Food Poisoning Made Me Late But ✨MJC-mail!✨
Gold dresses, pancakes & more 🐱
Hello my loves! 💜
You’re right, it isn’t the first Saturday of the month, but your girl has been down & out after attempting romance by taking bae to her favourite seafood restaurant. It is no longer a place I enjoy🦞 BUT I’m on the up and having that glorious first-day-of-being-outside energy after you’re sick for a while - I love this feeling. 🌞
So how about a catch up on Feb?
I had a bit of fog when it came to remembering what I’ve been up to for the last month - truthfully it hasn’t been the best time in my brain lately. I’ve been quite absorbed by the horrors happening in Gaza, and even with donating, sharing, going to protests, writing my MP, nothing has felt like enough and I haven’t been able to shake that feeling of life here making no sense when you know what’s happening over there.
When I get in that mindset I go into most things thinking “what am I doing?//I shouldn’t be here//this isn’t ok//i need to do more//i can’t enjoy this” and the guilt of that swallows up a lot of my experience of really being there. But I know that if I don’t go to the things I’ll just sit at home and doomscroll and that’s no good for anyone or anything.
Char reminds me often that when we deny ourselves the right to feel good, that doesn’t actually translate into more good for people who are suffering. And that if we’re constantly tapped into world trauma, we end up not being able to help in any way at all. I know she’s right, and I also know it’s important and human to feel the heartbreak of what we’re witnessing. I guess we each have to find our balance individually, of how much we can look straight at it and when we need to look away, to be ok ourselves.
All of that to say, it’s been a heavy brain month! But we still did the things and tried our best to find those moments of light & joy, so here are some that I captured in photo form 🤗
I started & ended the month with some much needed wholesome family time!
I am so thankful to have my routine taking care of Gem every few weeks - I get to have a breather from London, cuddle my baby Bella 🐶 and hang out with my sis. It’s not always easy but it’s (mostly) grounding and light-hearted and simple. Good for the soul. 💜
We came back to London & it was Valentine’s day!
Which happened to coincide with day 1 of my period, so the romantic festivities consisted of pancakes, pyjamas, making a sofa bed in the living room & painting each other pictures as presents. Which was perfect tbh. 💖
After that we headed up to Manchester for an awards night bae was invited to!
I think she looked ESPECIALLY handsome in this swirly suit - I tried to compliment her lewk with this secondhand swirly dress that hugged my lil round belly in a very cute way 🐣 we ate some banging chinese food, stayed overnight & then it was back to London the next day!
And onto my biggest event of the month… the BAFTAs. 🏆
It was incredibly surreal casually wandering around the same space as Margot Robbie + Emily Blunt - everywhere I turned was someone I thought I was friends with but actually they just played a character in a film who I felt like I was friends with.
I did my best to just soak in the experience, stay in the gratitude rather than the guilt I mentioned earlier, and just let myself feel glamorous and shiny in my rented gold dress with a bunch of Instagram pals. 🥰
And while the shiny stuff is cool and fun, if it doesn’t balance out with something that feels more meaningful that’s no good for me. Thankfully, this happened last month as well:
A book that I wrote a guest essay for came out! Eating Disorders Don’t Discriminate is filled with essays from experts & ED survivors and is probably the most diverse collection I’ve ever seen put together - covering all eating disorders from many different perspectives + identities.
I’m really honoured to be a part of it and I even got to read part of my essay at the book launch! 😇
And last but not least…
The month included MANY visits from Gilbert, my neighbour’s cat. I love him. He loves me. It’s going to be a real problem when it comes to moving out. But for now… CUTE CAT CONTENT!! 🐱
That’s all from my Feb!
As always I would love to hear how your month was?? Any highlights/lowlights?? Anyone else feeling the kind of things I have been? The comments are wide open & I’ll come check them soon as I can!
Thank you for being here, being lovely & supporting me still (oh! and THANK YOU to everyone who left reassuring comments on my last Is It Just Me Or… email! I actually had the book launch for the eating disorder book shortly after I wrote it and being in that room+ your comments was the perfect remedy, thank you 💖).
Speak soon!
Love,
M 💜
Feb was a bit hard for me to be honest. I had loads of back pain randomly out of nowhere (lasted a week ISH and thankfully went away) so I definitely feel you on the amazing feeling of being able to go and do even something as simple as get on the tube! So I was very frustrated. But the end of the month was really meaningful, I threw myself wholeheartedly into supporting my activisty friends running in the SU elections on our campus and campaigning for them, and we managed to win every single position! which puts organising on our campus in an amazing place. This year the SU has been really lukewarm on Palestine but the four winners are so committed on this (+ other issues like disability rights!) that a better future feels really possible. And doing stuff in person is just so much more fulfilling than scrolling, although I've been doing a lot of that too. Idk, February has been weird, but it turned out all right in the end. Hope your March goes better than it started!
edit: and through my friends I also discovered the incredible song Ana Dami Falastini which I highly recommend listening to. It's soulful and determined and hopeful and sad all at the same time but it gets me ready to do good things for Palestine whenever I listen to it (which this week looks like getting my mum chocolate covered Palestinian dates for Mother's Day which supports farmers in the West Bank and 50% of the profits go to supporting aid for Gazan kids)
Glad you’re feeling better. Food poisoning is the worst.
I definitely feel the guilt and sense of dystopia and injustice hard and think of Gaza several times a day. But I’ve realised a lot of my guilt and shame spirals were being specifically triggered by non-Palestinians on Instagram making me feel like I should be doing more and that if I’m not heartbroken and miserable 24/7 I don’t care.
As such, I’ve started implementing specific boundaries around social media. 30 mins to keep up to date, and be aware of actions, and then I log off.
I then do more offline- and am subscribed to email for Palestine Solidarity etc to keep aware of new actions. I’ve found that’s helped me keep so much more regulated and charged to keep going.
Plus, someone wise once told me, joy is resistance for anyone switched on to social justice of any description, and in finding joy for ourselves, we can use that to strengthen our resolve to fight for joy for everyone.
Thank you for bringing some of that joy to us ❤️