I am sad, numb, trying to hold on to things that once made me feel alive. And, as the Goo Goo Dolls dramatically sang, “you bleed just to know you’re alive.”
Whenever I feel like emotions are a thing of the past and as though someone has scooped the Matilda out of me, that’s when I put on my chunky headphones, lay half-naked on my bed, and listen to…
Phoebe Bridgers.
Of course, once I’m done listening to all of her albums (starting with the one that feels most like a kick in the stomach, Stranger in the Alps), I then move on to Mitski, the Japanese House, the 1975, and so on. I am starting to unironically believe it’s a form of self-harm, because every time I feel like I want to die, all I can do is just add to that feeling by dragging myself deeper through the mud with Phoebe’s gut-wrenching music.
It all started back in 2020, the pandemic year. It was my first year of university, and I was homebound. In the Netherlands, curfew was at 20:45, so by 21:00, I was sitting at my little desk, preparing for a lecture, while shaking my leg like a maniac. I think I speak for everyone when I say that 2020, the beginning of the pandemic, was an insane mix of emotions. I remember feeling dread, anxiety, fear of the disease, and sadness over the fact that I wasn’t having any live lessons. It felt like someone was stealing the most important year of my life while politicians did everything but make the situation livable for my peers and me.