I’m writing this in Februrary 2022 but the scenes featured are from May 2020-September 2021 (with some left over shots on a roll of film from LA in 2019).
It’s fitting and laughable to me that it’s been almost 2.5 years since I last wrote in this blog. Not like I was ever super consistent with it anyway, but isn’t that how the last 2.5 years have felt? Everything put on pause, time seems still yet moving quickly as we remain stagnant in our careers and hobbies and relationships.
A whiteboard calendar hangs in my apartment and in my handwriting still reads May 2019 in faded red Dry Erase, which was the month I went abroad. I used to change it every month before then, I enjoyed writing and organizing my schedule myself because it made me feel in control and responsible. After coming home I remember feeling like that trip with my band was the coolest thing I’d ever do, and then just kind of sank into a familiar yet light depression for months. Fast forward to March 2020…well we all know what happened. And that calendar still says May 2019 almost 3 years later.
Now I know how stupid it is to think like that, like what a freaking self-perpetuating sad girl trap I was stuck in for so long. I would get slightly sad during monumental moments like traveling or being around people who I loved so much, because I was busy premeditating the way I’d feel when I returned to my Groundhog’s Day existence instead of just enjoying myself entirely in what I was doing. I don’t know when I started to define what I thought was happiness around “BIG LIFE EVENTS” and normalized feeling like shit for not living that life 24/7. I forgot how to be bored and content, I was confusing pleasure and success for happiness.
I truly feel bad for everyone right now. I think most people have never really experienced the trauma and sadness and general ennui that we are collectively feeling right now, for many people this pandemic is the first time in their lives that the rug has been ripped from beneath their feet and they are experiencing the slippery feeling that we really don’t have any control of our lives, as we enter sophomore year into a modern pandemic. Not that having past trauma makes me better at processing it, or that any of our experiences can every truly be objectively shared. But I have had my life change in a second before. I have lost everything in one minute. And I after processing and not processing it for the last 5 years, the only thing I can say is
“Just give into it and love it.”
“Look it in the eye, look yourself in mirror, and just say ‘hey I love you, even though you really suck and make me feel like shit, I love you and I love this process because it’s all a part of the human experience’”.
I never would have felt that way before, it would have been off-putting and “woo-woo”, but finding a way to love the worst times in your life and yourself as the worst version is the only logical way I found I can positively survive.
So here are a few rolls of the last few years, which I am incredibly grateful for. I camped for a week on the beautiful indigenous hills of Paha Sapa with Colin, something we probably never would have planned if not for the time the pandemic gave us to do. I was able to rescue a new friend with an old friend from a toxic living situation in the UP, somewhere I’d never been and wouldn’t have done if not for the pandemic. My bands were able to fit in small Midwest tours and safely perform after what felt like years off. I tried to do many “staycations” and explore places in the Twin Cities I haven’t been before.
So I guess I have learned a lot about myself and how to appreciate “right now” during this pandemic. Which sounds gross and selfish when so many people lost their lives, and I grieve for every life gone, and I continue remain isolated most days and weeks to ensure I am not the cause of someone’s untimely death. Vaccines as of yet still haven’t stopped the spread, and if something I can do is as easy as not going out every day and bopping around town and wearing a mask when I am out, well that’s pretty easy for me. Because everyone’s safety is more important than my temporary pleasure.
But I have to find some positives, and the greatest one I received was setting boundaries in my relationships. I have always been a people pleaser and felt like I had to keep everyone entertained, and wow if that isn’t exhausting. Realizing that it’s ok to have space in certain relationships but that doesn’t mean they are over, just healing, and changing, like a wound on our skin.
If you’ve read up to this point, I love you. I’m proud of you. Please reach out if you need it, I may not be a main character in your life but I’m always cheering for you.
Outie 5,000,
Madalyn Mae
