#making space

admittedly, it was a stupid idea to plan a meetup with internet friends you made during lockdown, only a matter of months after said lockdown measures had been slightly relaxed. it was june and i’d figured things would be much better with the rate that things seemed to be improving and opening back up again. i had managed to avoid catching the dreaded illness up until that point, and i’d confidently gone in to take my fit-to-fly covid test two days before. but the night before my flight, my mum took a test of her own amidst coming down with what seemed to be a heavy cold, and when she called for me up the stairs with a panicked voice, i knew exactly what she was going to tell me.

i was faced with a tough decision. i hadn’t yet received the results of my fit-to-fly test but i realised i was potentially about to receive what i deemed would be earth-shattering news. i went to my dad’s place to spend the night and hopefully avoid catching the virus (if i hadn’t caught it already), mere hours before my flight. i told my friends that there was a chance i wouldn’t be able to make it, but even if my test was negative, there was still a chance that i had caught it and was still in the incubation stages.

we decided as a group that if the test was negative, it was probably better to just risk it and go anyway, rather than waste all the money i had already spent on getting there and staying there. so when the test came back negative, i went.

as you can probably guess from all this buildup, two days into the trip i developed my first covid symptom, and two days after that, i tested positive. i wasn’t the only one, though. we hadn’t thought in depth about what would happen if we weren’t able to get the negative tests we needed to get home. we had to extend the trip to accommodate for the ten day isolation period and to also let enough time pass by that we could produce negative tests again. this meant having to relocate to a smaller airbnb where we’d stay for christmas. what ensued during this period of isolation was what you might expect from four ill, stir-crazy, homesick people who had to spend christmas in a place with one bedroom in it. i won’t go into detail about what exactly happened, though - that’s what the album is for.

the album is the aftermath. the impact of this trip was still fresh in my mind and on my body as i had flown home on december 29th with seemingly worse symptoms than i’d had when i was actually sick with the virus. a delayed reaction (and probably a result of not sleeping for 36 hours on the journey home) with my lungs has flared up my asthma at the worst it had ever been. i was basically bedridden for the two weeks following my arrival home. i was feeling a lot of things, too. i had so many regrets - things i hadn’t said or done while with the people i was convinced i’d probably never see again, things i had said or done that i felt i had no control over at the time while my brain was at mercy to sickness and discomfort, making the decision to go while knowing the risks and bringing everyone down with me.

EDIT: we were also drunk for a lot of the time. i think that’s worth mentioning.

now, almost two years later, i don’t regret anything. (well, maybe some things.)

1. Making Space

this one’s very blatant in its lyricism. we, or at least i, was going completely stir crazy in this airbnb that had one bedroom in it. i was hating myself pretty intensely both during and after all of this had happened. i was rejecting the affection of all of my friends.

2. The Art of Texting

the year preceding this trip hadn’t been easy. i found myself seeking comfort in my friends who were willing to let me completely lean on them, so long as i let them do the same with me. this resulted in some unhealthy codependency that, despite the implications, i still look back on somewhat positively. how do you convey your deepest feelings to someone when all you can do is text or call them? (miscommunicate).

3. Understand (All the Best)

i came home feeling like i was broken. i had strong feelings, but they felt like the wrong feelings, and i regretted not letting myself get fully comfortable around the only people i’d ever been comfortable with.

4. Dunes

i believe it was on boxing day that i had finally had enough of being indoors. a friend and i went on a long walk down a nearby beach, at night, where we shared airpods (until they died) and listened to music out of a phone speaker (until it died) while walking up and down and climbing some of the sand dunes that had formed. it was the most peaceful i felt the entire time i was there.

the image for the album art was taken on this walk.

5. Are We Alright?

mainly focused on the aftermath of this trip - i had a lot i needed to fix once i got home. guilt was not enough. i was unthinkably cold. i had to wear gloves in my room.

6. New Year

written about the year of 2021 as a whole, and what i went through with my friends. i used this song as a general outlet for my deep desire to repair a friendship that i’d fucked up. i think it helped.

7. Bad at Talking

every single friendship i had was in a state of disrepair after this trip. i wasn’t entirely sure what everyone thought of me after meeting me in person for the first time and then immediately seeing me at my worst.

8. Late Again

i was feeling inadequate as a long distance friend, and also inadequate to fulfil life’s basic expectations of me. i wish i remembered the exact intentions i had as i was writing this. but the stuff about missing my train and being thirty minutes late to class actually happened.

9. Twin Beds

on my last night in san francisco, my friend and i shared a twin hotel room. it was the first time in a week that i had my own bed to sleep on. he floated the idea of sharing a bed and i thought it was both funny and outrageous.

i flew home the next morning, but two of my friends were hit with an endless stream of complications. one had such extreme delays due to weather that he missed his layover and had to spend an extra night away from home. the other found out that canada’s covid policies were different to that of the us and uk. they had to spend an extra two weeks(?) in san francisco, by themselves. i felt bad about how relieved i was to be at home while they still had not made it. part of me, now, wished i had stayed.

10. All the Best / Goodnight

reading these lyrics back, i’m transported back into the toxic mindset i was stuck in for a while after i returned home. i was struggling with a lot of self hatred, for a whole plethora of reasons, and i spent a lot of time wishing nobody knew me or thought of me at all now that i was painfully aware that people knew me and were thinking of me.