Swiss chocolate my housemate kindly brought back from Europe, it seems, to taunt me*.

* Lately, this has not been the case. I don’t even like the orange-chocolate combination but I still find myself sneaking a piece every now and then. My self-control is as strong as the elastic on a pair of well-worn undies that came out of a five pack at Coles. 

But then, there is also evidence to counteract this wellness claim. Most of my exercise is based purely on a desire to have a tight-looking rig. I once found an old Easter egg under the bed of my current apartment and, not knowing how long the religious-themed confection had been under the bed, ate it. And one of my key “health rules” is “don’t drink unless you’re drinking to get drunk”. So… I could be a healthier health nut.

I think perhaps it means that I am simply at the point in my life when I can derive excitement and joy from the simple things.

I mean, I recently cleaned the dank, grimy sink strainers using bi carb soda and was so impressed with the result, I told practically everyone about it. I sent multiple “after” photos to friends and acquaintances on Snapchat. It boosted my mood by at least 97 per cent.

And when I think about it, those times when I actually use toilet bowl cleaner are great. I find myself lingering in the bathroom just to get a glimpse of that white, shiny porcelain. I used to think the women’s reactions on toilet cleaning commercials (because apparently the advertising world thinks that only women can clean stuff, as if a set of ovaries is a prerequisite for not wanting to contract an e. coli infection from a filthy toilet bowl) were over exaggerated. They were not. I realised this after the results of a bathroom deep clean left me strutting around with the kind of glow you get from listening to an empowering Beyoncé song.

So yeah, I’m finding happiness in the simple things. While that sounds mind-numbingly mild, maybe it’s not so confronting after all. Because the simple things really make my day. And as the great Sheryl Crowe once sang, “if it makes you happy, it can’t be that bad”.

I feel like if my day isn’t “that bad”, then surely that must be good – right?

** Also the title is a direct quote from Kris Jenner, who was making fun of Kim for being boring. She says it in a fabulous deep voice which is fun to mimic and oddly relevant to man conversations with my sisters.