I haven’t written a newsletter since March because I am a flaky little bitch with ADHD and I’ve had better things to do than blog! I’m sorry! But I am also a human being dependent on calendars and arbitrary milestones to make sense of my life, so here is a year-end LiveJournal entry for anyone still listening.
To be honest I spent most of this year feeling really, scarily bad. The winter lockdown obliterated any hope I had for the future. I really struggled living in London and not seeing any nature or my friends. I got really, really sick and had a bunch of infections and weeks of reactive arthritis that I ignored thinking I was just sick in the way I’m always sick in winter. I didn’t take care of my body, and I couldn’t, because I couldn’t go anywhere that might help. I had a book to write in a really short amount of time and I did it while I couldn’t move my fingers at all, which was hard and made something that should have been joyous really miserable.
This winter dragged on in such an insane, scary way. It was cold and dark in May! And June! What the fuck! In April I got diagnosed with hypermobile EDS, a thing I always knew I had but I didn’t get the confirmation until I was in a rheumatology appointment for my arthritis. Basically I felt 100 years old. In June I went to Brighton, a place I used to live, for a week. I swam in the sea. I saw old friends. I did a Zoltar on the pier and he told me to move. I played pool. I said fuck it. We can’t move abroad, we can’t travel, fuck it. Let’s do something that makes us happy now, even if it is in the UK, a place I hate to be.
Then I got sick again, really sick, and I lost the will to live and went insane. Slowly it got better. In July we started looking at homes to buy in Brighton, but did you know getting a mortgage is basically impossible when you’re self-employed for no reason? Over the summer I saw friends, saw my sister, went to Iceland. We stayed in Reykjavik and drove to see elves and waterfalls and the sea and a live volcano and lagoons and witches and ghosts and drowning pools and magic. Iceland is so beautiful. I couldn’t believe how completely devoid of hope I had been when there is so much in the world as beautiful and hopeful and full of magic as Iceland.
I still felt burnt out, exploited, exhausted, sick, disabled, lazy, whatever. But it picked up. I went to Berlin for my best friend’s wedding and saw my friends and misbehaved. We found a home in Brighton and we moved slowly to the sea, saying goodbye to four years of chaos and hello to nature and the future and being able to walk to nice little shops. We went to Athens and we got engaged and I am so excited to marry my favourite person, the love of my life. I’m ending the year scared of the future, scared of lockdowns, scared waiting for test results. But I’m taking better care of myself than ever and I feel safe and at home and excited to get married and to travel and to see the people I love. I miss them so deeply.
Work-wise, I did a lot more behind the scenes this year – copywriting, branded content, sensitivity reading, production notes. Those are my favourite things to do and if you have any for me next year, hit me up. It’s been a pleasure and a relief to get paid more to do less during such a painful time. My favourite people to work with were The Cut and Courier.
Honestly I am most proud of moving. It was really hard and it was difficult to cut ties with my pride about “living in London” and making it work at any cost to myself. I am scared about being further away and feeling left out. It’s embarrassing to admit that I am sensitive and need things like the sea on my doorstep to feel sane. But it’s true. So fuck it.
Here are a few links to pieces I’m proud of. Please preorder my book OBSESSIVE, INTRUSIVE, MAGICAL THINKING here. Love you. Hope you and your families are safe.
What’s behind our thirst for Roman Roy? On the era of the chaos goblin
How did memes turn into ‘interactive trauma diaries’?
In Sex Education season three, Maeve gets the arc all hot bad girls deserve
Sensory seeking: What wellness means to autistic people
The L Word: Generation Q finally confronts The B Word
A wet afternoon with Snail Mail