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The Days Don’t Matter But This Breakfast Does
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Success is strange.
It permits you to forget your body.
There were weeks
of app development,
tens of proposals worth millions.
DONE.
CLEAR.
RELEASED.
My team members
often asked how I survived decades of
corporate life.
Do they expect me to talk about being
politically correct?
Resilience? Leadership?
Nein.
Never talked about those things.
“It’s about being-fully-present,”
That was my answer.
Secretly,
my mind was already at breakfast.
I’m me
before the job title
drove into the CBD.
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Morning 11-20
Avocado, Creamy Scrambled Egg
Soboro Spinach Omellette
Boiled Egg Mayo Sandwich
Japanese Rolled Omellete
Sunny Side up and chunky cold tomatoes
Seven-Minute Eggs
Kitsune Udon and Egg Ribbon Soup
Sudunbu Samyang Ramyeon
Garlic Chicken Gyoza
Overnight Oats with Dates and Banana
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Morning 11
Avocado, Creamy Scrambled Egg
Complimented for being resilient.
That sounds just right about now.
Another checklist ticked.
Pretty, creamy avocado.
Scooped out easily.
Smooth enough.
Scrambled eggs too
I’ll make it smooth,
with little intervals of butter.
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Morning 12
Spinach Soboro Omelette
One day off at home.
A self-reward for this year.
Nobody at work knew
how good I was at cooking eggs.
I flicked and flipped my omelet,
then applauded myself.
Failure was never a problem.
The fluffy egg is near perfect.
The messy sides are better:
Ground chicken, soboro-style, with oyster sauce.
Crushed garlic scattered over sauteed spinach.
A contrasting plate.
Life, perhaps.
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Morning 13
Boiled Egg Mayo Sandwich
Calendar full.
Three meetings every hour.
Is that even legal?
Full is not always fulfilling.
I plopped my boiled egg
with long exhales.
Big dollops of mayo.
A dash of rage with black pepper.
Crushed everything.
The secret to a sweeter day,
a restrained squirt of condensed milk.
“This will sweeten everything.”
Sounds like a prayer breathed to the meal.
_______________________________________________________________
Morning 14
Japanese Rolled Omellete
People were hard to please.
Navigating a potential argument today
would be like folding an egg
a few seconds before it fully sets.
My eggs, too,
needed patience.
Smallest fire.
Folded gently.
Eggs, I learnt,
were deceptively harder.
_______________________________________________________________
Morning 15
Sunny Side up and chunky cold tomatoes
“You OK?”
A Mid Boss bumped me with a weird question that morning.
“Your eyes are red and swollen,
like my wife’s when she’s on her K-drama marathon.”
I choked.
My face burnt red.
Tears streamed from my eyes,
down my nose.
As a Functional Adult who prioritized efficiency,
I sprinted to the office clinic,
got the allergy pills,
gulped one down,
and tossed the others away.
On my way out,
I whispered to myself,
‘Let’s continue working from home— from bed.’
_______________________________________________________________
Morning 16
Seven-Minute Eggs
Seven minutes straight.
Perfectly boiled
Golden, runny yolk.
I learnt this from a strict junior.
Not everything great
needs an hour,
like those wordy slides.
A hairline crack
across the eggshell.
An omen.
And here we are again.
I forgot my access card and laptop.
_______________________________________________________________
Morning 17
Kitsune Udon and Egg Ribbon Soup
Like my egg,
I was quite stirred.
Turned off the alarm.
Absentmindedly browsed the meeting calendar.
“This looks like someone’s messy handwriting.”
But this feels productive,
useful.
Blocked.
A mind like this
needed chewy udon
and fried tofu skin.
A kitsune would love this.
“Congratulations on your…”
I closed that scheduled email
at 5:25 a.m.
Stirred my pot,
the eggs still needed pouring.
A sliver of anxiety
had consumed my early morning.
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Morning 18
Sudunbu Samyang Ramyeon
Sneezed non-stop that day.
Lost my taste buds, too.
There were days like this.
Felt like drowning.
My first aid—
the noodle stash.
Something extra spicy—
shichimi togarashi.
And chewy—
a slice of oden.
And soft—
cubes of silken tofu
And punchy—
kimchi.
Nothing fancy in the bowl.
Unlike my long titles.
And I can’t think of anything else.
Comfy.
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Morning 19
Garlic Chicken Gyoza
Dumplings come in many forms -
fried, boiled, sweet, spicy, frozen.
Frozen gyoza has been out go-to lazy late-night snacks.
Recently, it has started showing up on my breakfast kitchen.
Gyoza is no easy feat to master.
Beyond its little frills,
it has three plump sides.
The crispy side,
the sticky side,
the smooth side.
It feels like an achievement to know the trick:
which sides to fry in oil,
when to cover,
and when to a splash in water for that quick steam.
One bit of frozen-food technique
I proudly mastered
long before my working life began.
We wear different faces in society.
Which side of me
had been overcooked for the office?
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Morning 20
Overnight Oats with Dates and Banana
The night before was a mess.
My hands automatically mixed
oats, milk and cut fruits.
My mind was still stuck in the CBD windows,
among sticky notes and my messy mind maps.
I stopped.
Everything finally sank in.
Three spoonfuls of slightly sweetened oats.
That was the last meal I fed my Grandma.
A few days later,
after twenty years and seven months,
I said goodbye for real, for the second time.
This time is for the people
I barely remember.
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