GO LET IT OUT!

MODEL: NANCY DEWEIR. BACKGROUND, MIAMI STYLE BY TASCHEN BOOKS. TEXT: YOGI TEA BAG.

I don’t mind telling you I’ve been more than a little depressed lately. (And by “lately,” I mean it’s been going on for two or three years, now.) Things had gotten so bad that even my God of True Love was getting tired of hearing me write the same old sob stories in my journal, day after day.

But before I get to the good part about how I’m transmuting my depression into a state of dynamic, ecstatic joy, I want to give a little context.

The way I can tell I’m really depressed is if I stop playing music. Because under normal circumstances, I’m the kind of person who gets obsessed with her playlists. Creating a playlist, coming up with the perfect name for a playlist, adding songs to a playlist, singing along loudly to a playlist, gleefully instructing Siri to play my Depeche Mode From Top to Bottom playlist on shuffle, please…

Let’s just say there isn’t any part of the music playlist process that doesn’t feel like pure, exhilarating playtime. (Normally.)

But when I’m depressed? The playlists come to an abrupt halt — like a record screeching dramatically, then cutting out to total silence. It’s like depression makes me become this intensely no-fun, no-frills kind of person who winces when they hear anything with a beat, or a real melody. Or, God forbid, music might have LYRICS! Lyrics that could trigger even more depression, with all their awful insinuations about love or romance or heartbreak.

And yet, I’ve also experienced music to have the power to help me feel ecstatic joy… and set me free from whatever was weighing me down.

So last night, I sat down in the Postcard Studio here at YBD headquarters, expecting to crank out a few more designs in the Nobody Series (see previous post). I think I wrote about how the idea of having Nobody in my life was supposed to be a positive thing — or at least, a step up from living with the Constantly Rejecting Ghost of Boyfriend Past. Unfortunately, making peace with Nobody seemed to require that I fashion myself into a kind of nobody, too. No guys. No dressing up. No celebration. And certainly, no music.

But wouldn’t you know, the postcards worked their strange and wonderful magic on my impoverished, no-fun soul last night. Instead of creating more snarky self-pity with the Nobody series, I ended up making three joyful and robust postcards that had nothing to do with Nobody. Instead, they expressed the lovely and positive feelings that were apparently waiting for me to acknowledge them, just beneath the wet blanket surface of my depression.

Those three postcards told me I still had a hearty appetite for love, and a vigorous desire to start living in the light — one you might even call ambitious. Or determined.

Not one to argue with any way out of my depression, I’m going to go with it. Treating myself like someone special. Deciding to enjoy myself and have fun.

This morning as I drove to work, I decided not to fret about anyone I was dreading to see. Instead, I maxed out my car stereo’s volume on “Jazzy Sensation” by Afrika Bambaataa, and put the windows down and my Korean sound system all the way up. Did you know you can still dance pretty recklessly, even when your hips and legs are immobilized in a car seat?

I’ll post my three new cards tomorrow morning, and you can tell me if any of them make you want to turn the volume up on your life, too. ❤️‍🔥—Y.B.D.