Hi. Long time no see. I think, the last time we really talked, I was just moving to London. It's since been a year, and two months, and two days, and a lot, as I'm sure you can surmise, has happened. I've been wondering if I regret not posting more about it here, and not writing more about it in my diary. I don't think I do, but I do miss posting and having something to short-form to work on all the time. I wonder, if I had continued to post, how the massive change in my brain would have come across. Because there has been a massive change, particularly in the last six months, one that I can't articulate. They say your brain finally completes its growth around age 25, and, in the lead up to September 5th 2022, I felt it all happen. Maybe it will become clear if I compare my posts from this new era to the ones in the archive.
I don't talk to Simon anymore. Dan broke my heart with the biggest slap in the face I've ever experienced, and I survived, and we still talk. Attempts number 3 and 4 happened. Girls have happened. I got a Master's degree, and I still don't know if it's Masters, Master's, or Masters'. I've become financially independent, something I once could never conceive of. I have dealers now. I smoke tobacco now.
Amidst this, under or maybe over this, has been, of course, the motif of my life, the up-and-down of bipolar disorder. It's kind of heartbreaking to realise that the times when I feel okay are actually manic periods - that the best I can hope for is still disregulation.
I'm currently recovering from a particularly gnarly depressive period, after a long time of feeling okay. The slow realisation that the bad days were accumulating into a pattern, that I could no longer report to my friends, at the pub, that I was doing really well, really fucking hurt. It started with the random tears in line for Jazz Cafe in Camden, and didn't stop. The sensory overload, the copious reading and then reading slump, the noticing that I hadn't seen my housemates in a while. The being sent home from work for bursting into tears. But I tried something new: I rested, in bed, for four days straight, and managed to emerge on Monday (yes, this Monday) feeling refreshed and somewhat hopeful. I'm in a Pret with Alice right now, writing as she studies, and she said that someone she follows on Instagram who is also autistic has also reported that this is an effective coping strategy for her.
So today marks day five in my new, refreshed life, hopefully very far from the one who was, last week, googling where to buy rat poison. Among my mental toolbox for dealing with my brain is my ever-growing list of inspirations. Here, today, I will report the new additions, in chronological order.
Fred again..
My interest in Fred coincided with his rapid rise in popularity following his Boiler Room set.
But it was not this that led me to him - it was a notification on Spotify that Rico Nasty had a new song out. This song turned out to be her remix of Fred's song Jungle. I listened to it really high, and while I wasn't particularly impressed with the actual Fred bit of the song, Rico's verses blew my weed-addled MIND. Then, of course, Fred started appearing all over my Tik Tok FYP, and I started properly appreciating his music, his talent, and his work ethic. The Rico Nasty remix is still my favourite song of his - at least, until he finally releases Rumble!!
Emmeline
A surge of pride as I type this one, because Emmeline is my friend!! A while ago now, she struck up a conversation with a producer at a gig, and one thing turned to another, and now she's signed to his label and officially putting out music. My favourite of her songs just got released in the EP Satellite Navigation System, and it's called Girls Write Rhymes.
When I first saw the music video, on Emmeline's phone at Claire's leaving party, Emmeline shy that the music was playing over the speaker, I was amazed. I remember being at the pub after class on a Wednesday, and Emmeline saying that she was shooting a music video the next morning in an abandoned church. I can't believe something she said so casually turned into this. Emmeline's work rate inspires me, as well as the fact that all this happened because she took a risk and went up to talk to an artist she admired. A learning lesson. Plus, this song is a bit of an anthem for me, because I am a girl who writes rhymes!
Emmeline and I are going to a Yung Lean concert at the O2 in Brixton on Monday. If you've read my blog before, you'll probably know how much of an inspiration Lean is to me, so it's a nice full-circle moment. I hope I don't cry too much.
The 1975
Shut up, yes, I am obsessed with Matty Healy. Up until maybe a week or two ago, I had only really heard one song by the 1975 - "Me", very randomly. It was on my sad girl playlist. But - and this is revealing how influential Tik Tok is to me - videos of Matty Healy kept coming up on my FYP, and I was enamoured. So I started watching some of their music videos occasionally. But a few days ago, for some reason, while I was high, again, I decided to listen to A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships all the way through, and that was IT. I was obsessed. I remember lying in bed, mouth gaping in shock at some of the melodies, some of the lyrics, and particularly at "The Man Who Married A Robot / Love Theme".
How much I have put on the internet, hoping something would reach back out to me.
Now, my new routine is that every night, I listen to a new 1975 album all the way through. Last night was i like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it, and while I wasn't particularly impressed with a lot of it, I was smacked in the face my "The Ballad of Me and My Brain". The way he screams "oh I think I've gone mad". "What a shame that you've lost the brain you've never had". The subtle inclusion of "mum" in "mum check the car". The Sainsbury's reference. "Would you sign an autograph for my daughter Laura, / cause she adores ya / I think you're shit." "I stepped outside / it hurt my eyes". "The nice nurse". How many nice nurses I have had.
And I don't think I can talk about this song without talking about this performance of it, one of the only times it seems he's sung it live. I wonder if he chose on the day to perform it, because it's so fitting. He's so obviously smacked out and not okay. And, sadly, that makes this performance absolutely brilliant, and the comments under the video confirm this - people saying that they saw it live and it was so concerning but so good because of that. Beauty in the undoing.
I think, had he not messed up the last two lines of the song, and had actually sung "forget my brain, remember my name", it would have been one of the best performances I've ever watched in my little life.
So, while I try so hard to be okay, I will remember these inspirations, as well as the ones that came before them. One last, big, try.
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