This is a legacy blog post, originally from my previous website, Mouse House Blog. To see more MHB posts, check out the MHB tag here on my blog.
2017 has been a strange, intense, unexpected year. I think that I, like many people, didn’t really know what was ahead of me coming in – the end of 2016 was so bizarre and confusing and uncertain that I had no clue what direction the world or my life would go next. I also think it’s fair to say that the first half of 2017 was part of the worst year of my life. (When you’re a student, ‘a year’ might mean January-December, or it might mean September-April. The latter is often more meaningful, because the school year has some kind of actual connecting thread, unlike the arbitrariness of a calendar.) For me, the last school year (or even a bit more – August-June, maybe) was the worst year on record. I was badly depressed and coping poorly with a lot of chaos in my life, something I’ve written about before.
However, despite my struggles and the general state of the world, 2017 also contained a lot of happy moments, and important ones. I want to take a minute to reflect on how much my life has changed this year, and how much good has come my way.
Broadly, this year has had countless great days. Hours upon hours spent with my friends, who mean the world to me – parties, summer festivals, movies, and perhaps my favourite of all, post-party hungover brunches. I’ve also made new friends in completely unexpected places. I survived multiple different jobs. I’ve grown, I’ve learned, I’ve reached my lowest point and begun the climb back up. I feel like I emerged from a chrysalis this year, discovering a new and unexpected iteration of myself.
In January I began my love affair with the TV show The Librarians, and my obsession with it (which, at the time, was largely a result of my depression and my need to latch onto something to keep me afloat) launched me full-throttle back into the world of fanfiction. I’ve had a back-and-forth relationship with fanfic since I was about 13, but in the last few years I’ve tried to maintain a policy of writing anything that I had the inspiration and motivation to write, even if it was really silly fic. I took that particularly seriously this year, which is part of how I have maintained the most amazing writing streak of my life: I have written something every single day since January 22nd of this year. And that’s not including schoolwork or tumblr posts or anything – that’s all personal work. Fanfiction, original fiction, story development notes, blog posts, even occasional journal entries when I needed to get some thoughts out of my head. Things I wanted to be writing, things I was writing just for myself. Fanfic has also brought me to some wonderful new places this year, but I’ll come back to that.
By and large, February was uneventful aside from a few good days with friends. I was at a very low place at that time, but I’m grateful to look back and see that I did get to spend time with friends at least once a week.
March brought a few new things. I fell in love with Canadian comedy show Letterkenny, which continues to bring me unfettered joy on the dullest days. I also began my second hardcore obsession of the year – one of my favourite feel-good cheesy movies, the Disney Channel Original Lemonade Mouth. I popped it in one day near the end of February as a pick-me-up and fell in headfirst. I wrote over fifty thousand words in fanfiction for LM in March alone. It was one of the most productive months of the year, writing-wise. My love for LM also led me to finally listening to Hayley Kiyoko’s music (she’s one of the film’s stars), which I’d meant to do for years, and I loved it! By chance, she had a show coming up in Toronto, and I was able to go with my then-boyfriend. So all of this led me to March 28th, one of the most important days of the year. Not only did Hayley put on a killer show that I would go see again in a heartbeat (come back to Toronto, Hayley, we love you!) but she also brought to my attention a little band called flor.
18 Likes, 3 Comments - Courtney Myrden (@microsuedemouse) on Instagram: "So it was really hard to get pictures (the cluster of tall people directly in front of me did NOT..."
I had never heard of flor before they opened for Hayley that night, but I fell in love instantly. The next day I looked up their music on Spotify, and even though all they had out was one EP and a couple of singles, I was hooked. I followed them on Twitter and Instagram. I started to listen to them pretty much every day. And I haven’t stopped since.
I’ve written about the importance of flor to me more than once. But I might never stop. Since March they’ve been pretty much the centre of my universe, and they’ll come up again and again for the rest of this recap. I hope you’re ready.
April passed, and I survived the end of the semester and the school year, against all odds. I had a lovely Easter, partied with my friends, and saw Power Rangers with my brother and two dear friends (a stand-out evening when I look back at the year). I hung out with family. I relaxed, which I badly needed.
May, though – May was a hell of a month. I attended TCAF with one of my best friends, and celebrated Victoria Day with most of my friends. May 2-4 is one of my favourite days of the year, because we all get together for fireworks (one of my favourite things in the world) and have a great time and it’s kind of the official beginning of the summer for us. We also all got together to mess around with a few friends’ new Nintendo Switches one night, which was really fun. I went into Toronto with two good friends to see the Welcome To Night Vale live show All Hail, which was a fantastic night. But May 19th was really one of the best days of the month: that was the day that 1) flor put out their debut album, and 2) my family got a third cat.
22 Likes, 2 Comments - Courtney Myrden (@microsuedemouse) on Instagram: "welcome home little explorer girl 💞"
Let’s talk about the kitten first. Smudge was… kind of a snowballed accident, in a way. I saw a Facebook post from a local shelter that they had some Siamese kittens in, and joked to my mom about getting one for my dad for Father’s Day – he’s incredibly hard to buy for, and also grew up with Siamese cats. He loves them to death but we haven’t had any since the ones I grew up with passed away when I was about eleven. At first my mom gave me a hard time about it – “we can’t have a third cat!” – but the more we considered it, the better it sounded. After all, our pets have gotten us through a lot in the last few years. We actually ended up adopting through a different agency, and Smudge is only half Siamese, but you wouldn’t know it to look at her. We drove as a family out to the pet store where she and her siblings were waiting to be adopted, with only my dad not knowing what was going on, and we let him choose the kitten he wanted. It was tough to pick between Smudge – then named Clementine – and her brother Jasper, but my dad has always had female Siamese, and liked the idea of having a female cat again.
Smudge is one hell of a cat. We had to treat her for a parasite soon after bringing her home, and she still doesn’t always like to use the litter box. She is the living embodiment of ‘ignorance is bliss’: remarkably stupid but incredibly happy. She’s outrageously cute, and a being of absolute chaos. One of our other cats – Louie – took months to warm up to her. But she’s been worth it all. We adore her.
The debut flor album, come out. you’re hiding, was the other thing that happened on May 19th. I love this album with my whole heart. Every song resonates so much with me, and the album has inspired one of the most meaningful original writing projects I’ve worked on in years, which is still ongoing. With the release of the album came flor’s album tour, which came to Toronto on May 31st… probably the best day of 2017.
I’ve written about it before – both the night itself and the lasting impact it had on me – so I’ll try not to talk too much about it this time. But going to that tiny show for this band I love so much, standing just shy of the very front of the crowd and letting myself drown in the music that I had made my lifeline, and actually getting to speak for a few minutes with Zach Grace (actual, real-life angel) afterwards was vital. Those couple of hours in a basement venue in Toronto were life-changing. They made me feel whole and human and like myself again for the first time in months, and that was the feeling I held onto, the feeling I remembered and strove to recover when I finally started to treat my depression properly. That night was everything to me.
13 Likes, 0 Comments - Courtney Myrden (@microsuedemouse) on Instagram: "Taking pictures is hard but uh, seeing @flor again and meeting @zachwgrace changed everything..."
June brought great things too. Wonder Woman came crashing into all of our lives. My best friend came home from Vancouver. Ribfest came to town, which I always badger all of my friends into attending with me. I saw Arkells and July Talk perform an incredible concert, with some great friends. And I fell into my next media obsession for the year (though flor has remained dominant) – guilty-pleasure animated web series Camp Camp, created by Rooster Teeth. It’s an awful cartoon and I love it in spite of myself. I also spent June and July writing huge amounts of fanfiction for it – and to my surprise, I exploded in the fandom. I’ve made several friends through CC, and dozens of fans who gush over my fanfiction and encourage me constantly. It’s incredibly validating as a writer to have people respond so positively to my work! I’m incredibly lucky and incredibly grateful for this community.
July brought Canada Day (more fireworks!), long late-night discussions with my brother, Spider-Man: Homecoming, art crawls, flea markets, hikes, day trips, new Letterkenny, and so many fantastic days with dear friends. It was my most productive month writing-wise, with a grand total of 52 118 words. It also brought the decision to begin treating my depression with an increase in my medication – I was already taking a small dose of antidepressants for anxiety. It took a while for the changes to take effect, but the difference since has been huge. It’s enabled me to take other steps towards bettering my health – eating better, getting more activity, etc. – and while it’s all an uphill battle, and there are still bad days, I’m doing so much better. I’m incredibly grateful.
August was, according to the mood tracker in my journal, an overall wonderful month. I spent whole days with my closest friends. I listened to hours of excellent podcasts. I took my first experimental forays into drinking a little, with the guidance of dear friends, and so far it’s been kind of fun. I continued to write successful fanfic. I enjoyed the solar eclipse with my family and a great art crawl with friends, and at the end of the month our annual Friend Camping Trip – a tradition I adore – was an incredible success.
12 Likes, 0 Comments - Courtney Myrden (@microsuedemouse) on Instagram: "Cute! Cute! Cute!"
September was a bit strange. Everyone was going back to school while I took the semester off. I had to say goodbye to my best friend when she went back to Vancouver, and I was incredibly sick during Supercrawl, one of my favourite weekends of the year. But on the upside, I enjoyed Fan Expo with great company. I got back into pixel art, which has been a lot of fun. I started to make friends with other flor fans on Twitter, where I’ve found a wonderful community of delightful people, some of whom I’m now very close to. I got diagnosed with ADHD, which makes sense of a lot of things, and I got hired as an outdoor cashier at a local orchard and farm – a job which I genuinely really enjoyed through its completion at the end of October.
October brought with it my official breakup with my boyfriend, after a break that lasted a couple months. At first glance, that seems like a bad thing, and it kind of did suck – but it was also a more or less mutual decision. Coming out the other side of my depression I was discovering a lot of change in myself, and the relationship no longer suited me the way it had before. My ex and I remain friends pretty successfully, and I feel good about being single right now. That aside? I enjoyed my job, read a lot of great stories, watched good cartoons, went to see some Youtubers I like on tour with my brother and a good friend and his brother (a fantastic night), and dressed as Marty McFly for Halloween.
13 Likes, 0 Comments - Courtney Myrden (@microsuedemouse) on Instagram: "this is heavy, Doc."
November came with a new job working in retail for the holiday season. I enjoyed this considerably less than the farm, but I did well at it, and made some unexpected friends. I read and watched some more great stories (Stranger Things, you guys!) and celebrated my birthday with my wonderful friends. I also successfully kept up with NaNoWriMo – remember that story inspired by flor? It’s now over 50k words long! Also, flor announced their first-ever headlining tour, which comes to Toronto on February 14th – I bought my ticket the moment the presale went up, and I cannot wait. The month had a couple of rough spots but by and large it was a really good time.
And that brings us to December. In spite of retail hell, I made it through the holiday season. My best friend is home again. My Christmas was lovely. I have a bunch of new friendships – both online and in person – that have brought me a lot of joy. I’ve enjoyed good fiction, written a lot, seen my friends. I’m preparing to go back to school for my final semester in a few days, but I plan to make the most of my last few days of freedom, and even with school on the horizon I have a lot to look forward to right now. At least for January and February, I’m really excited for what’s to come.
17 Likes, 6 Comments - Courtney Myrden (@microsuedemouse) on Instagram: "I wanted to experiment with muted colours and tiny canvases, and friends are the best guinea pigs,..."
I feel like I’ve changed a lot recently. Particularly since beginning my recovery from depression I’ve uncovered a lot of sides of me that I didn’t know about before. I don’t know when they developed – whether it was during my recovery, or before that, somewhere under many layers of Bad Things, but I feel different. Lately I’m a little more confident. As I mentioned before, I’ve started drinking a little, when I previously had no interest. I might ask my dad to take another crack at teaching me to drive this spring. I feel a bit more capable of doing things alone sometimes (I’m going to the flor concert alone in February, despite being intimidated by Toronto. I might meet up with another fan I know when I get there, but still). I want, more than I’ve ever wanted before, to travel and see new places, and I feel like I might even be able to do it without my whole family coming with me – I’ve never felt that before. I’ve hatched a new, slightly stronger Courtney from everything I’ve been through in the last few years, and I’m interested in seeing what she can do.
I’m spending New Year’s Eve tonight with most of my dearest friends, and I can’t wait. Ringing in the new year with them the last few years has been amazing, and they have yet to let me down. 2017 has been challenging and sad and hopeful and surprising and up and down but right this moment I see a lot of good ahead of me, and I’m going straight for it. I’m really going to work to get the most out of 2018. I hope it brings all of us unexpected joys and successes.
I’ll see you there.