COURTESY OF KAYLEE NGUYEN
Nguyen shares how scrapbooking helps her realize the small moments of joy and connection in her daily life.
COURTESY OF KAYLEE NGUYEN
Nguyen shares how scrapbooking helps her realize the small moments of joy and connection in her daily life.
I started therapy a couple of weeks ago (sorry, I know that I have a tendency to overshare in these articles). At one of our first appointments, my therapist asked me what I do for “fun.” In response, I just stared at her — jaw slacked, and eyes glossed over, like she just asked me to do cartwheels across the harbor.
“For fun?” I thought. Let’s see: I am a full-time student, I’m obsessed with research and I refresh my email like I’m collecting its rent. Honestly, “fun” seems more like going to the dentist than having hobbies without deadlines.
I wish that I could say that I hiked… or that I brew my own mead... or that I bake sourdough bread like that girl from Sidechat who started selling loaves for fun.
Say goodbye to Kaylee and hello to your favorite trash panda. I have an addiction to hoarding ticket stubs, CVS receipts, the cardboard sleeves from my Starbucks hot chocolate and wristbands from fraternity parties. I peel off every label and tape down such a ridiculous number of fortune cookie fortunes that I think I could write a novel of predictions with them.
My friends think I’m insane when I ask for their leftover cafe receipts and whip out my Polaroid at every given chance. I will physically chase someone down the hall for their ticket stubs that they were about to throw away and keep my eyes glued to the ground for hidden treasure because I refuse to let evidence that I am alive end up in a trashcan.
My favorite part about scrapbooking is being able to put parts of my life together in a way that I never would have thought could blend. From a ribbon found on the ground next to a gas pump back home to a lab safety sticker that I peeled off my goggles, my spreads have become prophecy, and my artistry has become a cross-examination.
In all honesty, it started because my brain loves to lie to me. Like my paper for my class on Margaret Atwood, it constantly edits out my efforts and spotlights my horrible mistakes. Depression has this really neat ability to delete my consciousness. It tells me that I didn’t do anything all day and that I didn’t try. It tells me that I’m unproductive and a burden to those around me because I couldn’t get out of bed to attend classes. Scrapbooking is thus my rebuttal.
Example 1: The receipt from the day that I bought groceries instead of skipping dinner.
Example 2: The photo booth strips from the day that I mustered up the strength to cover an event for The News-Letter in D.C.
Example 3: My torn-up doctor’s note from when I went to treat my strep throat instead of pretending that the problem would disappear.
So when I began putting these puzzle pieces of my life together as a job to come to terms with my crippling depression, it stopped being about perfection. My boyfriend is definitely getting sick of my gluing when I FaceTime him nightly, but I still lay out everything on the Bradford floor as if solving a murder where the victims were stickers. With each piece, I ask myself: Did I go outside? Did I answer my emails? Did I try to be happy today? I’ve accepted that I glue my mood into cardstock, even if other people track theirs in spreadsheets.
For me, scrapbooking has become the most important job I have. It’s not about creating something aesthetic, but about distracting myself from the narrative that I’m useless. It’s work for my existence — as bleak as that may sound — and clocking in Sunday nights is how I prove that I am still here.
Kaylee Nguyen is a sophomore majoring in Medicine, Science and the Humanities and Writing Seminars from Pensacola, Fla. She is a News & Features Editor for The News-Letter.