What Really Matters

With Apologies To Rachel Maddow

May 16, 2026

Taking Stock :: For years now I have been an MSNow (formerly MSNBC) junkie. Rachel Maddow is my TV boyfriend, and I am in awe of the genius way in which she weaves the news like a tapestry and helps us understand why certain stories matter. I also love that she is an out lesbian who mentions her wife and covers stories of queer significance with frequency. When Maddow moved from five nights to just one a week, I wept openly. Chris Hayes has been a nightly sit-down must-watch, and I putz while Jen Psaki, Lawrence O’Donnell, and Stephanie Ruhle (if I’m still up) opine on the same stories the previous hour just covered. (And yes, I know this is all American news. I do eyeball Canadian politics, especially when Big Daddy Mark Carney is the headline, but I love a soap opera, and U.S. politics just serves up more.)

The month of May has brought a shift though, and I noticed it become concrete when the headlines this week became about Trump’s enormous, history-making heist to the tune of billions, as he sues the government — which he is in charge of — for an unimaginable sum of money because the IRS wasn’t more careful in guarding his tax intel. He is suing himself. Blah blah blah, I won’t go on — it’s a sickening story that turned me inside out. I was over the daily drama.

I turned the TV off. What would once have had me glued — or at least paying close attention with my ears as I folded laundry — was intolerable. I have reached my limit. So much so that I haven’t finished the last two episodes of Maddow. Yes, my dear Rachel.

I took yesterday off to enjoy a four-day weekend. I’m giving my bathroom a makeover, and painted it this gorgeous colour called Outer Space (see pic above.) As I edged, dabbed, and rolled, a podcast playing in the background, my mind and body in the zone, I thought: “This is what really matters.” That I was simply being, working on a project, experiencing pleasure.

While the first coat dried, I called someone who has been on my mind for weeks: my friend Arlene. I caught her in her car, travelling with her beloveds, 10 km from where she spends the summer, and we recalled something I won’t detail here but that had us cackling and howling to the point my ribs were sore. I told her about this weird phenomenon of not being able to cotton to the news right now, and she told me all she wanted to do was get to her summer place and get to gardening. She had artichoke plants in the back of her car; that’s what really mattered.

I had to take my boy Léo to the vet this week. He’s okay, a real trooper, but the vet team led him to another room to deal with what was ailing him, and my heart both raced and broke hearing the fear in his cries. But soon after, through the frosted-glass window of the room where I was waiting, I saw his silhouette pulling hard toward the door, into the room, and up onto me, licking me. That gorgeous beast loves me.

I am his safe person.

That’s what really matters.

I’m not saying world events don’t matter. That policies that affect us don’t matter.

My girlfriend Chrystyna’s sister, Daria, subscribes to this Substack, and wrote me back after my newsletter about being sextorted. Chrystyna was my first friend when I moved to Toronto in my early 20s, but despite the longevity of our friendship, Daria and I have only met a couple of times. I wrote her back and told her I remember holding her now-grown and married son, Andy, at a party, when he was an infant, a recollection that astonished her. Then I reminded her that she, Chrys, and I once went to see Peter Ustinov’s sensational one-man show and, in so doing, was transported back to my 20s, when everything was fresh, exciting, and new. That lovely nostalgia I manifested — the feeling eager anticipation imbuing my third decade alive — is what really matters.

My mum and I texted this week, as we do, and we talked a lot about my late father. He was also a writer, very gifted, and we remembered a photo he took that won an award. He had been visiting a prison for a story, and as he was leaving, a prisoner made his escape; my dad captured an image of the prisoner running for his freedom in that very moment. Remembering my dad, and honouring what a cool thing he accomplished that day, is what really matters.

Share Shaun Proulx

For weeks now, I’ve been recording my annual #SummerOfYes series to air on SiriusXM in July and August, and have already been planning my own yeses for Summer 2026: I want to try cupping; I have an art project I’m going to attempt; I’ve promised myself a trip to Toronto Islands — my city’s crown jewel, in my opinion — once a month from June through September. I’m sick of making it over to my happy place just once a summer, if that. These things are what really matter.

I’m not saying world events don’t matter. That policies that affect us don’t matter. That tariffs, Alberta, women’s bodily autonomy, queer hate, racism, corruption, that annoying pimple on a flea’s ass, Pierre Pollievre, all the things that ail us right now, don’t matter. But for some reason — blessedly — this month, what has given me sweet reprieve has been simple abundance, and the turning off of MSNow (for now; and besides, you can’t avoid the news, it’s everywhere) and focusing on myself, my needs, my mental health, and my joy. They are the things I’ve put on the back burner, taken for granted, or forgotten.

They are what really matter.

Shaun Proulx

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