I've always liked that Two Door Cinema Club songāChanging of the Seasons. I first listened to it in 2013, when the album to which it belongs was still brand new and on repeat in every grocery store in America.
2013 was the year before my high school graduation.
Changing of the Seasons is now around 7 years old.
I am writing this letter now because in the span of that time, many wonderful, terrible, life-shattering things have happened. (I feel utterly melodramatic saying this considering Iām only 22. But I digress). A season of my life is passing, and I thought to memorialize it with a new edition of Indoor Picnic. (Does it matter if it took over a year to get back to you all? Can you forgive me for the delay?)
The story begins four years ago, in 2016. Two years after I graduated from high school, and a little over a year after I first arrived in Indonesia. That year, I went to a wedding.
It was my own wedding, cut-and-pasted together after just two months of preparation. Iāll entertain you with a photo that looks like it should be from the 1960s, but is actually from 2016:
At this wedding I was married to a boy who Iād known for all of four months. In the span of those four months we had terrible fights about ideologies, personal tastes, parenting styles, causes for jealousy, and more. It is difficult to force two people to get on the same page in less than a quarter of a year. The wedding, unfortunately, was non-negotiable.
Four years ago I was running a blog, and on this blog I talked about how that wedding was going to be the start of a new, happy chapter of my life. I rushed into it carelessly and joyfully and wantonly, as I do with most thingsādo first, think laterāand arranged 10-year-plans with the steadfast belief that everything would turn out exactly as I imagined it.
There were many, many posts about all my hopes for the future ābeautiful, rosy dreams and wants. Then, several months later, I disappeared.
My memories of everything that has happened since then are hazy. Every time I try to remember it feels like my mind has waded into an oil spill; I emerge from the water bedraggled and petrol-ridden. Entire months and weeks are lost to me. Some time before the wedding I developed an allergy to personal storytelling. To cope, I retreaded my past; these stories were what made up the bulk of Mischievous God. (Itās strange, because I swear to you, I cannot even remember writing that damned book).
My acquired aversion to blogging and divulging personal stories went against everything Iād stood for up to that point. But I clung to the flimsy daily life that I had created because I had nothing else to hold on to. I regret this.
Iāll never get those days back.
The fact that Iāve picked this up againāthese acts of writing in no uncertain terms about myself and being honest and sharing too much informationāshould mean a great deal. I think it tells you what you need to know without me having to say it outright.
Things have been difficult lately. But now that I think about it, Iām always talking about how difficult things have been. Perhaps that's just proof that life is a constant upwards battle. (Talking like this reminds me of the old "This, too, shall pass"Ā fable).Ā We all know it isnāt always a struggle; it just feels like it because the tragedies are so close together.
Anyways, readers, Iām home now. Iāve returned to you. During this chaotic timeāa time of war and heartbreak amidst a pandemicāa time of love in the middle of a firefightāI have managed to eke out a space of my own. I am not new or shiny anymore and probably in the future Iāll retell stories that youāre already highly familiar with. But I have finally arrived. In my wrinkled pajamas, in my unkempt bed, in a new (rented) house with yellow curtains and unmopped floorsāI am alive, still, and ready to witness yet another changing of the seasons.
As always, thank you.
If you have money to spare, please consider taking some time out of your day to donate to Nduga refugees. If you respond to this e-mail with a screenshot of your donation, I will match you 50%. Thank you ā”