Creature of Habit

When I was a teenager I had a phase where I desperately tried to be unpredictable. Some youngsters strive to belong. I seemed to be constitutionally opposed to it.

Creature of the Night

I started to avoid doing things because “they were done”, and trying to fit to a norm. For instance, it bothered me that so many kids around me watched the same shows on tv, had the same hobbies (horseback riding), or even looked alike. Why did all girls have long hair, I asked myself? My mother had always thought I was so cute in a short bob when I was little, which I had hated at the time. However, as a fifteen-year-old, I finally came round and understood that my face actually looked better with chin-length hair, and that my mother had been right after all. My short hair made me stand out in the long-haired crowd that was my class, which I did anyway since I was taller than anyone else my age.

So came the phase when I was experimenting a lot: maybe a lizard would be cute as a pet (my parents never allowed it)? Perhaps I could learn Russian? Nobody else I knew spoke the language, and my grandfather, who had been detained by the Soviets towards the end of WW2, was not amused as he watched 12-year-old me diligently draw the strange letters into a notebook, one after the other, tongue sticking out from between my teeth.

He died when I was a teenager. Then, unexpectedly, my mother joined me in my rebellious behaviour when she declared that she did not want to carry on celebrating Christmas year after year. This reminded her too much of her father, she said, and it felt not right to do it without him. My grandfather had famously watched the tree start burning one Christmas Eve because he had been so enraptured by the decorations and beautiful lights. He stayed put, mesmerized, while we all scrambled to get water, or find some other way to put out the fire. For me, getting rid of yet another tradition like Christmas was very welcome, since I completely failed to see the benefit of gathering every year, eating a huge meal, and exchanging gifts after everybody had been stressed out of their wits during the weeks leading up to the event.

It’s easy to purge your own traditions, but exponentially harder when it concerns other people. A few years later, when I moved out of my childhood home, I found myself in a relationship with somebody from an old, established Viennese family. At first I thought it cute that they all congregated every Saturday at 1pm at the same (expensive) restaurant to eat as a family. I even felt proud to be invited to this tradition after only a few months of going out with my partner, and tried hard to fit into the swanky surroundings. The family had been eating at the same place already for a few years, and did not even reconsider the location when the initial restaurant closed, and another one opened in its place. They kept going to the same address. After about a year, however, I wasn’t that thrilled anymore: every week, same time, same place. It was impossible to have any other plans on a Saturday. What bothered me the most was that I wasn’t that big of a fan of the many meaty dishes on the menu, and had to switch between the one fish and the one vegetarian option week after week. My partner and I ended up fighting about it, because I wanted to do (and eat!) something else on Saturdays at least once in a while, and they did not understand what I had against their family’s lovely tradition. I was relieved when the relationship ended after several years, and in part also because I could now do on my weekends whatever I chose. I had wanted to be admitted to someone else’s tradition until it became oppressive, and this once again proved my point that the same old-same old patterns I saw so many other people adhere to was just not for me. On top of that, this relationship had some other routines that I had started to detest. So when after the breakup I found my own place (first sleeping on friends’ sofas or in my car for a while), I began the process of figuring out for myself what I wanted. I was in my early 20s, and more than ready to create a life of my own. But still, I was not really keen on doing what other people were doing.

People go to the beach for a summer holiday? Not for me. They wear a certain brand of clothing - why should I? Everybody loves E.T., the movie, right? Sure, I was starting being different on principle, but this is how I felt I could remain authentic. It was hard to sway me - it took several people to tell me that Pulp Fiction was something I should go to the cinema for, but I stalled. Needless to say that they turned out to be right, and I had to admit that Tarantino’s film was great entertainment.

Over the years I have kept my strife to remain what I think is edgy and out-of-the-norm. But then I’ve also noticed how familiar things can give you comfort, especially when times are rough and you’re in need of the soothing embrace of a proverbial old blanket. Perhaps I had spent so long resisting other people's traditions that I had failed to notice the smaller rituals I was creating for myself.

I learnt about this the hard way when I was cleaning out first my parents’ apartment, and then their garden house. In my family’s drawers I came across so many mementoes of my own childhood life, from a time when I was still the conventional blond little girl with blue eyes, before I had decided that being conventional was something I wanted to escape. Especially my mother, always the bookkeeper, had filled boxes full of papers, receipts, and scribbled notes in a not-very-conveniently organised way: old stuff at the bottom, new things on top. Digging through everything I have learnt now both the date of my own first period and the detailed instructions from her gynaecologist to my mother on how to get pregnant (“legs up!”).

Needless to say I cried a lot while going through these papers. And I had assumed that this past of mine, and my family’s, would also trigger my usual response, where I roll my eyes at any kind of sappiness and turn away. My parents kept one photograph of me from kindergarten, in a red velvet blouse, with the inevitable blonde bob. My own cold blue eyes look out to me, mouth slightly open. Unhappy about the outfit, if memory serves me well. This was a version of me before I consciously constructed my difference, and still I could not bring myself to throwing the memory of her away. She is my source, so nothing I can disregard and cast aside easily - right at this point in time her picture and the other papers sit on my bedroom floor, tucked away in several boxes.

It’s not only stuff. As you might have expected, my desire to rid myself of the familiar extends to human beings as well. I’ve been known to cut ties with people when I feel the connection has outgrown itself. So when, already almost a decade ago, somebody I had not seen since my teenager days reached out and suggested meeting up, and then even having dinner with some of our mutual friends from way-back-when, I was only moderately excited. What do they want? Why are they trying to reconnect? Our paths have separated, no need to try to rekindle the closeness we once had. I shouldn’t have been wary, because all of these youth friends are good people, interesting, funny, and they don’t seem to mind that I’m majorly different to the person they used to know. These days, we all go through the process of burying our parents and emptying our childhood homes. We battle illnesses, and some of us who have children, watch them as they leave their nests and bravely go out into the world. It gives me comfort to know that I’m not alone, and - yes - that they knew me way-back-when. And still like me, surprising as it is. Familiarity has started acquiring a different meaning.

Additionally, there are other habits I have adopted over the years, and that I enjoy holding on to. I eat Currywurst from Best Wurscht in Town whenever I’m in Frankfurt, at exactly the place that I frequented while I was living there. Every time I’m in Milan, and I go there a lot, it’s a no-brainer where I go for a coffee: in a city that is full of superb espresso, I always return to the Lavazza Flagship Store and choose a table outside to drink my cup and stare at the statue of Alessandro Manzoni. Even if I only have a few hours in my favourite city, even if I have to make a detour, I make a point to stop by.

September, in the Prater

Perhaps the most surprising habit of mine is one that Johanna recently reminded me of: every year in late August, I turn to one of the higher shelves on the right of my book case. In the fiction section, under P, there is a book with its cover slightly grubby, the back bent, and some pages dog-eared. It is “September”, by Rosamunde Pilcher. And every year in that month, I read all 471 pages of it, again and again, without fail, and with the same gusto that I felt the first time I read it. It’s like this old friend who knows me well and understands how to make me smile. My mouth will compulsively water when Alexa makes that first meal for Noel. September is kind of a sequel to “The Shell Seekers”, with some of the same characters appearing, but somehow having become better versions of themselves in the meantime. The “Shell Seekers” came out in 1987, followed by “September” in 1990, and I'm sure I did not take note of it at the time. Most likely somebody at university recommended it to me, perhaps even joking that I, with my proclaimed “different” taste in reading (Jane Austen is NOT for me!), would never read Rosamunde Pilcher. But I did, and I still do. This is my tradition.

My friend Theresa pulls a Tarot card for me, every year in January, and interprets it for me. After twice getting the most dreadful card there is (10 of Swords), in 2026 she got “The Aeon”, or judgement card, number 20 in Aleister Crowley’s Toth deck. Big changes seem to be on the horizon, my life might as well be completely upended. Do I believe in Tarot? Partially. I’ve seen events in my life reflected in the cards she pulled, especially in 2024, but mostly I cherish the moment we sit down together and she starts shuffling. When she pulls out her big book and interprets what she sees, asking me if it resonates. It has become our tradition now, and it feels wonderful to share it with somebody close to me.

So in the end I feel it’s fair to say that a tradition is not necessarily something that I do because I lack imagination. Sometimes it’s something I choose to repeat because it gives my life some shape. Originally I had always associated repetition with conformity. I have been beginning to understand that it could also be a form of choice - of free will. I don’t have to stop being different to become a creature of habit. I can choose my own traditions, my habits, and my destiny.