The Crash Was Scheduled. I Just Forgot to Pack Snacks.
Scarborough. I miss Scarborough.
The waves. The seagulls. The ridiculously steep cobblestone streets. It’s been two weeks since I came back from England.
The week after the festival was a frenzy. Post-Fortress madness.
Laundry, obviously. (So much laundry.)
But also photos. So many photos. Editing. Writing. More writing. I was feral. Creating like a maniac. Still burning. Still carried by the echoes of Fortress. The music, the people, the chaos. It hadn’t left my body yet.
I was riding the wave.
Exhausted, elated, consumed—and loving every second of it.
But now?
The wave is gone.
The waters have settled. Not even a ripple left.
And I am not okay.
Suddenly Everything Tastes Like Cardboard
For one blistering, euphoric weekend, I was the version of myself I daydream about when I’m unloading the dishwasher.
Fortress Festival was everything. It was chaos, distortion, purpose. It was the life I sometimes fantasise about when my real one feels too small—too polite, too beige, too neatly folded. And I mean really fantasise. What if I just packed a suitcase, got in a taxi to the airport, and let that version of me take over? No PTA meetings. No carefully portioned leftovers. Just sound. Just fire. Just feeling alive again.
But that’s not how it works, is it?
I’ve been here before.
After every high comes the crash. After every perfect moment comes the creeping fog.
It’s not new. It’s just—worse lately.
Fortress Festival didn’t just raise me up. It carved something out.
It left a crater—and depression moved in like it owns the place. Brought its suitcase. Rearranged the furniture. Unpacked its little black flags and draped them over everything while humming a soundless tune.
And now I’m here. In my lovely, chosen life. With people I love.
And all I can think about is how empty it feels.
Sometimes You Need a Friend Who Calls Bullshit and Passes the Salad
I had a visit from a friend last weekend. Diana.
You know her already, if you read the Ville Valo piece.
Di, you’re becoming a recurring character.
Which, frankly, is your own fault for being relentlessly insightful in the middle of my spirals.
She brought her kid. We did the summer mum thing: went to the outdoor pool first and later that evening we sat on my patio, sipping Andalö Spritz and eating a freaking salad while the kids demolished chips with way too much curry ketchup.
We were mothers together. Adult-ish.
And somewhere between “pass me the bread” and “don’t run with that stick,” I told her everything.
Not just the post-Fortress crash. The whole thing. The entire slow-motion car wreck of the past few months.
Like the time I convinced myself that exchanging flirty, vaguely dirty messages with a DSBM frontman might be a good idea. He sent me hot tub selfies with captions like “would you sit on my lap?” — and I, idiot that I am, opened that during a Teams meeting and nearly combusted. Sitting there, blinking at my laptop, thinking: how is this my life right now?
But honestly? I loved it.
The drama. The feeling. The attraction. The illusion that I was desirable and chaotic and still alive.
Until I had to explain it to my husband.
I’ve never wanted to crawl out of my skin more than I did in that moment.
God bless him for not bursting out laughing. Or filing for divorce.
And then—somewhere in that same mess—I thought I found a soulmate.
I didn’t.
My friend listened. And then—she did what only good friends are able to do. She pointed out the obvious.
Two Hearts, One Existential Crisis
Fact is: I’ve always been this way.
This isn’t some shocking midlife spiral. This isn’t a departure.
This is the pattern. The rhythm. The way I’ve always lived.
I was the girl in a Marilyn Manson shirt that read “This is your world in which we grow and we will grow to hate you” while pushing a pram as an au pair through a Dublin suburb.
But—I was also the first of our group to settle down.
The first to get married.
The first to build a house in the countryside and immediately learn that homeownership does not, in fact, cure depression.
For years, this other part of me went quiet.
She was busy.
Busy raising two children.
Busy pretending I gave a shit about organic lunchboxes.
Busy trying to pass for someone I never was.
I went through the motions—but I always felt like I was failing some unspoken test.
And it drained me.
Bit by bit. Smile by forced smile.
Until I didn’t feel like a person anymore—just a paper cut-out version of someone who was supposed to have it all together.
Thank fuck the other part finally decided enough was enough.
She'd let the civil version of me run the show, but at some point, she stood up, crashed a bottle of wine onto the kitchen table, and went: “Alright, girl. Let’s put on some Manson.”
It started harmless.
And escalated fast.
The words came first. Then the photos. Then the overwhelming need to create things that scream and bite and burn.
Not as a hobby. Not as a side project.
As a lifeline.
The version of me that thrives on noise and chaos and feeling too much?
She’s not just back.
She’s taken up residence.
Pacing the floors. Slamming doors. Demanding more.
She wants the drama. The fire. The screaming catharsis.
And when she doesn’t get it—when life goes quiet again—she sulks.
Gets irritable. Depressed. Starts kicking over furniture in my head.
Meanwhile, the other part of me—the stable one, the quiet one—just clears her throat from the corner sometimes and mutters: “Sit the fuck down. You’re scaring the children.”
It’s not balance.
It’s a negotiation.
A constant turf war between survival and spectacle.
But they’re both me.
Two hearts. Same chest.
One trying to hold it together.
One trying to set it all on fire just to see what burns.
It’s not tidy.
It’s a goddamn standoff.
The Quiet That Keeps Me From Exploding
And this is where my friend comes back in. Because she reminded me that while I keep chasing the highs, the festivals, the crushes, the drunken inspiration binges, the intensity, the adrenaline, the moments that make me remember what it feels like to burn—there is something I keep forgetting.
I need the chaos to remember I'm still alive—but that chaos only means something because there's a baseline underneath it. A pulse. A home frequency.
Without it, there wouldn’t be spikes. Just static. Or worse—endless screaming that stops feeling like anything at all.
And the baseline is this life.
The family. The stability. The routines. The warm pasta. The slightly too-loud children. My husband who watches me spiral with mild concern and still brings me coffee without comment.
I forget, because it’s quiet.
And I’m so bad at noticing quiet things.
But it’s there. Always. Keeping me from dissolving completely.
The highs light me up. But the baseline keeps me here.
I Still Miss Scarborough
So maybe this isn’t a midlife crisis after all.
Maybe this is just how I’m wired.
Maybe this is what it means to be a creative with a mortgage, two children, and a Spotify algorithm that can’t decide between Existential Despair Doom and Rainy Mood Lo-Fi for Mums.
Some days I want to burn it all down.
Some days I want to keep it exactly as it is and cry anyway.
Both are true.
Both are mine.
I still miss Scarborough.
The salt in the air. The noise of the gulls. The space to think. The illusion of escape.
There are moments where I wish I could just disappear into this other version of myself.
But I don't. I come back. I always come back.
That doesn’t make me broken. That just makes me real.
If you’re like me—full-time grown-up, part-time meltdown—
the highs don’t mean the baseline failed.
The crash isn’t proof you were faking it.
You’re just trying to live in stereo, and sometimes your left speaker screams while your right one makes soup.
Let it be messy.
Let it hurt.
Let it sing.
And maybe don’t trust any life advice that doesn’t come with both earplugs and a kettle.