Indie Girl in a Chaotic World
By: Makayla Marrs
Without indie inspired evening vibes and facetime with close friends, what would the young Washington, DC resident Leah Pegg do with herself during this pandemic? In other words, with all the chaos in the world around us, we dive into what the life of Pegg, a Whittier College student, amounts to in the era of persistent tragedies, good music, curiosity, and her dreams for the future. Being a psych major, Pegg finds the brain to be so riveting and finds a deep connection involving family history and just being curious about how our minds run our lives.
“I just think the brain is so interesting you know? Like the way that certain people think, especially if it’s abnormal.”
In hopes of one day being able to practice as a therapist or counselor, Pegg is currently enrolled in psychology courses at school and since senior year of high school, she was amazed and fascinated by psychology and of how our minds work, how individuals vary differently based on their cognitive abilities and general makeup. “I remember pretty much almost every single topic that we went over and I think the most interesting part was this research project that we did, basically diagnosing certain people in history with disorders like serial killers”. Family and personal connections to psychology also add to the interest Pegg has in the subject. One meaningful experience can lead someone down the path they were meant to, and it was the personal connections and curiosities to disorders and watching the film, ‘A Beautiful Mind’ by John Nash, which led Pegg to admire and become curious about Psychology and all the possibilities it holds.
“The brain is just so powerful, it’s extremely powerful. Either like a manifestation of thought, good or bad it will become real. And we will see signs to make it believable. The mind runs our life in a way”-Pegg
When speaking to Pegg, she emphasized how interesting art therapy and forms of therapeutic experience resonates with people differently, especially if individuals struggle with mental disorders. Pegg, like millions of young adults in the world, battles with social anxiety and feels overwhelmed at times with the multitude of social pressures to be faced with on a daily basis including social media pressure. Depicting the perfect or “best” version of yourself is not one of the goals she strives for, in fact one of Pegg’s goals in life is to “be the very best version of myself”, truly a virtue she follows and eventually wants to gain that version of herself by attaining a personal goal of being comfortable and content with life while still travelling outside of her comfort zone.
In hopes to travel the world and gain worldly experiences, Pegg desires and needs in order to fill that sense of accomplishment of being the best version of herself, to gain the diverse and cultured experiences she will have by visiting different countries and little wonders around the globe independently or accompanied with her close friends.
Since COVID-19 struck the world by storm, there have been many parts of people’s lives that have changed, including Pegg. Living in DC, under strict conditions as it has been a hot spot and very problematic area during the pandemic for the past few months, Pegg finds herself spending quality time with herself, growing and doing activities that pertain to her interests.
A favorite and healthy recurring activity of Pegg’s is walking around at dusk through the area where she lives, listening to her favorite indie bands Arctic Monkeys, Wallows, and Goth Babe to set the perfect “evening vibe”. Listening to some of your favorite songs not only gives you the opportunity to feel those emotions you have been longing for ever since you were thinking about listening to the song in the first place, but also allows your mind to unwind while dealing with stressful and difficult times. Sometimes, music is at the perfect volume to drown out all of the literal and metaphorical noise in your life.
Overall, the quarantine process for Pegg has been a blend of calm personal nights and busy homework and Netflix-binging type of days where her world has been separated from the rest of us all, only connected by the powers of social media and facetime with her friends from out of state. In her home of DC, Pegg currently does not have any of her friends to hangout with as they are spread out from San Clemente to San Francisco and some in the back east. Thanks to an app called Bumble, Pegg has been able to reach out and make friends with people in her area that are in the same position where the possibility of making a new friend within a mile of you is possible. On the other hand, Pegg said that, “I cannot wait for all of us to be back on campus, and being able to meet people more organically” implying the longing and separation of unity and closeness with her friends from school has been long enough and Pegg can not be more excited to return to the old way of life.
