“I feel like self love is not something that’s linear. I think it doesn’t go from you not liking yourself to loving yourself and that’s it. Feel like I experience different love and hate for myself every day, multiple times a day. It’s an ongoing quest; it’s not a destination, it’s more about the journey. And, uh, yeah, I wrote this song when I was like, okay, I’ve gotta have something I can go back to and be like, this feeling, remember this feeling, so this song is called Be With Me.” (girli, 2024).
Recently, I had the pleasure of interviewing girli (available on KPSU’s youtube channel). She’s passionate, truly a born artist. Afterwards, she was so lovely and invited me to her show at Holocene, and it was such a special time.
The intimate venue meant me and several lucky others were up close and personal with her as she shared her journey of self love. Her stage presence is utterly bombastic; she posed for pictures while beautifully belting about her experience with healing after heartbreak. Her concert featured several songs from her new album, Matriarchy, a self love gummy vitamin.
Girli herself says, “Matriarchy is an album of honest, authentic, confident but also painfully self-aware songs. It’s a story of the pain of growing up and healing from experiences that diminish your self worth to nothingness. It’s about building yourself back up again after pain, setting boundaries and becoming a queen of your own queendom. It’s about the pain and joy of the queer experience, the rollercoaster of adulthood and mental illness, setting boundaries and learning to love yourself and ultimately finding your people, your community, your matriarchy.” (girli, 2024).
It was honestly such a special time and crowd, everyone was so nice and just happy to see and share their girli. Thank you girli, for coming to Portland and inviting me to see your show! It was so healing to hear about your journey and know that we are not alone.
