#9 What if I told you I'm back? The hospital was a drag - a brain dump

07 May ’24

“I haven’t come around in so long, but I’m coming back so strong” – The alchemy, Taylor Swift. The way that song has been out for like two weeks and it’s already embedded in my brain deeply enough to immediately come to mind when I was think about a version of 👋I’m back👋 for the title of this. On brand.

So. I know I said I’ll be back by, like, February. Well. It’s May. Woops. Time flew by but here I am. 🎶I come back stronger than a nineties trend.🎶 Dude, I swear, my brain is just a loop of song lyrics and memes. Anyway, I don’t have a concept for this blog post, it’s just gonna be an I’m-back-brain-dump of where my mind is at lately. To get back in the groove, to get the writing habit going again.

I’m quite distracted right now to be honest because my body is playing tricks on me. Okay, actually, let me reign that one back in and start again lol. I’ll preface by saying I have been doing so well for the beginning of the year overall. Really. (To the point where it’s a bit suspicious.) Except for one thing and it’s worse than usual right now. And it’s also is the reason I still feel off despite doing objectively well: I have been having these horrible dizzy spells. I’m not kidding, it’s so bad and I can’t even properly grasp or describe the feeling.

It makes my stomach turn, and I do not mean metaphorically. It affects everything I do, it’s so annoying. There is this pressure in my head and on my ears. I constantly feel like I am on the verge of throwing up. My whole world feels like it’s turning in circles, it feels like my body is on a carousel all day long. It’s like there is a black hole in the back of my brain and if I don’t take care I might fall backwards straight into it. It’s not always this bad but it is right now. And what is also really annoying is that from the outside I look normal and I can move normally, it looks like I am completely fine while on the inside I feel like I might puke all over everyone any second. Okay, sorry, too visual. And maybe I should be grateful that I can in fact move my head normally without it getting worse.

There are the two extremes of this state, one where it’s better and I kinda forget about it for a while, maybe even a few days, and then there is the opposite, which is where I am at right now, when it’s so bad it feels like the ground is swaying beneath me and I just wanna cry scream throw up. Like, literally throw up. Not to be gross, but. It’s like I’m sea sick. Except it’s not back and forth, it’s not like the swaying of a boat, it’s more like a rollercoaster. The motion is really random, a bit circular. And like I said, usually I’m not at one of the extremes, usually I’m somewhere in between. It really is almost chronic though, the dizziness. Yes, there are phases and usually it is possible to ignore it for a while, to do things while it’s there. But it does just mess with me so much, it impacts everything, my mind is all over the place. Like, the floor isn’t moving, it’s just my head. Sort of. My stomach at least isn’t as upset over it anymore as of right now, but my ears, my head, my chest, everything feels just honestly so not okay. It sucks.

Why am I writing anyway, when I clearly feel shit, you ask? Ha. Good question lol. Maybe I shouldn’t. I actually didn’t realize that this is how I feel until all of that just kinda wrote itself. I usually try to push through somehow, try not to let myself feel the shittiness. Distract myself. Almost feels like I’m making it worse if I acknowledge that I feel shitty. But either way, looking at a screen is maybe not the smartest thing to do. Ugh. THIS SUCKS.

But not doing anything all day also sucks. Not always, obviously, sometimes doing nothing for a day is amazing. I get it, champagne problems. I also enjoy some long-awaited time off, a day off is great, especially if it’s a one-off thing. Having one day in a week where I can allow myself to not do anything is such a luxury that I have only been able to experience for a few months now and it’s quite exquisite. But. Hear me out. I’ve actually just come back from holidays. Where I was also sick for a few days as well. I’m not saying this to brag lol but I have rested, I have just had more than one rotting day. Plus, this is the third day in a row now where the dizziness has been bad enough to prevent me from doing literally anything. Even reading. All this to say that rotting does in fact suck right now.

So, I figured some distraction might help. And I’ve been wanting to blog again. So far it doesn’t feel amazing if I’m honest, my brain and my eyes are not appreciative of the choice. But anyway. I gotta do something or I might go crazy. So. Might not be on form today, we’ll blame it on that haha. Now, let me try to pretend none of this is happening right now. Oof, I fear this might take a while because I have to stop every few sentences to close my eyes and breathe. But here goes nothing.

Other than that I’ve been really well. Haha. I really do mean that, even if it might not sound it after that whole dizziness tangent lol.

I’ve just come back from Egypt. I was there for two weeks, and The Tortured Poets Department has been out for those two weeks exactly. It came out April 19th which was the day of my flight. TAYLOR’S ELEVENTH STUDIO ALBUM which then turned out to be a FREAKING DOUBLE ALBUM ARE YOU KIDDING!!! So yeah we’re gonna talk about it. Who’s surprised. No one.

Listening to a new Taylor album is an experience. I always feel like I might explode from too many emotions, so giddy. And this album immediately clicked for me. Unlike ‘Midnights’ btw, don’t judge me. But TTPD is right up my alley and I knew that right away on first listen as well.

And I am realizing just now that I have in fact started a blog post at the beginning of this year about the era’s tour, sometime when the extended version of the movie came out. It was gonna be about about how great it is to see people falling in love with her once they’ve seen her perform, people who weren’t fans before and finally get it now and see what so many of us have seen all along. And I also really wanted to talk about ‘fan girl’ culture and the sexism in how the language about women liking art compares to men being sports fans, for example with beatlemania, and so on. I was gonna talk about how weird I find the whole jealousy thing of missing certain surprise songs and the tour becoming ‘stale’ because Taylor doesn’t owe any of us anything and she is most definitely giving WAY WAY WAY more than a regular concert. Like, she doesn’t have to perform for more than three hours every show, she doesn’t have to play surprise songs at all, there’s so many things that she does that go over and beyond what someone pays for when they initially bought a ticket without knowing what songs and costumes and show they would see, and it’s so weird to me that some people become so entitled (especially Americans, not to attack anyone, but some people had to wait and watch from afar for more than a year before Taylor finally comes to their country. And actually, Taylor has never come to Switzerland before EVER.) I was also gonna touch on how empowering it is to see Taylor embracing her past self and her past work with both the rerecords and the Era’s Tour, I was gonna talk about the time article (go and read if you haven’t, it’s so good), I was gonna talk about how I love to love things and how the internet can totally ruin that and so on and so forth- BUT. Life has been happening. So I never really wrote that blog post and now here we are lol.

Time has just flown by to be honest, the last few months have felt like two weeks. This whole start of the year has felt like the shortest time. So much has moved in my life, so much has happened. Quick recap, I had my exams, passed all of them with flying colors hehe, and then I went skiing. I also worked a whole bunch, I’ve been going back and forth between my dorm and my parents’ place a lot, been emotionally very stably up for longer than I can remember happening before and surprisingly far down still lol, been stressed and tense and carefree and full of joy and overwhelmed and at peace and. Time simply flew. Also, I’ve been to Vienna and now to Egypt. Can’t believe it’s already May, we are already more than a third into this year?? And I can’t believe the tortured poets department is here.

ALSO, F1, I simply CANNOT believe that LANDO NORRIS WON HIS FIRST GRAND PRIX!! In Miami of all places. I am so excited about it, it’s actually ridiculous lol. What a wholesome win, everyone was so happy for him. So well deserved. FINALLY. I was so tense for those last 20 odd laps hahaha, just hoping that there won’t be another safety car and nothing happens to wisk it away before IT FINALLY HAPPENED. So happy for Lando, so so happy. We were on the flight back from Egypt, just landed and thus obviously still at the airport when the race started, but we watched a few laps in the car on our way home. That was around lap 15 or 17 I think. And then as soon as we were home we turned the race on, and we’d missed the KMag-Sargeant thing (what the hell was going on with K Mag this weekend) and the safety car and the Sainz-Piastri inchident so we were like WHAT HAPPENEND. That was lap 25ish. Obviously I rewatched the whole race after. So unbelievable exciting, and when Lando’s lead got bigger and bigger, oh my, hardly could believe my eyes. Lando Norris, Grand Prix Winner. Let’s effing go!!! If you watch F1 and were not excited about that then you are just cold. I had tears in my eyes and was jumping up and down, trying not to wake the neighbors ahaha. And if you’re one of the people who were on about how he’s overrated because he’s never won before, Nowins and all that FUCKING BS which has me fuming, then actually just get off my website right now. He’s an amazing driver. Phenomenal performance this weekend and McLaren are looking strong with the updates, I hope that lasts, fingers crossed.

Now that I have talked about both Formula One and Taylor Swift, my two favorite topics to talk about lol, this blog post is complete. I’m so predictable haha.

Let me just come back to TTPD real quick and say that I listened to the first five songs in the morning before work and my flight and already loved the album then. I finished listening to the standard version on the train to the airport and immediately went to restart it and have a proper look at the lyrics, when my time limit on social media lifted and I went on Insta and realized I had missed a WHOLE BUNCH OF THINGS GOING ON and that there was a double album and HOW AM I MEANT TO COPE THIS WOMEN IS INSANE I LOVE HER SO MUCH I almost died of overexcitement and giddiness. I then listened to the anthology right away, and on the flight I relistened to the whole freaking 31 song project twice. So. Safe to say I was obsessed right away. And whilst in Egypt I of course watched Chats&Reacts, Reacts by Ash, caitlin marie reacts, DarrielandAshton and Ally Sheehan (who is also the reason I have started watching ‘The Travelers’ on Netflix yesterday and it’s so good so far, thank you so much for the recommendation girly, can always count on you for that <3). And I obviously listened to it myself a bunch as well lol, goes without saying. The soundtrack of the last two weeks of my life and many more to come. It feels special that I’ll always remember this time in Egypt when I think about this album now.

I’ll for sure give properly formed thoughts on all of TTPF at some point in the future because the lyrics are LYRICING on this album, going strong strong strong and I’ll have lots and lots of fun dissecting and discovering bits and pieces of them for years ahahaha.

Egypt was really amazing btw! I was gonna get my open water scuba diving certificate but because I had a super-duper bad cold I could only go snorkeling. Was still gorgeous, I love the ocean so much. Also got to see family which is always great, got nice and tan, relaxed, went to Kairo and Alexandria for a few days, spent lots of time with my brother and my dad and my sister. Good times 🙂

Alright, talk to you soon. Sooner than October I hope lol. No promises though. (I’m kidding). There are some reviews in the works for sure.

Lotsa love, Skye