volume thirty-one

I am solar powered

Hi friends, this week I feel sad and I want to give you the option to read ahead or not based on this heads up and your headspace — take care of you!

I feel blue. I feel bluer than blue. I feel lost and sad and torn and mopey and sorry and stuck. Since getting back to the cold (in temperature and due to the lack of fire in my soul) of Montreal I have been filled with the dread that lived in my tummy for the better part of two years. A dread that very much left while I was soaking up the sunshine in the literal and people-that-I-love sense for the past six weeks.

Not only was my mood an almost eternally positive one when I was anywhere but here, my maskne cleared up, I felt myself talking and acting like myself again, I felt my jaw and shoulder pain ease without constantly tensing them, I was inspired to start a few creative projects I had long put off, I got back on track with my dreamy life daydreams that I want to make a reality, I laughed — a lot, I revaluated, I moved my body, I ate in a nourishing way that didn’t sacrifice portion sizes but fed my energy levels in a healthy way to keep up with my rediscovered love of doing shit, I glowed from the inside out — I realised I am solar-powered.

I left my job last year, which I felt was the main crux in my life — I wasn’t happy there. Was it the working from home during a pandemimoore from the get-go so never feeling a true sense of comradery in the team that I have managed to find everywhere else I have worked? Yes. Was it feeling guilty that I was still employed while spending half of my day twiddling my thumbs with nothing to do but at the same time feeling glued to my laptop with the expectation from my employers to be there ready for anything, feeling trapped? Yes. Was it little fish, big pond, where I was used to actually making a small difference in my industry and now I was just invisible feeling like I was on a very different page to almost everyone else and my values were now compromised? Yes. Was it the jadedness of some of my co-workers bringing me down and me registering that I was unable to muster any energy to fight to stay afloat with optimism? Yes. Was it the fact I moved across the country to be here for this job because it had been my dream for a very long time and now I was stuck inside feeling so alone, unable to even make small talk with anyone outside of those zoom calls due to the language barrier? Yes. Was it me being grateful for this period of self-discovery mixed with the bitterness that now I was having trouble putting into real-life practice this newfound, amazing, true-to-myself me because I was using all my energy to get myself out of bed every day to spend upwards of eight hours fighting off tears? Yes. Was any of this really anyone in particular’s fault? No.

Now I am back, now I am here, and the feelings returned the absolute second I was in the air looking down at Montreal ready to land. So was it the job? Yes. But was it more than that? Yes. Did the ‘more than that’ likely turn it into being the job? I honestly don’t know.

What I do know is I am once again here in Montreal alone, unhappy, isolated, disconnected from so much, utterly depressed — truly and honestly — I can see that now. Vacations are not a magic bandaid that should be treated as a solution to mental health help, however, there is something to be said about how instantly my mood recovered when I left Montreal, and how instantly my depression returned when I returned. I feel silly saying I really didn’t know I was depressed until I felt good, then came back and felt it snap back to taking a hold of me.

Montreal is amazing in its own right — as are the phenomenal friends I have made here — however it is not enough. The timing was off, the world had other plans. I do not regret being here for two years, not one little bit, as I had so much growth and self-discovery in this time. But I have been reminded now, just what happiness can be and how much it can be enjoyed when you aren’t feeling tied down by misery, or tied inside by the debilitating agoraphobia that has taken over you for the last year and a half. I don't want to confuse vacation possibilities with real-world possibilities but I also need to be aware and move forward knowing there can be a beautiful middle ground for me, if as soon as the vacation ends all of the happiness does, too.

I need you to know truly how the last two years served me well in so many ways. They brought me to places and people my life before just would not have as there were too many distractions, and this time has beyond served its purpose. But that doesn’t mean I need to hang onto this chapter to try and make the next chapter here work for me.

In my recovery, I have learned that I need to stop forcing things, of which I had convinced myself for the last two years I had very much let go of. All of that to say I was laying in bed earlier this week, almost asleep, head spinning, when my eyes flew open and out loud I exclaimed “HOLY SHIT I HAVE BEEN FORCING MONTREAL!”

All of this time I was convinced I was doing the opposite by staying here — going with the flow, enjoying my space, making the most of my growth and independence. Truth be told it struck me that in fact, I have been forcing this to work beyond those developments when it just fucking isn’t working.

If you wake up somewhere feeling on the verge of tears every day, scared to leave the house because of the cold, the loneliness, the language barrier, the “what the fuck for?”

If you have to physically write yourself lists to reference on particularly bad days (or substack volumes) of all the things you love about it where you are maybe you too are forcing things. Just me? In hindsight, these were not reminders of how much I was going to miss my home here, but how scared I was to leave it… like… walk out the door… and how at the same time I had to convince myself it was worth returning to.

The truth is, I was petrified to leave. The day I was flying out for my trip in December, I sat on my couch and cried while having a panic attack. I was so strung out I was talking to my ~things~ telling them I was going to miss them. Not just my plants — which I think is totally okay and I do that anytime I leave the house — but my furniture, my books, my bed… Not only was I going to miss them, but I was also shaking at the thought of walking out the door. Some would say this is a result of the pandemimoore to which I would say I absolutely agree. However, when I was in Vancouver for a little stopover, or for the entirety of the six weeks in Australia (spent in over six different places meaning lots of walking out of doors and saying goodbye) I not once felt this. I was seeking adventure, or a calm stroll, or a lay on the beach, or a laugh with a friend, or a trip to the shops, or an opportunity to speak to a stranger working at a cafe or a thrift shop. I remembered who I am when I leave the false sense of safety I have created for myself within my apartment.

This is why when I realised I was forcing so much, I was able to have the best sleep possible since my return to Montreal because everything clicked and made sense. Staying here is forcing it. In conversations I have had with those closest to me since this ah-ha! moment, the consensus has been that leaving is the easiest, simplest, most heart-filling, soul-nourishing thing I can do. I even, in my “am I just blowing up my life again?” wrote a pros and cons list and the results were staggering.

I was also told by my life coach, that when you’re a drinking alcoholic, everything is chaos and drama (this part I knew). What I was told next is that in learning to live in your sobriety when things feel calm and easy, it feels foreign and scary and we start looking for the drama. Then she told me that it is okay for things to be easy. In fact, we all deserve that.

There are places in the world I will always find beauty in but do not feel like home, and Montreal is one of those places for me. I love my friends, I love my apartment, but I do not love my life and that is something I need more than anything.

There are movements happening, there are plans (or lack thereof and therein lies the beauty) happening and I cannot wait to write to you as they unfold.

Have you ever felt stuck in the place you live? Have you ever moved somewhere and stuck it out longer than you wanted to for any reason, forcing yourself to stay? Have you ever moved and had personal growth but ultimately decided the place wasn’t for you despite your gratitude for what it gave you at the time? Am I being too specific? Let me know!

The things I love most about Montreal exist everywhere — my writing community, my online recovery community, my friendships (because true friendship doesn’t need to be in the same postal code, that I know to be true after years of uprooting myself). All of the other things that feed my soul exist elsewhere, and elsewhere is where I am going to go. I now know it is okay to live my life in chapters. So instead of being ashamed of that tendency I am so prone to, I am going to lean the heck into it this year — and beyond.

I love you,

Lauren xoxo

Three things I struggled with this week:

• Telling people of my plans, despite knowing it is ideal for me, there are some people this means leaving for now and that isn’t an easy conversation to bring up. Practising honesty.

• Being back to my do-not-leave-the-house, too-scared-to-do-anything, cry-myself-to-sleep ways.

• I have (scarily easily) slipped back into bad habits that I worked so hard to erase before my vacation — like too much screen time, not enough sleep and too much overbooking of my calendar. I have said it before and I will say it again until it sinks in for myself: doing nothing and taking time for myself is being booked.

Three blessings from this week:

• I put myself out there very vulnerably with someone this week in a way I never have and it was exciting to let myself experience that for the first time.

• Realising that I can embrace this movement seeker within me instead of constantly feeling like every move has to be treated like a permanent one. It is clear that is not how I operate, and it feels good to lean into that, finally.

• I decided when I got back from my trip that Monday evenings are for self-care in the form of pampering or drawing or reading or dancing or romancing myself. This week I drew myself a beautiful hot bath made delicious with one of the bath bombs I guess I had been saving for a special occasion or a rainy day? Then I spent an hour in there eating the rest of my birthday cake. I used to enjoy a bottle of wine in the bath. This hits different in the best, best way.

Three goals for the coming week:

• Tackle my next chapter to-do list.

• Continue to have open and honest conversations — with myself and others — around how I am feeling and where my head and heart are.

• Listen to more music, instead of silence. Blare the playlists and songs and anthems that get my heart racing, my voice screaming, my soul crying and my mood lifting (or feeling validated).

What I am enjoying this week: 

My lovely friend Shalini wrote this personal essay How My Year of Yes Became a Year of No which made me feel so many feelings and is written so wonderfully. It is big goosebumps from the get-go energy and I teared up a few times. It is inspiring and thought-provoking and exciting and heart bursting-ly lovely.

BONUS: if February 14th was just another day to you — or just you are in the mood for this kind of mix of loving yourself/relationships are hard/moving on after a break up/bye bye bye to a shitty person/want to feel your feels of love lost or just love songs that are not romantic — I made this playlist of LXVE SONGS a while ago full of songs about love but not being in love. To be honest, it is just a banger playlist that you don’t have to be in any mood to enjoy. What songs am I missing? What should I add?

If you feel inclined to say thanks for this post, please like or comment (it’s free and means so much!), forward it to a friend or you can buy me a slice 🍕