Can Fix You Fix Me?

My power's out and while I have tasks I arguably could be doing, I am instead focused on something else:

Coldplay's "Fix You" (featured in the "Songs of the OC" entry of the My Favorite Century playlist).

One day in early January, I was out on a walk when I decided to send a group chat a video of me singing "Fix You" at the top of my lungs. There was a silent peace to Minneapolis in the snow that made me want to belt out:

Lights will guide you home / And ignite your bones / And I will try to fix you

At the time, this was a funny (to me) bit, and so I coined it "The Sing Fix You Every Day of 2026 Challenge."

What if this movement swept the nation like the Ice Bucket Challenge, or when you had to make people chug Smirnoff Ices? This could be that, but musically.

I think I made it two days into the endeavor before Minneapolis sort of full-on turned into a hellscape.

Suddenly, singing "Fix You" in an attempt to bring whimsy and levity back into people's lives seemed out of place.

I won't recap all of what happened because most of you already know, remember, or are looking forward to reading about it in Governor Tim Walz's upcoming book.

Instead of singing about the tears running down your face, there were tears running down my face. Okay, not actually. But spiritually, things were fucked.

This is not to say that I am above crying in some macho way. I cried at the end of the recent Wuthering Heights remake for reasons I can't really explain — it's just that masked ICE agents and their stormtrooper tactics wasn't "I need to cry" sad, but more like "is this the end?" terrifying.

I wrote about my feelings but was so afraid of receiving any attention, for fear that publishing and promoting some simple blog post would be enough to turn the attention of ICE agents on our house like the Eye of Sauron.

If you blog about something but no one reads it, did it even happen?

In my case, yes.

Writing simply helps me process things.

If you want to check out the anxiety I was rocking instead of powering through with the Fix You Challenge, you can find those words here: Parenting While Scared

So then why are we back to Coldplay time?

Is the world better? Did something undeniably good happen?

Not exactly — but I mean, spring is here. Substantial snowfall is probably gone until early October. We made summer travel plans. These things collectively are worth celebrating, but none probably rise to the "get your phone out and pretend to sing Coldplay's 'Fix You' every day for a week" energy.

The most honest answer is probably that I needed something to pass the time since I deleted Twitter off my phone. The 5 a.m. wake up, roll over, check the feed for an hour — and then get in bed at 10 only to doom-scroll for an hour, with addictive "check Twitter in the middle of a client phone call" outbursts — needed to stop. When the big event that I feel like I need to be on Twitter for happens, I can redownload the app. I got a little too into conspiracy theories and spent too many hours reading random tweets about whether Benjamin Netanyahu had been assassinated and whether the videos he kept releasing were deepfakes.

I had to get out.

What's that they say about when one door closes?

And so here I am in my Reels Era.

The first time I considered doing a Reel was back in the fall when a friend of mine did a great Reel of Geese's "Taxes." (SHOUTOUT ZACH)

I had no idea how Reels worked. I knew how to put music over the top of a story, but I had no idea how to sync it over what I was doing — seemed complicated. I was not that motivated to look into it. I probably closed the app and opened Twitter to see if the Democrats had come up with a cogent message to use in the run-up to the midterms. But now, without the siren call of Twitter to lure me away, I explored the Instagram app and discovered just how to make it happen.

From there, picking my first song was EASY.

The "Sing Coldplay Every Day of 2026 Challenge" was BACK!

So far the movement hasn't gone national, and Chris Martin hasn't replied (granted, my Instagram is private) — but there's still time. Though I have basically reached the end of the song, so not sure what I'll do then.

A recent Instagram poll suggested I should keep going (second place in the poll was: MAKE IT STOP, so messages are mixed). I'm not sure where I go from here, but I wanted to at least type it out and let the people know what's happening — or more clearly, why it's happening.

Has Fix You fixed me? Jury’s out.
2025 was bad. 2026 got off to a rough start!
The last few weeks have been pretty okay, which I guess is a silver lining if you’re a half-full type of person. There’s no greater purpose to this challenge other than I thought it was funny, and there is a hint of engagement both rage-inducing and genuine ‘that made my day’ energy that dares me to push on.
Day 5 I even got the boys (and Duchess) involved.

If what they say is true — that everything is just content — why not make yours a little less serious?

What's your "Fix You"? Or more appropriately, what's your "Sing Fix You Every Day in 2026" challenge? What' would you do if you deleted Twitter, or cut whatever habit you wish you didn't waste so much time on?

I look forward to finding out.