Summer Letters 3: Hi from Home

Social Takeout

Holden Madagame Insta

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Dear Jeremie

Amsterdam sounds like a fun time. I’ve never been. I was supposed to go for a concert tour but it was canceled. Can’t wait to visit some time.

I on the other hand am on the couch in the construction zone that is my apartment with a summer cold. Everything is terrible.

It’s mostly fine just I don’t like being sick.

I am looking forward to a few concerts in the next couple of weeks and then my birthday!

How is dating going? Tell us all your business!

Dear friends,

Currently I'm sitting in a castle in Baden-Württemberg writing to you. I have a multi-vitamin juice next to me, and there is a dead bug on the window sill. I want to move it but I'm a little grossed out by bugs. In the other room there is a musical theater rehearsal happening and they sounds really good. The choreographer is a total babe.

The show I'm doing right now was postponed due to the pandemic, and I feel extremely lucky to be able to do it again. I had a lot of social anxiety the first few weeks, and thought everyone hated me and thought I was weird, but at some point I figured out that we all had our shit going on. I'm doing Dr. Blind in 'Die Fledermaus', which is normally a very small role, but the director has me doing an 'alter ego' Blind where I party like a big ole Berlin gay in the second act. I'm LIVING for it.

About my pandemic though.

I've made decisions for my happiness before, but somehow have never understood that making those decisions is a continuous effort. There is no backlog of happiness big enough that does not require me to continue making stoic and responsible choices for myself.

I'm not only talking about small gestures of love for myself like buying the nice coffee from the third-wave queer coffee shop, or buying the not-on-sale fruit, but those are also included. I'm talking about the general mentality that I am worth feeding, clothing, keeping dry from the weather, sharing time with, having sex with, paying fairly, and putting a roof over.

Happiness is relative, and a completely other complex, but I also deserve to have the best chance at happiness, which wears prioritizing myself in ways that are terrifying to me.

During the the pandemic I had to make a lot of small and large choices. One of them was doing a coding course on loaned money, one of them was moving back to Berlin, one was buying furniture for my empty balcony, and a new washing machine with help from my mother.

Growing up Catholic (with a capital C) really makes you think you're not worth any of that, and when you realize your queer and trans, it has always made me feel like I need to play moral and emotional catchup. Like, I know that my charm, friendliness, and actual favors for people can make up for my existence, but I need to keep that at a Virgo level of perfection to make sure that I have the right to all of those basic necessities (food, water, etc.). If I make a petty comment, if I find myself judging someone else, or if I'm just in a fucking cranky mood, then it docks points off of my imaginary ex-Catholic game of 'Earn Your Existence'.

Anyway, the pandemic was actually a good time to reflect on a lot of this behavior in a meaningful and healthy way. Before the pandemic I would constantly let people walk over my boundaries, but when the boundary is tied directly into the World Health Organization standards in a pandemic, I have a bit of help.

Now that things are starting to open up, I feel like I can make decisions for myself. I'm not always confident, but my intuition is just a hairline better than it was before. I have a stable programming job which is giving financial security (something I haven't had since I was a teenager). This in and of itself gives me a huge amount of freedom (which also makes me angry at capitalism, but we're not going into that right now). It also allows me to orientate myself around certain standards. It sounds strange for people who haven't been artists, but having a 'normal' job requires me to raise my standards for myself. 30,000€ a year is suddenly very little in the capitalist world, but something I've literally never earned. I'm ecstatic to have so much money, but I also know it's on the low side for my job. Also having a job that pays this much when I've only just started doing it really turns my sense of self worth around. Like, I'm apparently worth AT LEAST this much money. In singing, I'm worth more, but because I know how the system works I won't expect that much, but to know that I'm worth more is powerful. To know that my literal time is worth anything at all actually is powerful.

I know I should know all of this, and I tell my friends this all the time, but somehow I'm only just understanding.

The pandemic has also given me a huge amount of clarity for what I want my short-term future to look like. I've always been terrible at imagining my future, but I had enough time that I could think, "If I could get a programming job to support myself while I do auditions and gigs for awhile, that would be fucking great." And that's what looks like is going to happen (or is already happening).

Even the basic fact that I love singing is something that surprised me. I shouldn't have been surprised, but after a few months of not singing at all (what I felt was a well deserved rest from auditions and hustling) I realized that I do in fact like singing. Not just hopping around on stage and screaming which is normally what my roles are like, but the actual singing. For the first time in awhile I had the desire to sing things beautifully and with meaning, rather than purely comedically and as a vessel for laughter. I really want to sing.

That's all for now. Love y'all, hope you're healthy and happy as one can be in a system which prioritizes money over happiness!

Love,

Holden