It’s my self-care hack of the year: I quit our local veg box scheme, and set my mind free | Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett

Being a member felt like the right thing to do – and it was a boon during the pandemic. But oh, the emotional labour. I can never look at a turnip again

Last week, as summer gave way to pumpkin season, I found myself contemplating the final squash. Like the horror movie trope of the final girl staggering out of the woods after the massacre, this squash is the sole survivor. All her sister squashes had either been cooked and eaten or left to rot. Now, my killing days were almost over. There would be no sequel.

Or, to put it less dramatically: after six years, we have quit the local organic veg bag collective, which delivered to a nearby pickup point a bag of organic, local seasonal veg once a week. And as a result the mental load and emotional labour of having to contemplate and devise a use for various esoteric kinds of veg is finally, mercifully, over.

Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist