It's Okay To Take a Break

Hi! We’re interrupting this program to bring you me, Radium, your favourite chemical! And I am blessing y’all with my monthly blog! Today, we are taking it slow. So for all my perfectionists, my eternal anxiety-riddled Majesties and the procrastinators, this is for you! You may notice moving forward that my writing voice has changed. Don’t worry, I’ve been binge-watching What We Do In The Shadows. Once I finish it, everything should be fine and back to normal.

So, you may have noticed that we released Girls Like No Other then dipped. Though we did an Instagram livestream at the beginning of the month, we have been pretty radio silent. No new song, no cover, not much on social media except for a few stories and a fun little thing we put on Tiktok. We even scrapped some ideas like a vlog, signed by Anje. Basically, we’ve been on pause for a majority of the month.

Fret not, we have good reasons. August was just busy for us. Anje had a huge family trip right in the middle of the month; then work was just exhausting for her, as returning to the office after several days off is never easy. But I’ll let Anje tell the tale herself.

On my side of the Atlantic, I had a work trip that was fun, but also exhausting as hell. When I returned, work had started picking up, which is not surprising: summer is ending, September is on its way faster than taxes on my paycheques, and school is right behind it. I also decided to finish the first chapter of my thesis and work on a few scholarship applications for any future studies, God willing. Then, between all the adulting and some new responsibilities, I’ll admit that I also decided to finish Life Is Strange 2 (I was a mess for a good twenty-four hours), and play The Texas Chain Saw Massacre game with a few friends of mine. Overall, I worked as much as I played.

So, from a musical perspective, we have not been productive at all.

And you know what?

It’s completely fine.

I have been overwhelmed with all the work I have had to do, both in my professional, personal and student life. Anje has had to deal with her own responsibilities. I admit that I completely forgot that it was my turn to write this month’s blog, if not for her reminding me. I was just overwhelmed with work. Anje was supposed to release a vlog of her family holiday, but she couldn’t do it. And it’s completely okay!

I think that, as artists and as simple people in society, we always want to be productive. We always want to prove that we’re doing something with our time: working, studying, enjoying a hobby or working on a side hustle. We always want to be on the move. But it’s okay to take a break, to be doing nothing but sit down and chill.

Even if we hadn’t been so busy with other aspects of our lives, it would’ve been okay for us to look at August and say, “You know what? How about we chill this month?” And it reminded me of something I had mentioned to Anje when we rebooted the group into a duo: it’s okay to take our time with things. We used to stress and lose motivation over not feeling productive enough. Now, as two people, using simple tools like a calendar, meetings and going with the flow, we’ve been more productive in less than a year as two girls, than in four years as five girls! I’ll be honest, if I had to add music on top of the pile of things I had to do, I would’ve lost it.

So, people, it’s okay to take a break when you need one. I’m glad I didn’t stress over music this month; I was able to focus on finishing the first chapter of my thesis in just three weeks before going back to school, I had plenty of time to do some gaming, and even work on a new song (it took me thirty minutes and I was sleep-deprived)!

We’re definitely going to be back in the studio (aka, our respective microphones in our bedrooms) in September. We have the songs, the theme, now we need the voices and the plan. It might not be as elaborate as Girls Like No Other was, but I’ll go into details why another time, if it ends up being true. So, mark your calendars, this fall, you’re dreaming!

So, to end this, I hope you had a wonderful summer, Majesties! If you’re going back to school, I hope this year is filled with success, achieved dreams and the hopes of a bright future. If not, I hope whatever else you’re doing with your life is met with great success. We’ll see you in September!