Aurora Kelly

Three day weekends are usually cause for excitement. However, I have a sneaking suspicion that this one is going to be…. rough.

Last night I decided to watch Bo Burnham’s Inside, wanting something as dark and varied as my thoughts. The first time I watched it, I remembered being so viscerally uncomfortable. I had just watched a man’s journey through depression up close and personal. Or did I? Each subsequent rewatch has made Bo rise in my esteem and my certainty waver. How much is acting? How much is raw? Even the outtakes make discerning that complicated. I would love to one day read the ten+ page papers that will be written about it, confident that my own analysis would pale in comparison to those with the motivation to actually do it.

Inside was the right choice. I feel better about somethings and worse about others, but reassured that there’s more to come on both sides as there always has been. That’s life and I’m here until I’m not.

I have some nebulous ideas of what I want to accomplish this weekend. A veritable mountain of laundry. Some winter proofing before the temps drop next week. And I’ll have to shovel tomorrow as we’re forecast to get about 6″ of snow. And I want to write. And read. And relearn what I do with my decision paralysis in the days before the answer was endless scrolling.

It’s going to be difficult to not see what’s coming as a regression. Yes, globally, but right now I just mean for me. Life before I had social media beyond family access. Relearning how to enjoy things when I can’t share them with the world. I know the person I was in 2019 and I don’t want to be her anymore. I envy her ignorance but I revile it at the same time. That ignorance stems from privilege. It’s so tempting to take this as an opportunity to bury my head in the sand again. But I couldn’t face myself anymore if I did. Ignorance is bliss and knowledge is… whatever the hell this is.