Childish Adult.

Not quite sure when it happened but I wasn’t ready for it. Not really. Not even if I was fab at pretending I actually was. One minute I was chasing my brother (or being chased) around the backyard, daydreaming imaginary worlds of awesomesauce and living my life according to parental-set guidelines. The next? I’m chasing money (and it chases me but not in a yay way), finding my imaginings to be a little terrifying and trundling along kinda helplessly without my training wheels. I’m not a complete hopeless case by any means but there is a whiff of train-wreck hovering nearby that requires a lot of neglectful ignoring and blissful diversion to keep at bay. I’m fine, sure, but I can’t shake the feeling that I went to bed a child and woke up a grown-up; that I slept through the part where I mature and learn stuff.

I know too that life is one big crazy hard journey that everyone travels and no single wacky trip is the same. You have to find your own way, face your own struggles, work out what, where or who you love and latch your groovy wagon to this making-it-up-as-we-go ride. No one really knows what to do, no one stops needing their parents or looking to others for inspiration, advice, assistance or companionship. I just find it so weird in my more reflective moods (which happen a lot cause I’m deep like that, yup) I recall with complete befuddlement my childish ideas of where I’d be in life by now, which boxes I’d have ticked and the sort of Lyn I’d be. Without seeming ungrateful; I fully acknowledge that I can look around at who, where, what and count my blessings. Wholeheartedly. But it doesn’t stop me shaking my head in wonder at the ten year old me or the seventeen year old me that thought she could look ahead and predict the winds the road would take. I miss the childish tendency to implicitly trust that things would fall into place. That naïve hope has been tempered by reality and becoming aware of that feels harsh and unfair. 

As a teacher, I see young people at many different stages in their childhood or adolescence and it strikes me on almost a daily basis that the reason I can relate to them (in some regards, anyway!) is because we were all fundamentally the same at those times in life. I feel a twinge of sympathy for those kids that seem so sure of what life holds in store for them but I’m not jaded enough to set them straight. Hard as it is, I guess that is growing up (or trying to anyway); always regulating your expectations, your view of the world, your perception of yourself so that you can still evolve into the most fantastic version of yourself despite well-laid plans not eventuating.

Captain Yawn-Face III.

I’m tired. Super tired. Big weekend, busy week, restless night, whatevs the cause… completely knackered. Funny thing is that it isn’t unusual. I feel fairly stuffed all the time. And I’m most certainly not alone in that – everyone just seems constantly exhausted nowadays.

I know of course that there are plenty of people busier than me, folks with professions more hectic than my old music teacher gig, individuals operating on zero alone time and adequate rest because they have kids to raise or family members to care for. I’m not looking to get into a competition over who has more cause to be a zombie (we’re all equally fatigued) because I recognise how fortunate I am to even have time to sit down and write this blog post unmolested by tantrums, never-ending deadlines or an overly active social life. It just seems a strange way for everyone to be trundling through life; surviving for the brief reprieve weekends offer (though they aren’t relaxing for all) or just doing whatever they can to get by until they can catch up on those elusive zzzz’s. Sometimes it feels as though my day consists solely of me doing stuff and counting down the hours until I’m crawling into bed again. I seem to wake up tired which just sucks. I honestly take my hat off to those of you managing to look after other people (whether young or old) because let’s be honest, I have days where I can barely take care of me. And I’m like an adult and stuff. Kinda. A bit.

It occurred to me recently that I wasn’t always this way. I vividly remember a period of time where I could run, chase, play, dance around and pester (mostly my brother) for hours. Having an enforced bed-time just seemed ludicrously unfair. Even through my schooling I seemed pretty energized; my body functioning on the normal-ish study/sleep cycle without too much hassle. Many, many occasions during my Uni days saw me out at gigs and whatnot, resolutely managing on only a few hours shut-eye the next day. But now? Over the hump of twenty-five and seemingly a Nanna already. I joke with people about this but it’s actually eerily accurate. I’m sure it will only increase too with everything slowing steadily as we age. I can’t even comprehend being more tired than I feel nowadays but of course understand that if even just one aspect of my life altered I’d miss this tiredness. So yeah, kudos to those of you dealing with so much and still chugging along. You’re amazing. AMAZING. And uh, apologies for the Lyn you all get saddled with when she’s yawn-facing her way through the day ‘cause she certainly isn’t a Happy Chappy then.

What are you sleeping patterns like? Do you wake up feeling super refreshed and ready to face the day with a smile?

The Self-Doubt Cloud.

Some mornings you just wake up and not like yourself much. Some nights you cry yourself to sleep agonizing over everything about you that isn’t awesomesauce. Its human nature. We constantly play the comparison game, the what-if, the wish-I-wasn’t-a-weirdo, the what-the-heck-am-I-doing-and-why-is-there-no-freaking-instruction-manual…you know, that old chestnut. Fortunately for most, these self-doubt clouds are temporary and as quickly shifting as Melbourne weather (if you’re not from Melbourne we joke that we sometimes get all four seasons in one day!) but there are times when the weighty oppression of these vapour-pillows of not-so-yay are just exhausting.

It can be impossible at times not to compare yourself to your peers (off being fab, travelling away, making babies, trundling along with their life partner, living in the house they bought with their own money {uh, like, seriously, how!?}) and notice all the little flags of blah marking your way. I can’t speak for all the musicians out there but I definitely feel like we’re pretty hard on ourselves in this respect. Women, too, in general. {Though of course I’m not trying to generalise about one particular race, gender, age or vocation -- we all feel pain the same} I love being a musician, a performer, a teacher. It fills me with such joy and purpose but even so, it also cloaks me in suffocating doubt. I am fortunate enough to be surrounded by some seriously amazingly talented musical folks and that’s great, just sometimes, super bewildering and terrifying. I could live for one hundred years and never know everything there is to know about music (and that’s okay) but it’s still enough to occasionally rob me of enthusiasm, ambition and positivity. Particularly when there are so many impressionable kidlets looking to you as their instructor for guidance and knowledge. It’s what probs scares me most about potentially being a Mumsie one day; how do you show someone else how to human when you can’t even manage yourself half the time?

I realise these visiting doubt bouts (see what I did there?) are not unique to me but I certainly feel that I’ve spent my entire life battling them, and will continue to do so for a long time to come, I’m sure. Doubting my worth, my cleverness, my abilities, my attractiveness… but I’m not alone in that. Everyone doubts. Everyone. What’s tragic too is that despite this feeling being universal, it is often the cause of so much drama between people. Instead of this united plight facilitating empathy and compassion, it often does the opposite; doubts, insecurities and fears saddle our day-to-day interactions. We become defensive or seek to make the other person feel inferior, we behave selfishly or act without gratitude and grace. I know when I feel a cloud coming on I tend to try too hard, over-compensate and just become pathetically desperate to prove myself. I’m not saying everyone should be spouting sunshine and daisies all the time, but a little perspective and understanding can go a long way to making the world around you way more spesh.