THE MAIN CHARACTER: Mundanity, Melancholy, & The Great American Mall

Summer England is an actor and self-proclaimed “awakward storyteller.” When she isn’t working, you can find her regaling her 220k (and counting) TikTok followers with her hilarious and endearing real-life encounters, creating beautiful and cozy art for her store or knitting her feelings.

“I don’t want to live a mundane life,” my sister said quietly over the phone.

We have been doing daily phone check-ins since her breakup. You know, the kind. The kind of breakup that leaves you feeling like the very marrow in your bones has been carved out and replaced with hollow listlessness. The kind of breakup that makes you realize writing a grocery list by yourself is the loneliest experience in your life thus far. The kind of breakup that results in you ditching your life, your job, and the home you loved to live with your parents – states away – just to regain some semblance of yourself before you were lost to time.

To love.

To vacancy.

(Perhaps you did not have the latter half of this breakup experience, but you catch my drift nonetheless.)

There my sister was, freshly heartbroken and edging close to the age where most of her friends were announcing their first house, second child, fifth dog, etc....and my sister? Well, she was covered up with the neon green bedspread of our childhood. Wiping away tears with a memory-ridden teddy bear that had taken part in one too many of our Mud-Pie Era tea parties.

I was in the midst of perusing the Spring wildflowers when she said it: “I don’t want to live a mundane life.” I stopped mid-pluck to let the sentence settle in.

My sister is an artist – and a good one at that – that lived in a whimsy-goth cottage in a small town. A town that frequently fronts magazines for the inherent “quaintness” that seeps through its cobblestones. She is known for her long, black hair and Irish blue eyes that had her customers at the local dive bar believing in love and life all over again. An orange tabby cat had recently pounced into her life, and she spent most evenings writing her own poetry by the light of her lava lamp with that cat – familiar, really – curled up by her slipper-clad feet. For all intents and purposes, she was living what many would call their “dream.”

“You could live in Paris and believe the same thing about yourself, ya know,” I said resolutely.

I was about to dig her out of this hole with my bare hands. I, as an older sister that fell into line with all of the older sister tropes, was about to go “Older Sister Mode” in a huge way. This was my final boss.

This was about to be the best pep talk a human would ever give to another human. Move over football coaches-turned-history-teachers. The older sister is here.

“What do you mean?” she asked tearily. With her inevitable sob just moments away and melancholy at an all-time high, my time was ticking.

“Your dreams eventually become your daily,” I said and awaited her response, “And your daily will eventually feel mundane sometimes.” Silence.

“If you could go back and tell your tiny self what you are doing now – even in heartbreak – it would give her hope,” I continued simply.

I knew this to be true. If each of us could sit our younger selves down, those lonely girls – who retreated to the forest for company when life became too sad – would be able to put one foot in front of the other with happiness rather than out of mere survival.

I heard a soft chuckle on the other end of the line.

“You’re right,” she murmured through a giggle and a sob. The half-and-half of the heartbreak drink, if you will.

It worked. Here I was, prepping to monologue on her life, but just a few sentences did the trick.

Her fear, though, was fair. This idea of Main Character Energy has permeated society (I love this for us, frankly), which consequently has saturated the way in which we view ourselves. Too often, we cast ourselves aside as the sub-characters to our own stories, assuming that we do not and could not possess the effervescent qualities of the infamous FMC. We are all, however, the Main Character.

How, you may ask?

Life, jobs, love, your favorite songs, late-night visits to snag greasy fast food, that one class in high school that you still remember, the smorgasbord smell of a food court in all its olfactory glory with zingy orange chicken, mustard pretzels, and the token smoothie place all in a row (before the sad death of the Great American Mall…I digress), surviving the post-college, early twenties purgatory. All of these seemingly mundane instances make up the fabric of your story. Common to you, a mosaic of art for others.

All of this to say, never forget that your story matters. Not only this but remember, people want to hear your story. Tell it and tell it proudly.

And for you?

You are the Main Character, whether you wish to be or not. Your story. Your life. Your Main Character Energy.

On some days, you’ll put the coffee on for the 109,708th time with the same plans you had the day before laid out before you again. Maybe you’re post-heartbreak, looking over at the empty part of a once-shared bed, sheets too neat for your taste. Maybe the job you worked years to land turns out, a few years in, to be another 40-hour-a-week routine, just like the others.

And maybe, just maybe, you will see how special that all is. For good, for bad, For exciting, for entirely mundane. It’s all yours. Keep those chapters going, Main Character. People want to read.