A couple of weeks ago, I agreed to meet my husband in New York for a few days of play. The morning of my flight I rose at 4am, to the great alarm of the dog, in order to pack my suitcase—a rolling box so small I had to forgo the melatonin bottle in favor of a baggie with only three tablets, and leave my travel-size deodorant out completely. I did manage to cram in a two-foot long hair iron I would not use, a pair of heels I would not wear, and a book I would not read.

None of this was particularly noteworthy, as I tend to pack the same way I travel and cook: last minute, and without a plan. What was noteworthy however was what I was wearing: gray and black leggings, a gray sweater, black high-tops and a bright green rain jacket. It was the exact same outfit, down to the high-tops, that I wore ten years ago when my husband and I took his mother on her first visit to New York. For proof, I needed only to dig out the Chatter magazine article I wrote about that trip, called “Where in the World is Willine,” and look at the photos. My shoes were cleaner then, and my neck was tighter, but that’s the only difference.

You would think that at some point in the intervening decade, on one of my numerous trips to TJ Maxx, Nordstrom Rack, or Goodwill, I would have come up with a variation on at least some part of this outfit. I am reminded of my friend Cindy, who once said, “You can’t wear jeans and a black t-shirt for the rest of your life, you know.” That too was roughly ten years ago, and it turns out that I can and do, except for when I fly.  

Repetition in life is not necessarily a bad thing. I recently listened to the podcast “The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos” (for the second time). In it, she talked about decision fatigue. Apparently, having too many choices is exhausting.

I’ve suspected this for a long time. I eat yogurt with fruit and nuts for breakfast every morning and a salad with cheese and crackers for lunch every afternoon. The only thing that varies is the kind of crackers I have, and sometimes even making that choice feels taxing. Nut Thins or Firehook flatbreads? If Firehook, then rosemary and sea salt or whole grain and flax? If rosemary and sea salt, will I feel guilty for not choosing the healthier whole grain and flax, or will my appreciation for the grassy notes of the rosemary compensate? So yes, having too many choices doesn’t always make us happy. Sometimes it makes us crazy.

Years ago, when my husband and I were in our thirties, we had a terrible time deciding where to eat out on date nights. Back then we were unhappy in our jobs, and meals out were our salvation. The requirement that a meal make our lives bearable and worth living is a lot of pressure for a restaurant. Not surprisingly, we never found one up to the task (though the old Hunan Wok on Hixson Pike sometimes came close).

When we figured out that the problem was not our restaurants but our jobs, meals out became less of an existential conundrum and more just a welcome reprieve from cooking. Nowadays, a restaurant need only have good atmosphere, wine, and consistently decent food to make us happy. (As you might expect, I order exactly the same thing every time.)

A few years ago, my husband and I started talking about moving. Our friends were baffled. We had only recently bought (and renovated) our house. Why were we moving? Where were we going? Surely we knew we stood to lose a lot of money. Not to mention, our house was perfect for us—plenty of space for art, loads of windows, fenced yard, five private acres. What was the problem?

To be honest, there were a number of problems, beginning with the fact that we hadn’t yet lived in every house in the whole world. As such, it was possible there might be one we liked marginally better. And if there was a house somewhere in the world that we would like marginally better, then shouldn’t we live there? And so off we went, talking to realtors and looking at properties, until one day, completely unrelated to our search and probably over salads and some kind of cracker, one of us said something about getting old and the other one said something about getting over it and then both of us realized that the search for a different house was really the ache for a different body, and that was that, we dropped the house hunt altogether.

My husband met me at LaGuardia airport. If he noticed my outfit was the same as ten years earlier, he didn’t say. He grabbed my rolling box, chock full of all my terrible choices, and we went off in search of a restaurant, where I would order what I always do, and be perfectly happy.  

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Dana Shavin is an award-winning humor columnist for the Chattanooga Times Free Press, the author of a memoir, The Body Tourist, and of Finding the World: Thoughts on Life, Love, Home and Dogs, a collection of her most popular columns spanning twenty years. She is the Literary Arts Program Coordinator for the Dalton Creative Arts Guild. Publication history and more at Danashavin.com. Email her at [email protected].