This Apocalypse Sucks

I think a lot of people were like me in middle school social studies, learning about world-changing events and wondering if we’d ever live through one ourselves, fantasizing about what heroic deeds we’d do during such a crisis, forever etching our names into our great-grandchildren’s history books. I was one of those kids. Somewhere in the index of some textbook in 2092:

Salisbury, Jessica (b. 1993), p. 139: heroically sacrificed herself during the Second Alien Wars of 2037, posthumously canonized as saint and awarded Nobel Peace Prize

Now, it’s 2020. That world-changing event is now, and I’m sitting on my couch, watching YouTube videos, full from the shitty gas station pizza I decided to treat myself with. I’m talking one step above Kraft cheese on top of ketchup on top of cardboard, made only marginally more edible with the sprinkling of parmesan I added at home. This is quarantine cuisine, and when gas stations are just about the only thing still open, you work with what you’ve got.

My near-debilitating depression is the parmesan sprinkle on top of the looming fear of the apocalypse. My mental health has already been in a seriously dark place for a while, and all of this social isolation isn’t helping. I don’t have any motivation to do the things I’m passionate about anymore. I feel like my chances of ever making it in music have been dashed by this virus. My biological clock, for lack of a better word, has been ticking for a while. I already feel like an old maid in the music business, and who knows how long the world will be on hold. On top of that, in an industry that thrives on image, I’m not as young and cute as I used to be. I’m 80 pounds heavier than I was in high school and I have scars all over from picking at my own skin (thanks, anxiety). By the time this crisis blows over, I’ll undoubtedly be too old and not conventionally attractive enough to make it as a performer.

If anything, this past month has made me realize how unimportant I am in the grand scheme of things. Maybe I’ll never be a Nobel Prize winner or an iconic rock star, but I thought I’d be doing something important in the face of a global crisis like this. Maybe I’d be in Washington, advocating for the working class people who are struggling right now, or I’d be in a laboratory somewhere, slaving away day and night, searching for a cure. In reality? I’ve been depression-napping and tending to a fictional cartoon island (no shade towards Animal Crossing — I’m pretty sure that game is the only thing keeping a lot of people, including myself, sane right now). I feel helpless to stop any of the bad things happening in the world right now. I feel disposable.

I’m tearing up a little writing this, but I feel like this is something that needs to be written and put out there. Check on your friends during this pandemic, especially those who deal with things like depression and anxiety. Believe me, we need it right now.

The Sound

Here’s a bit of short fiction I wrote a few years back. In the spirit of Halloween, I thought I’d share it here. It’s loosely inspired by some personal experiences, but I think I’ll leave it up to you to imagine which parts are real. 😉

As a musician, I never doubted the power of sound on the human mind. But the strangest thing happened to me the finals week of my freshman year of college, something I don’t think I’ll ever be able to explain.

During that first year on campus, nothing particularly out of place happened. I stayed in room 313 of one of the older dorms, the honors dorm, to be exact, which housed four students in one modestly-sized suite. I didn’t interact much with my suitemates, instead choosing to spend what little free time I had with my fellow music majors. I played classical guitar and was very serious about it,using most of my time to practice new pieces or relearn old ones. Around the end of the year, I befriended another guitar major named Trevor who was just as obsessed with his art. By the time the last month of classes rolled around, he and I were officially a couple.

As my freshman year came to an end, though, I encountered one character flaw in myself that had never quite reared its head. I cracked under pressure, the kind of pressure I’d never had until college-level finals. My music theory class had a huge final project due, I had to rehearse relentlessly for my semester-end juries (which is basically you performing alone in front of the scariest crowd you’ll ever play for – music professors), and I still had to start clearing out my dorm room. I realized I was far more stressed than I could handle on my own and my anxiety started getting to me, so after confiding in Trevor, he persuaded me to contact the on-campus counseling services.

My first appointment was spent pulling nervously at my sundress and absent-mindedly rambling about my fears. I hated the idea of failure. I hated the idea of being less than perfect. I hated the idea of other people knowing Iwas less than perfect. I told her about my rigorous practice routine and how I’d hardly seen any friends my entire freshman year because I’d practically locked myself away in the laundry room, which was my usual study spot.

“Music major, I see,” Dr. Patterson said, scribbling on a yellow notepad. “Have you ever heard of guided imagery?”

“A little bit,” I said. “They talked about it some at this music therapy seminar last fall.”

She smiled. “How do you feel about trying it? Meditation is always healthy for someone with such high stress levels, and because it’s set to music, it’ll be easier for you to hold your interest.” She scribbled a few more words and ripped out the sheet. “Here are a few experiences for you to try.”

That night, I completed my typical nightly ritual – run through scales, fix a cup of warm chamomile tea, and flip through flashcards with theory notes – but this time adding a final step. I fired up my laptop, searched for the name on the little yellow sheet Dr. Patterson gave me, and plugged in my headphones. Lying on my bunk bed, I closed my eyes and listened as a disembodied voice instructed me to “Close your eyes and feel the weight of your body on the bed, letting the feeling stay with you for a while.” I did, letting the background noise of soft synth and rolling waves wash over me, but it wasn’t long before my thoughts began racing again. I needed something more to reach me.

Trevor and I sat in the grass in front of the music building the next day, strumming our guitars and discussing how therapy went.

“The meditation isn’t cutting it for me,” I said. “I did exactly what Dr. Patterson told me to do.”

He paused for a second. “There are these songs this guy made, they’re almost like auditory drugs. You play the song, and it’s supposed to be scientifically engineered to recreate a certain feeling. Like happy, relaxed, even high.”

“But do they work?” I asked.

“I can’t speak for everyone, but I do them sometimes, and believe it or not, I actually feel something,” he said. “I can’t place what it is, but there’s something there.”

“Something?” I shot him a puzzled look. “What do you mean?”

For a split second, it looked as if he was staring at something behind my head.Then he snapped back into reality. “You have to try it yourself to know. I can’t explain it.”

That night, Trevor sent me the link to a video that was simply titled “Happy.” I scoffed a little at the video, which had a background of a smiley face. Sipping my tea, I played the first few seconds of the video, which filled the room with a blaring bleep sound.

“What the hell is that noise?” one of my suitemates called from the living room.

I quickly shoved the headphones in the jack and positioned myself on the bed the same way I had the night before. Only this time, instead of being treated to gentle ocean sounds and a quiet keyboard backing a soothing voice, a constant tone played through the tiny speakers. The tone, which consisted of two dissonant notes, came together within the confines of my body, reverberating in the crevices of my brain. The lights in the bedroom were already off, so I let my eyes close and mind be calm. I didn’t know how long the calmness would last,but I savored every moment of it. But it didn’t take long for the constant tone to grow irritating, almost like the feeling of someone rubbing sandpaper against my skin. I removed the headphones, gathered my thoughts, and searched for a song I liked, letting that lull me to sleep.

The next day, I found Trevor in the same spot I’d met with him before. He looked like he hadn’t slept the night before, which was understandable since his jury was that day. I imagined he had spent the wee hours of the morning in one of the music building’s practice rooms rehearsing his jury pieces. Still, even with his long blond hair in a greasy ponytail and wearing a wrinkled black t-shirt, he looked handsome.

“I listened to the song you sent me,” I said, taking a seat beside him.

He smiled. “What did you think?”

“It was alright for the first few minutes,” I said. “Got annoying, so I shut it off.”

“That’s fine,” he said. “You get used to it. It took me a few tries to get the right effect as well. Are you feeling more relaxed lately?”

“I’m getting there. I think once finals are done, I’ll be better. I need this summer break.”

Laughing, he said, “You’re telling me.”

That night, I decided to give the video he sent another try, this time resolving to let it play through. The experience that night was, quite honestly, uneventful,but I managed to get through the ten-minute tone without shutting it off.Honestly, I felt rather proud, if not a little uneasy. The slight dissonance made me feel a bit dizzy, but aside from that, I didn’t feel anything out of the ordinary during the time the video played. On the list of suggested videos was another by the same creator, this one called “Ecstasy.” I figured since ecstasy is kind of like an even happier happy, this video might have an even stronger effect.

I clicked on the link to “Ecstasy” and put the headphones back on. I settled into my bed, hoping the sound would put me in a deep euphoric trance. The tone played, this one different, higher pitched, but retaining that grating dissonance. A minute into the song, I felt an odd feeling gathering in my stomach, a feeling that something was a little off. I paused the video,glancing around the darkened room. A little stream of light poured in from the living room, where my suitemates were still awake, studying and doing some last minute packing. Nothing was in the room besides my guitars, carefully stacked boxes of my suitemate’s soon-to-be-moved stuff, the bunk bed and a pair of desks. After surveying the room, alert to any unusual sounds or shadows, I put on one of my favorite songs and tried to forget about the incident.

The next day, I received a call from my mother, who lives on the other side of the state, saying that she wasn’t going to be able to pick me up on the last day of finals due to car issues. I was going to have to stay an extra couple of days on campus, which was fine with me – at least I could postpone packing and focus on practicing and finishing my final project. It was Wednesday, everything was due Friday, and the earliest I could leave was Sunday. I wasn’t going to argue with that.

I spent that day putting the final touches on the project, a composition. Trevor helped me a little, but he seemed paler than usual when I met up with him.

“Sick?” I asked.

“Maybe a teeny bit,” he said, mumbling.

That night, I went to pick a song to fall asleep to. There, in my browser history,were the videos, “Ecstasy” being the most recent. I knew it probably wasn’t a good idea, considering how much the last time freaked me out, but I felt compelled to try it again. I left the lights on this time, hoping it would make the experience more pleasant. Closing my eyes, I let the tones envelope me.This time, nothing that unusual happened, but when I opened my eyes, the lights weren’t on anymore. My suitemate probably turned them off because she thought I was asleep, which was understandable, and I accepted that thought as truth.

Friday finally came, and by that time, I’d practiced until my fingers were worn raw and red and my final project was as done as it was going to get. After breezing through the final jury, I raced outside to meet with Trevor before he went home for summer. He seemed to have already left, though, so I sent him a text telling him I’d miss him.

After my suitemates were gone for good, my dorm took on a different feeling. I was never much of a people person, but having no one around at all was quite eerie.I was used to being around people, so left to my own devices, I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be doing. I sulked around catching up on episodes of TV shows I hadn’t been able to watch since the semester started and playing modes on my guitar from memory, making sure I hadn’t forgotten them already. At somepoint during the evening, I received a text from Trevor, but he didn’t write anything. The message was blank.

I sat up until around one in the morning, when I began to grow tired. I decided that I would rather crash in the living room than climb all the way up to my bed, so I curled up on the beanbag chair and searched for my sleep music. Once again, the strange videos were right there waiting for me. Somewhat leery but still intrigued, I put on “Ecstasy” one more time for kicks.

The first couple minutes were uneventful. At around the four minute mark, my gut began tying itself into knots. I stared uneasily at the doors – the two that led to the bedrooms, the one leading to the bathroom, and the one to the hallway, which had a tiny peephole with a little bit of light coming from it. My guard was high. I kept my phone close to me, ready to call my mother or Trevor if something went seriously wrong.

Five minute mark. Nothing.

I looked behind me, out the window overlooking a somewhat wooded part of campus. The window was

open and the cool breeze felt chilling on my bare skin. At this point, I was huddled into the beanbag chair entirely, clutching my legs against my chest in an almost-fetal position. I didn’t want to touch the ground. The unsettling tone almost made the feel of the floor seem foreign to me. Every feeling was amplified.

Seven minute mark. Still nothing.

At this point my hands were sweaty. I nibbled at the calluses on my fingertips nervously, as I sometimes did before a recital.

Ten minute mark. Still nothing.

The tone came to a halt, and as soon as the pretty background image faded, a number of related videos came up. One was by the same user, titled “Despair.” A little proud I’d made it through “Ecstasy” and wildly curious, I clicked on “Despair” and put the headphones back on.

The tone was deeper than the last one and even more dissonant. The sound literally made every hair on my body stand on end. The room was still dark, but the tone seemed to make everything around me an uncanny dark.

Still, nothing was happening. I could still see every corner of the room with the light of my computer and with the peephole in the main door.

Three minute mark. Nothing yet.

My body was quivering, mostly from nerves. My senses were heightened. About halfway into the video, I thought I heard the neighbors who lived above me, even though I was certain nearly all of the dorm’s residents had moved out save for a scarce few with circumstances like my own. Perhaps someone in the room above me was stuck here, I thought.

Five minute mark. Nothing.

I closed my eyes, hoping that would take my mind off of the more frightening thoughts I was having, but instead, my mind was taken to a place even darker than the room I was in. While my eyes saw shadows, my mind saw fire, fire with an almost-human expression. My leg slipped off the beanbag and as it hit the rough carpet, it almost felt like pressing it to warm concrete. I opened my eyes in shock.

Something really wasn’t right.

I glanced around the room, making sure nothing was out of place. My guitars were there. My clothes were there.

My mini-fridge was there. My laptop, my phone, my microwave. The doors were all in the same position I’d left them.

THE PEEPHOLE. There was no light coming from the peephole.

I was now in a state of panic. I couldn’t see the handle on the door clearly, but I recognized the sound it made when someone was trying to wiggle it open. The door was locked –I wasn’t that dumb – but I wasn’t going to take my chances. I ripped off the headphones, ran across the room to the light switch, and fell down against the wall, dizzy. I reached up to touch the handle on the door. It was hot, like metal laying in the sun, but otherwise, looked completely untampered with. I cracked the door open and peeked my head out into the hall. Nothing out of the ordinary. I then broke down in the middle of the room and called my mom. I had to get out of here. Soon.

The next day, I cleared the history on my computer and resolved not to watch the videos again. For the rest of my time on the campus that weekend, I didn’t even touch my laptop. Saturday night was spent with every light in the dorm on full blast and with the radio on. I texted my mom constantly as well. I tried to contact Trevor,but he never responded. In fact, I never heard from him again.

I moved back in with my parents that summer and didn’t have any more odd experiences like I did that week. One weird thing did happen, though. My parents were watching the news when it was reported that there was an incident at my college. I guess one of the dorms, the honors dorm, experienced a pretty bad electrical fire. The funny thing is, the fire was confined to only one room – room 313.

AIOIF: Irrational Fear #1: The creepy headless guy I swore lived in my grandma’s furnace

I remember reading somewhere that the very first memory you can recall in your lifetime says a lot about the direction your life will take. My first memory was waking up from a nap on top of a giant pile of rugs in a sketchy flea market that no longer exists. I really don’t think says anything about me except that I have this uncanny ability to fall asleep in the weirdest places.

My second memory, however, was Furnace Man.

Furnace Man lived in my grandma’s old blue boiler furnace, hence the name. He was tallish, wore a plaid shirt, and had no head. Every now and then, he’d leave the furnace to stomp around my grandma’s house. I always imagined him dancing to a deep, booming beat, like some kind of creepy timpani. Also, he had a name, but whatever it was is now buried in the annals of my stupid brain. I think it might have been Ernie or Tim or something.

Needless to say, Furnace Man wasn’t real. There never was a flannel-wearing, headless being living in the furnace, but that didn’t stop him from being real to me. And keep in mind, I was like, two. Toddlers aren’t supposed to be scared of things. They’re supposed to be dumb and innocent and prone to questionable decisions like drawing on walls or eating Legos. They don’t stare blankly into the dark abyss of a utility room, expecting to see a decapitated hipster Slenderman crawling out of a furnace. I would avoid the room at all costs, or else freak out and cry, and I literally didn’t know the words to articulate what it was I was even afraid of.

I guess this is a good indicator that I was destined for a life of anxiety issues. Furnace Man never died. Not even when I found out years later that “Furnace Man” was just my dad getting stuck in a too-small shirt one Christmas Eve while trying it on in the utility room. My mind took the smallest, stupidest memory and twisted it into something horrifying. It’s almost like my head has this amazing ability to make monsters out of nothing. But isn’t that basically what anxiety is in the first place?

An Index of Irrational Fears – Preface

One evening at a particularly intense therapy session, I had an epiphany — I cannot remember a time when I wasn’t afraid of something.

That’s not to say I spent my entire life up until now cowering in the corner of a warm, safe library or something, hiding from the outside world (although that was a good portion of it). In fact, if I’m honest, I take a lot of pride in how stupidly brave I am. Like, heights don’t phase me. Take me to any old theme park and I’ll be the first to get in line for whatever ride everyone else is trying to avoid. I’m still the designated spider slayer at my job, and I’m the idiot who got two feet away from an alligator on vacation in Florida. The point is, all the stuff normal people are supposed to be afraid of are not even concerns of mine.

But that’s not to say I’m fearless.

In fact, in my feeble attempt to peel back the layers of the suck-onion that is my never-ending war on my own stupid brain, I made a list of the horrifically nonsensical fears I’ve dealt with at one point or another. This is not an exhaustive list, even though it definitely freaking looks like it. These are the fears that, for one reason or another, stand out in my memory.

So why am I going through the trouble of writing all of this down? See, this is more than some cathartic exercise. Mental illness is this big, stupid elephant in the room almost everyone notices but never really takes the time to fully understand. The world’s idea of life with anxiety is drastically different from actual life with anxiety. In fact, when I came out of the presumably well-organized OCD closet after learning my official diagnosis, I got a slew of “Oh, I’m going to bring you over to clean my house sometime!” (Pro tip: Do not ever say this to someone with OCD. I pinky-promise it will not end well.) The truth is, nobody actually likes being OCD. It’s not something you’re proud of. It’s not some cute, hipster-girl-with-Zooey-Deschanel-hair quirk that automatically turns you into the stereotypical manic pixie dream girl.

It’s not. It’s a living hell. One where sometimes death itself seems like the only way out.

That’s why I wanted to get my experiences in writing and let the soft, tender underbelly of my mind be exposed to the world. Because if even one person out there realizes they’re not alone in this, everything I’ve gone through will be worth it. Because if I realized I wasn’t alone in this years ago, I would have opened up and sought help sooner. Because you can’t fight this battle alone. Because nothing in this world has the power to destroy a life quite like mental illness.

This is the story of the lifelong love-hate relationship between me and my head.

Someday I’ll Be Saturday Night

Ever notice how sometimes God just completely airdrops the exact thing you need in the exact moment you need it? If you’re anything like me, a lot of the time, it’s a song. There’s something oddly therapeutic about hearing your own feelings echoed in music. I could go on and write an entire blog post about how music is the universal language and all that sentimental crap (which is absolutely true I should add), but it’s weird how you can rehear a song from years ago and have it take on a completely new meaning.

For me, that song was “Someday I’ll Be Saturday Night.”

“Someday I’ll Be Saturday Night” isn’t one of Bon Jovi’s most iconic songs, but it’s still somewhat of a fan favorite. Despite the fact that I was almost obsessively fascinated with all things Bon Jovi when I was little, the song didn’t really resonate with me. Growing up, it was one of the songs on my beloved Crush tour concert videotape I didn’t mind letting play through while I ran to the bathroom.

That changed on the way home from work today. There were a few songs I desperately wanted to listen to that were stuck in my head, and sifting through the small mountain of CDs in my passenger and back seats didn’t unearth any of the albums they were on. So I chose the first mildly interesting one I found, which was a Bon Jovi greatest hits release I rage-bought when I couldn’t locate any of their albums I had as a kid (and yes, I had every single one).

The song came on and this weird, overwhelming sense of peace came over me. I couldn’t explain it. Something in the lyrics pierced my soul like a needle right in the spot I needed. The verses are from the point of view three characters in the throes of hardship. The first, from what I can comprehend, is an unemployed homeless man, while the second is a teenage girl whose living situation forced her to turn to prostitution. It was the third narrator whose story especially resonated with me:

Now I can’t say my name or tell you where I am

Wanna blow myself away, don’t know if I can

I wish that I could be in some other time and place

With someone else’s soul, someone else’s face

Do you know how strangely comforting it is to know that you’re not alone in your struggles, to know that at one point, a rock star — your childhood hero — felt down enough to write those words? I guess it hit me hard that even Jon Bon Jovi has been there — and made it through. After this thought bounced around in my brain for a second, the bridge hit:

Someday I’ll be Saturday night

I’ll be back on my feet, I’ll be doing alright

It may not be tomorrow, baby, that’s okay

I ain’t going down, I’m gonna find a way

With those lines, what used to be just a feel-good anthemic Bon Jovi song (which is pretty much their schtick, come to think of it) became my own personal battle cry. My depression and anxiety will not take me down without a fight, and if — or rather, when — I make it through, I know God will use me to help others through as well.

Maybe I feel more like a Monday today, but someday I’ll be Saturday night, too.

90s Jon with a dog

Here, have a picture of ’90s-era Jon with a doggo. You’re welcome.

PANDAS VS. MY ENTIRE EXISTENCE

I recently saw this meme while scrolling through my Facebook feed:

Serotonin, ~~like whatever drug they put in the mystery meat in Lunchables,~~ is a substance that, in layman’s terms, makes one happy. It’s a naturally produced neurotransmitter (fancy schmancy brain chemical thing) that’s responsible for regulating mood.

And if you don’t have enough of it, it will frick you the frick up.

I’m talking clinical depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, all that fun stuff.

It recently hit me that I don’t think I’ve ever not been mentally ill. I wish I could remember those halcyon days of running wild and carefree with my biggest worries being missing Dragonball Z at 6:30 or whether or not my Charizard was strong enough to beat the Elite Four. But even my fondest childhood memories have a shadow of constant sadness and anxiousness looming over them.

And it’s all because of PANDAS.

(No, not that guy.)

PANDAS is a misleadingly adorable term for a really sucky problem. It’s the abbreviation for a scientific term I’m not going to bother writing out, mostly because it would take like five hours to type it. (If you’re curious, you can read more about it here.)

When I initially described my symptoms to my current psychiatrist, including how long I’ve dealt with them, the first thing she asked was the seemingly irrelevant question of if I’d ever had strep throat as a kid. I didn’t have strep throat; I freaking was strep throat. I have more memories of being sick with it than not, to the point that I couldn’t eat like a regular human and spent a solid portion of my childhood looking like the lost daughter of Skeletor.

Little did I know that my near-constant bout of strep was an underlying factor in the specific type of crazy I’ve wrestled with my entire life.

I’m not far enough into my psychology degree to be qualified to tell you exactly how it works, but somehow, having a strep infection when you’re very young can jack up some stuff in your brain and cause lovely things like OCD symptoms in children. And yep, it can be permanent.

After hearing about PANDAS from my doctor, everything started to make a lot more sense. Suddenly, my obsessive, intense fears and odd behaviors, which I clearly recall going back as far as age two, had a name. (Speaking of which, one of these days I’ll write about some of those weird early anxieties — there’s a couple of doozies. Like the headless guy I was convinced lived in my grandma’s furnace. That’s a fun one.)

I’m writing this as much for you, whoever is reading this, as I am for me. If you’re like me and can’t remember a time when you weren’t scared or sad, if you have that gray cloud of mental illness hanging over what should have been happy childhood memories, you’re not alone.

The Corner Couch

COUCH

This is a corner couch.

If you’re like most people, you probably call them sectional sofas. You’ve probably seen one before. You may have one in your living room. You might even be sitting on one right now.

For years, having one of these was a symbol of true adulthood. The corner couch was a measure of success.

The first time I recall seeing one, I was still in high school, visiting a recently graduated, recently married friend of mine whom I looked up to. From there, I just kept noticing them, usually at the homes of people who were farther along in life than me. My association between corner couches and sophistication and maturity grew. I could imagine myself as an up-and-coming writer, lounging adultishly with a laptop in a stylish studio apartment in New York. It was a silly goal, but it was a goal.

I recently started going back to school for psychology, my master’s to be precise. It’s all part of a larger plan to become a researcher and eventually, a professor, specializing in music therapy in particular. Because I’m still battling the monsoon of debt from my bachelor’s degrees, I decided to try to pay for all or most of my classes out-of-pocket, which required a bit of sacrifice.

Namely, my stupid freaking corner couch.

I’d been building up my savings for a long while, with the intention of at least part of the money going toward my comfy, angular sofa. In the end, almost every dime I’d amassed ended up going toward my first graduate class.

And I was completely okay with it.

As ridiculous as it sounds, the corner couch became to me what the green light was to Jay Gatsby, this futile pipe dream, an arbitrary symbol of something that never really mattered anyways. Maturity isn’t something you attain; it’s something you become. Part of that necessary growth is letting go of trivial nonsense and realizing what’s actually important.

Which is rarely, if ever, a piece of furniture.

Moving Forward

I’ve been spending a little time thinking about the direction of this blog. In the long run, I’d love to make a living out of writing, but it’s going to take a lot more time and effort than just vomiting my feelings about my (decidedly uninteresting) life into a journal every few days. So I’m thinking about starting some weekly columns for writing on topics I’m passionate about. Here are a few ideas — feel free to add anything you’d want to read about on here. I want to know your ideas too, person who is reading this!

Music: When I asked my Facebook friends what I should start blogging about, almost everyone suggested music, which makes sense, because it’s one of like three things I give a crap about. One of my college friends actually is a music critic (shout-out to Melody Esme, one of the best writers I know personally), so I’ve seen a little of what goes into being one. That being said, I doubt I have the greatest taste in music (whatever that even means), but I wouldn’t mind writing a weekly piece on whatever I’m listening to in my car currently ~~no matter how embarrassing it is.~~

Life Hacks: I’ve been working on a series for a while about how to manage having ADHD and still be a person. But I wouldn’t mind making this a regular thing. Judging by the feedback I’ve received on these posts, people really like this kind of content. What kinds of tasks do you want to see “hacked” for ADHD-havers?

Fashion & Beauty: Fun fact! I used to write a fashion column for my university’s newspaper. Another fun fact! I know next to nothing about fashion. But I like clothes, and I like wearing clothes. (Well, polite society requires clothing, so if I have to wear things, I want to wear something I like.) On the other hand, makeup and skincare are things I know quite a bit about and like talking about, so I could write about that as well.

My Dumb Fiction Crap: Did you know I’ve been working on the same story since high school? If you’ve been following this blog closely, you’ll know I’ve posted bits and pieces of it on here ~~and for the most part immediately deleted it because I didn’t think it was good enough~~. But I’m so sick of not finishing the things I start. So I want to share this dumb story with you, once and for all. And once that’s finally out in the world, I have like four other ideas for things to write. My New Years resolution is to actually finish things for once, and I’m starting here.

Devotionals: I’ve dabbled in faith-based stuff before and at one point even started to turn this blog into a spiritual one. I don’t think I want that to be exclusively what I write about, but I think I have a unique perspective on religion, being a queer Christian descended from literal witches and married to an agnostic Jewish woman. I don’t think anyone’s ever had my exact thoughts on God and who He (or She!) is, and maybe the world needs a fresh viewpoint on this stuff.

I wanna hear everyone’s thoughts. What do you want to read about on this blog? Drop a comment and let me know!

Love, Jess

The Walking (Quarter) Dead

I haven’t been very active on here the past few days. Between work and my class and a handful of shows last weekend, writing time has been minimal, and of course my anxiety isn’t helping much. But thanks for sticking around, kind person who is reading this blog post!

Do you ever feel like the number of things you want to accomplish in life far outweigh the number of days you have to achieve them? Because I’ve been slowly realizing that’s one of the driving forces behind my feelings of discontent lately.

(This one’s not going to get too whiny, I promise.)

I recently came to the realization that I’ll probably never reach the level of success in music I used to dream about. In all honesty, I don’t think the Bon Jovi-like brand of jetset-around-the-world-and-be-on-the-cover-of-People-magazine rock stardom I fantasized about as a child exists anymore (barring Taylor Swift-tier artists), and even then, I would not be comfortable with that much attention. I’ve learned that my niche is behind the scenes, writing the songs or playing the instruments or even just mixing the sound.

You see, for the longest time, I felt this race against time to establish myself before I aged out of the “young and attractive” window and was no longer viable as a new artist. I remember when Carly Rae Jepsen came out with “Call Me Maybe” my freshman year of college and how everyone my age was freaking out when they found out how old she actually was — 26. I was only 18 at that time, and I already felt the pressure. It’s a relief, not having to stress about any of that stuff anymore.

But I still feel like the clock is ticking on my music career. And my writing career. And my entire freaking life.

I spent the entire evening binge-watching The Walking Dead. The thing is, usually, I try to avoid binge-watching anything, because of my fear of wasting precious time I could be using to do something productive. Lately, I’ve lost a lot of motivation to do much of anything of value, which in turn drags me down even further. It’s a vicious cycle, an ouroboros of suck.

It’s probably not healthy to push yourself to do “productive” things 24/7, but it’s a compulsion I can’t quite rid myself of. I can’t shake this nagging feeling that I’m careening toward an inevitable death daily and how one day I’m going to be this bitter old lady resentful of how few of the things I set out to do actually got done. The average person lives to be approximately 75-80, maybe 100 at best. When I look at it that way, I’m already a quarter dead.

And in all honesty, this isn’t a bad outlook to have in moderation. Life is a gift and we shouldn’t waste it on frivolous crap. But we also shouldn’t beat ourselves up for taking a breath every now and then and actually enjoying it.

So go ahead, take a break and watch The Walking Dead. Or play Mario Kart. Or just take a walk outside. Life’s too short to waste it all worrying.

Small Victories Are Still Victories

So I’m almost done with the first issue of the comic series I’ve been working on ~~for the last decade.~~

My biggest fault as a writer is probably my lack of follow-through. I get really excited about an idea, get the first few pages done, re-read them, decide they suck, and start from scratch. In the case of this story, which I have literally had floating in my head since freaking high school, I kept bouncing between mediums. Like, it would work best as a graphic novel, except I’m not very good at art, so maybe a novel-novel. Except the story lends itself better to a visual medium. WAIT NO, A TV SHOW! I’ll just write a script and give it to someone who can do that kind of thing. Except I don’t know many people who can, and the ones that do won’t want to work with me. Maybe I’ll write the story and someone else can do art? Except all my art-friends have their own projects, so maybe I’ll draw it myself. Except I’m not very good at art. And the cycle begins again.

For ten. Freaking. Years.

I’ve finally decided that I’m never actually going to publish this story if I don’t get something written, and I’m never going to get anything written if I don’t write at all. The last story I wrote (and finished) that wasn’t for school or work was penned four years ago. I’ve started to realize that there’s some truth in that stupid saying “use it or lose it.” I noped out of music for a solid year and a half after my last band broke up. Can I play guitar? Yes. Do I actually play like I have a legitimate, collegiate degree in music? LOL NOPE.

I guess that’s part of the reason I started this blog too. A little article I can type up during my lunch break is better than daydreaming about all the crap I could write, possibly, someday (yet never actually write).

Small victories are still victories.