Time to Find Out

When I think about the last handful of years I feel a tremendous amount of gratitude (and fatigue). The exhaustion - mental, emotional, and physical - feels like a badge of accomplishment. Not just as a musician, or writer, or creator, but as a person. I moved back to Canada, got married, survived (and often thrived) through a Pandemic. I celebrated nine years with Sofia and can honestly say I am having the best time with her even after all these years. I’m learning so much as I near the ten-year mark about commitment and collaboration and compromise. I got my first dog, Georgia, and she was reactive, and it was hard and now she’s basically my best friend and I can’t imagine my life without her. These past four years with her I have learned so much about dogs, but also about myself and my anxiety and that’s been crucial to my growth as a person. I hope in the last few years I became a better listener; I have been trying. I hope I became a better friend, that too I am working on. I explored, and toiled, took risks and huge leaps with my art. I hope that means I’m getting better at that too. Managed to get myself off a major label, make an album for an indie and retain ownership of that album - the first time since our teens. We toured economically in a new era where inflation and cost are derailing a lot of artists at our level. We released a couple graphic novels, a memoir, made a TV show, and figured out how to tell a story we hadn’t wanted to tell in a documentary for Hulu. It was a lot. Even for us. I also ate better, and worked out more, slept better and read a wider variety of books on a wider range of topics. I learned to let go in a lot of situations I'd always held on to things too tightly.

Age is a funny thing, something I've talked about a little here on Substack. There is no denying that some of the letting go and changes I've made are a direct result of getting older and reprioritizing what matters. As time passes, and I see less years ahead than behind, I have stopped asking myself what other people want, what other people expect of me, what might make other people happy a hell of a lot less than I did in my first two decades as an adult. It's cliché, but I suppose that's part of getting older too, not giving a shit that you are a cliché as you age.

As I look to 2025, I am committed to not using social media. Not for "Tegan and Sara" but also not for myself. The apps – which have mostly been gone from my life these past few years – will remain gone. Not posting is one thing. Not scrolling is another. And I've decided not posting and not scrolling will give me more time with friends, family, Sofia, Georgia, and most of all myself. The contrast and compare culture of social media creates nastiness, and negativity in us all. But most of all it creates doubt. I don't want to spend 2025 watching other people post. I want to watch people live. IRL. And I definitely don't want to spend it doubting myself. It's certainly not a judgement of any of you, or anyone at all who might use social media. Just like exercise, sleep, friends, love, food, alcohol, etc., what we choose to put in our bodies, or our lives, is a personal choice, driven by our own needs and instincts and desires. I just don't have the need or instinct or desire for social media or any of the side effects anymore.

There’s a lot of debate about if we should keep doing Substack in 2025. Sara is of the mind that she will still do it, when she feels like it. I have been more black and white about it. If I am signing off social media, then I should sign off from Substack too. I guess some part of me believes if I take a real break, a true break, from being "Tegan from Tegan and Sara" for a year or two I'll be back to full battery life for our return. Whenever that return happens. The temptation to have a proper cleanse and break from everything is tantalizing when I imagine the joy I'll feel at returning to it. I guess in the end I don't really know what will become of our Substack. Maybe I'll post, or maybe I won't. Maybe the break will be good for us both (you and me). But the spark to do Substack came from a genuine desire to connect with our audience without the toxicity of social media. To own our mailing list, to give our fans a place to connect with content we made without having to be fed ads or accounts they didn’t sign up to see on platforms deemed addictive and horrifically bad for us. I think we accomplished that. I Think We’re Alone Now has stayed true to its original intention, and it’s a place I like visiting. So we’ll see what happens. But I’m being transparent that for now, I don’t imagine posting regularly, if at all. But I’m so grateful to you all for being here. And I hope you stick around.

I am excited to explore and create and live a normal life for a while. I'm excited not to promote or sell anything for a while. I feel no shame that our life is a series of releases that keep us fed and our mortgages paid. I feel no negative feelings about the work we have made, or the work that goes into sharing it with the world. We've thrived for 25 years making art, built and sustained an ecosystem of artists and managers and lawyers and agents who have commissioned and benefited from this creative work. Nurtured an audience of people who found connection in that art and did everything we could to respect and honor that connection. We run a business, and I am proud of what we've built. But I also think everyone – me included – would benefit from a break from the endless cycle of releases. I know it's very opposite to the new world order in music. The constant waterfalling of singles and photos, tour dates and merch drops is staggering compared to even a handful of years ago. There used to be an end to a record cycle, now it all bleeds together. Like a school year with no summer. A roller coaster with endless loops and drops. It's time to get off the track, see what grows in the absence of constant pressure to make and release art. I hope whatever art we do make is art that is meaningful, first and foremost to me, but also to you. But if at the end of 2025 there is nothing more than just a year of memories of living life, that is fine with me too. My life is about more than what I make. At least that's what I tell myself. Time to find out if that's true.

Be well. And Happy New Year, Loners.

Tegan