Lowlights: A note from 20 June 2022

19 Jul

At 11.32pm on Sunday evening after a weekend full of mixed emotions, I find myself thinking about Instagram photos instead of falling asleep. I haven’t posted any photos in a while and I’m wondering why. A few of my friends are asking and I’m ignoring the question, and the people-pleaser within me is wincing. Currently, I have several curated drafts and a camera roll full of incredibly special, aesthetically pleasing memories and they haven’t graced your phone screens. My apologies.

For many months I’ve been making Instagram posts of my sun-filled, salty summer. Several photo dumps of each month captured on film. There’s a post about going blonde, and realising how it’s been a defining moment in my journey of self expression. There’s a post about my last session with my therapist, after almost two-years of growing together. There are photos of matching tattoos I got with one of my best friends, that bring me more joy than I can articulate. There are photos of my work family sprawled across a pool table that would win ‘Best Team Ever’ photo comps. There’s a photo of my sister’s gorgeous wedding shoes that finally walked down the aisle after two COVID postponements.

Moments that I am incredibly proud of, life highlights that I never want to forget. Memories that I actually want to share with my friends and family so they can be reminded too. I want to plaster them all over the internet (well, my parts of the internet) so those versions of ourselves are immortal. And yet, they’re sitting on my phone, locked in an app. Locked in fingers that are unable to press ‘share’.

And at 11.43pm I start to realise why. All of these photos and videos I want to share are what you’d call highlights. But inextricably tied to these highlights are emotions that range from happiness to overwhelm, bliss to sadness, peace to anxiety, confidence to stress. I think about the word ‘highlight’, I think about the concept and I think about the thousands of Instagram bios declaring that “this is my highlight reel”, implying clearly telling us that there’s more than meets the eye. They show one perspective, one angle, one side of the moment and all of us scrollers accept that, maybe it’s easier to believe that sometimes. But mostly, I think about how therapy has taught me to embrace my whole self, and since learning this, how I struggle with conveying my multi-dimensional self through a one-dimensional screen. And it’s that train of thought that leads me to realise that the term highlight doesn’t deserve all my precious photos.

And then it’s 11.51pm and my brain rests on the opposing word: lowlight. So instead of leaving it there and sleeping, I explore it.

Low: I think about how much I have cried this weekend because I miss my friends and my Charlotte Street apartment because I’m displaced and living out of two suitcases in a new city. Light: I booked a £31 ticket to Wicked, four hours before the show, for myself, on a Saturday night. I think about how the tears signalled my loneliness, and this loneliness challenged my competitive self to gently cheer up. I think about solutions and settle on something very London, to remind myself why I moved here.

Low: the tube ride is stuffy and grimy as London is hungover from the three-day heatwave. Light: I get to make eyes at a puppy for all seven stops and when I leave the station I finally get the exit right first time. My £31 seat is exceptional value for the price. Then I’m so enchanted by the show, I’m injected with energy and inspiration, so I join the party that my boyfriend is at. Except after a 40-minute journey he accidentally sends me wading through the wrong pub which is terribly overcrowded with people well over my high-on-West-End-musical level, Ubers are hard to book, and when I eventually get to the right pub the doors are closed, the security guard won’t budge and he suggests I wait “over there” in the rain. Any high is now quickly draining into a low.

But the boyfriend and friend come out to find me, and the friend pleads his case to security. Meanwhile my eyes open like waterfalls and the tears come faster than the rain… Then I’m inside the bar, in another Uber and then we’re at a dancehall, grooving on a pink-flooded stage under a spinning disco ball, taking selfies in front of an illuminated rainbow. And at 12.02am as I’m typing this, I realise that the word deserving of my future Instagram posts, my unforgettable moments, my memories recorded and the ones yet to be lived: lowlight?

I wouldn’t have danced or gone to see Wicked alone on Saturday night if it weren’t for a Friday night spent sporadically crying whilst binge-watching Everything I Know About Love, eating my £3 quarter of a giant watermelon and washing it down with a cup of tea (don’t come at me for the hot-cold combo). Lowlights describe beauty born from breaking points. Bright learnings from hard feelings. They honour that behind every highlight there are a million more feelings entwined with the happiness they show. The term lowlight makes me feel comfortable that when I share a snap of myself smiling ear-to-ear next to the Tower Bridge, I remember how excited I am to be in this new city but also how much I yearn for the one I’ve just moved from.