This week I need a bit of recharge before I write about heavy topics again. Decluttering took its toll on me, I even took a break from it. It’s a legit grieving process I did not anticipate. I thought hey, I’m just letting go of things. It turns out those things were tiny bits of me. A tiny choice I made once that has been with me since, like buying a cookbook that sounded interesting but it wasn’t really for my palate. I still have that pang in my gut about it that I bought it so impulsively. I bought so many things impulsively, like something new I acquired would lift me out of my misery instantly. And remembering those fragile moments is just painful even though I know going through them helps me to heal, ignoring them never did.
The anniversary of my burnout is also approaching and now we’re in the same time of year when I started to get very ill. All those flowers blossoming, gorgeous blue skies appearing in the afternoons, the air getting warmer brings me back to my burnout memories. How hard it was for me to walk down on the same roads to daycare as I do now, how exhausted I was to get out of bed and just looked out onto our balcony from there. These are emotional flashbacks I guess and I have to work through them.
The other day I went to a bit of a faraway playground with a mom friend and her kid as I did last year around this time. Then it was really hard for me to push the buggy with my twins, I sweat all over my clothes and I could hardly keep up a conversation with her. I felt like I was in a glass cage, trying to connect, trying to get up to the surface but failing to. And this week, we went there again. And my kids are bigger and heavier than they were last year and I could semi-easily push their buggy to the playground (I’m still not some athlete). And I could connect with that mom friend and we talked about so many interesting things. It was a lovely play date that overrode last year’s experience. I hope the other memories get overridden as well.
As I need extra pampering this week, I’m going to bring you again some things I’ve been loving. I want to make these lists less about consuming something you can buy and more about savouring things that are already at our disposal or easily accessible. Like the sky, or birds singing, or the wind gently caressing your skin. For this particular issue I want to shine light on creative women who are doing new things, forging new paths and taking steps to live their lives as authentically as they can. They’re an inspiration to me and I can only hope I can live a lucrative creative life as they do now. These women inspire me whenever I encounter them.
Taylor Swift
I’ve been playing The Tortured Poets Department on repeat ever since it came out two weeks ago. First it was hard for me to connect to her painful breakup state emotionally but as I listened to the songs more and more, I got hooked and her storytelling sucked me in. My current favourites are: ‘Down Bad’, ‘So Long, London’, ‘I Can Do It With A Broken Heart’, ‘Florida!!!’. A month ago I was hooked on the Eras Tour movie. I watched it any time I needed a lift-me-up. I watched her tell a story, convey a feeling through her lyrics, sound and her body’s movement accompanying them. It’s simply a joy to watch her live performances. I also love how she embraces all her eras. I shudder at the idea that once I thought a guy I was in love with in high school, from a distance of course, had a girlfriend and I thought she is not a good fit for him, he should have dated me instead. How narcissistic😂 But I guess all teenagers are. And Taylor wrote a song about this and she still claims it. I also love how she pauses to let the crowd’s cheer in. I wish I could take a compliment like that. She’s inspiring because she’s bold, brave, feminine, lovely and a true leader. She is a fucking legend storyteller, she’s full of joy and love and she is ready to share it. I aspire to be an artist like her: free to do the art I want and get paid for it. I feel so ashamed now that I once listened to her music as ‘guilty pleasure’. Because I was taught to love rock music and with that comes a tortured vibe of ‘you should hate mainstream pop’. Yuck.
In a spout of a dark period in December, I randomly found her on Instagram. After one reel, I was hooked and went to devour as much of her comforting reels as I could. I’ve learned from her that living deliciously and romanticising your life is the best thing ever. I can’t get enough of the visuals she creates, too. She embodies the same values I aspire to. Girly, lovely, ready to share her love and wisdom, healing, growth. Also I just love how much she is in love with pink, flowers and leopard print. Hello, soulmates? Go check her out, she’s going to put light in your Insta feed regularly. I’m currently reading her first book, Women Don’t Owe You Pretty. I love lots of ideas in this book and how she encourages you to question your beliefs around internal misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, racism, etc in a loving, healing way, not just shout at you in the face how dare you. The visual of the book is also stunning.
I had only time for writing about two of my heroes at the moment but there is lots more. And also, I’m curious, who inspires YOU right now? Share it in the comments, I’ll check them out!
Did you enjoy this piece? Hit the heart button below or tell me if and how it resonated with you in the comments! Engagement helps my publication to be discovered and grow. If you like my writing, consider subscribing to Whatever with the Subscribe button☝️ and if you have the means to, you can support the hours of work I put into this publication by becoming a paid subscriber for 5€/month. In Budapest, Hungary you can buy like 1.25 coffees from that amount so I’d say it’s a bargain and I would be eternally grateful.💜