Basically Squidward

I was driving around with pizzas yesterday when it hit me—I’m basically Squidward. That permanently miserable squid from SpongeBob. Same grumpy disposition, same refusal to eat anything at my actual job, same aching desire to be anywhere but where I am. The comparison felt uncomfortably accurate.

Lately my life is the kind of nothing that somehow takes up all your time. Wake up, make breakfast, study, watch One Piece, chat with people, work, collapse into bed. The routine’s so flat it feels almost intentional, like I’m testing how little variation a person can actually tolerate. Days blur. You’re living but barely present for it. The kind of month where you look back and realize you have nothing to show for it except the absence of any alternative.

Then Ana and I ended up at McDonald’s around midnight. Stupid, pointless, and somehow the best part of my week. It’s nothing—it’s just sitting around eating fries and talking—but these little ruptures in the routine matter more than they should. An hour of that and suddenly the whole grinding cycle feels slightly less suffocating. It doesn’t change anything, doesn’t fix whatever’s making me feel Squidward-adjacent. But it reminds you that living isn’t just the routine itself.

I’m not sure when I started being this person. Probably happened gradually, the way most things do. No dramatic fall, just a slow accumulation of gray days until one day you realize you’ve been feeling empty for months without noticing. But then there’s midnight McDonald’s, or a moment that makes you laugh, and for a second you think maybe it’s not all bad. Or at least not all the time.