Beauty in a Boring Life

So! We're lacking any vaguely neurodivergent queer woman who writes for a very specific audience here. Good thing I'm there to fill that void.
Speaking about neurodivergence: routine! God I love it so much! So imagine my surprise when I began to find out as a teenager that almost everyone wants to run from it? How insulting is it to claim that I'm an NPC because I like spending time with my family on Friday nights instead of going out clubbing? How is it my fault that loud noises and drunk people freak me out? What titillates me is: if I can see why others might like it, why is the opposite not always true?

I think we have a tendency to see repetition as a prison. As if we're forced to maintain our lives based on a predefined mold, but we aren't. It's our decision to keep up with a routine.
“Be careful: in the blink of an eye you'll find yourself 15 years from now; married in the suburbs with a desk job, a wife and kids you'll hate.” Excuse me - how long are you blinking? Because if blinking your eyes ONCE takes 15 years, you aren't blinking; you're in a coma. We're so incredibly lucky to be alive and we aren't paying attention to it! You don't like your girlfriend? BREAK UP. YOUR HAPPINESS IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY. You don't want kids? WRAP IT BEFORE YOU TAP IT. You don't want to be a suburbanite visiting resorts on spring break to down a hundred daiquiris a day? Great! There are other paths for you to follow. I didn't want a desk job, so I studied cinema for 3 years and after finding out that people in production are mostly deranged, turns out that maybe I want one.
What you need to realise is that every life path leads to a routine or another. If « the daily grind » isn't your vibe, you have other choices... Even rockstars have routines but instead of drinking tea and listening to an audiobook before the melatonin takes over, they snort heroin and fuck groupies... If our routines aren't satisfying, it's not a sign that they'll lead everyone to their downfall, it's just that they aren't adapted for your needs. (Let's keep our critical thinking hats on still, there is a huge amount of errors in our system that makes it harder to be happy.)
Habits make little details disappear and often (in my opinion), that's where the gems that make life more beautiful are hiding. So now, it's time to drop the Tyler Durden act and to turn yourself into a crow; scavenging away for the shiny things that are lying around in your head.

Darlène, Noémie D. Leclerc (novel)

This book is my favourite one in the entire world. Two chill people, chilling, before one of them goes to throw themself off the Montmorency Falls. Obviously, this climax sounds quite grand, but I'm not here to spoil it for you either.
Darlène's beauty is everything that comes before it. The protagonist (Darlène duh), spends all her time meandering through Quebec city. We see her slightly crazy family like all other normal families, we learn about her normal person past and superstitions and about the lives of the normal people around her. Nothing extraordinary happens to her (beside that one thing), but the way the story observes the world that it's based on so lovingly makes it REALLY worth it. Noémie D. Leclerc can introduce you to an old guy who's eating breakfast in a Normandin, to throw around 3 or 4 sentences about his past and to force you to close your book for 2 seconds to breathe a little. I've read this book every year since I was 14 and every time, I'm on my ass.

He's called Joseph. He doesn't have kids, or a favourite colour and he hates seeing people fall. Darlene smiles at him. He sneezes. Four times in a row. His wife had the habit of warning people. She would simply say, there's three left and would count on her fingers. She doesn't do it anymore because she died, but Joseph still hears, in his head, her voice saying as if she were there, wait, there's three left.

I'M SCREAMING.

Juno (movie)

So... a pregnant teen in a world where everyone speaks only in zingers and in sarcastic little jokes isn't SUPER realistic, but I don't give a flying shit. What I mean is that every character feels like someone you already know. The relationships between Juno and her peers brings out the beauty in the mundane. Sure, a normal teen's routine might change a little after she decides to bear Micheal Cera's baby, but her best friend still messes with her the same, her parents like her the same and her weird little situationship, well, he'll still like orange tic tacs. Everything packaged in a deliciously ordinary movie with a soundtrack packed with Kimya Dawnson and the Moldy Peaches; I love it.

Paul, Michel Rabagliati (books)

Oh. My. God. If you haven't read at least one of these books, please do it; I beg you. Either for the understated beauty of the illustrations and the cozy atmosphere or just to see how earnest and straightforward the writing is. Paul has never defused any bombs, has never protected the weak or the defenceless and he'll never dress in a skin tight suit to choose to not kill the villain after absolutely wrecking a city to smithereens to prove something, but he's kind, creative and intelligent... Is that not enough?
No matter which one, I strongly recommend reading them. I do prefer Paul à Québec and Rose à l'île since they threw me on the floor, kicked me in the stomach and gave me a sweet little kiss on the forehead to apologise.