There is a story of Madonna having her “Do I really want this?!” moment. It were the years before she had made it, and on top of the poverty, the endless hustling and the uncertainty of never knowing if YOU can really make it despite the odds, she had a really bad experience that would have been enough to discourage the bravest of us.

She stared at the wallpaper, horrified and fighting her racing thoughts, alone in her tiny room.
Perhaps it was even the cockroach infested one where she left the door open, because it had been forced open so many times, she chose to not lock it in the first place.

The whole night she pondered, she doubted, and she was well aware that this was the right moment to quit. To give up her dream.
Or did she really want to continue?
We know the answer.

And it was that story I was reminded of today.

I had woken up after way too little sleep, for the second night in a row. And I stared at the ceiling like Madonna had been staring at the wallpaper. Only I did give up on my dreams.
Due to a series of events, and none of them remotely as serious as what Madonna pushed through, I saw no other option than to bail out on a career, on fame, on anything that looked proper and together.
I was going to abandon it all.

I wouldn’t even bother to save the good parts, and instead I would delete all my accounts, my blogs, my videos, and THEN ask Google to forget my name.
The rest of my life I would mysteriously live under the radar and be a writer under this alterego, but without ever making a public appearance again.
We know the answer.
Because when after hours of staring and contemplating in which exact order I was going to kill off my entire online identity, I had put so many elements back in, I had my entire plan back!
Bar one or two elements. It really wasn’t that big of a difference, but because in my mind I had deleted it all, and had only put back the things I really didn’t want to let go of, it felt so much lighter!

So by the time I got out of bed, I felt incredibly joyful about my new life!

The darkest days of 2022 brought me the best breakthrough, that I really, really needed.

What the past week did teach me, was that I wasn’t ready. Just like Madonna must have been aware that she needed to get out of that hellhole and free herself from the misery that she could control, I spent the whole day cleaning my online life up.
And suddenly the things that I ve known needed to get done, some of them for years;
They suddenly, and perhaps unsurprisingly, got done.

And I knew it.
I got this.

~Lauren/LS Harteveld
An unexamined life is not worth living

since 2018 my official blog is: https://laurenharteveld.com/
Currently featuring my 1997 diary and letters to my coach Sara.

ABOUT TIME CAPSULES 

My time capsules are a written out collection of things that I have come into contact with, and that will influence my art.

The project is Inspired by Warhol, who created one time capsule (box) a month, collecting physical objects.

Time Capsules is a stand-alone project.
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