34!
Another year, and I’m still brave (or stupid) enough to keep writing these posts.
A project I started when I was 21… well, at least there’s consistency.
It’s been the blurriest year so far.
Days and weeks strung together by hours of video calls, Slack and Zoom meetings, decisions that were postponed, indefinite lockdowns and hotel quarantines.
Thankfully the days were also interspersed with beautiful walks along the river, loud laughter to bad jokes, making new friends and quality family time.
The bulk of my 2021 days have just been about getting stuff done.
But it’s also been a year of wrestling with who I am and who I’d like to be.
I faced a severe burnout a few months ago, a complete fizzling out of nerve endings.
A lot of people suggested I take walks, slow down, enjoy some ‘me time’ etc. to recover. All great suggestions.
But I found that absolutely nothing helped until I forced myself to get to the very root of the problem.
Everything else was an escape, a welcome one, but also only temporary.
I’m trying to be less of an escapist as I grow older.
All my life I’ve had easy access to escape zones: a piano, a set of crayons, a blank page.
I’ve enjoyed the immunity that art and music has offered to me.
Immunity is necessary.
It allows us to protect and preserve our mindspace, creativity, identity.
But maybe that’s just the equivalent to living in a bubble.
Hmmm. Never gonna let go of my lovely little bubble.
The other day I saw a great big papad in my dream.
I woke up the next day and fried myself a great big papad.
Some dreams are so easy to make come true!
I rediscovered what it means to be a good friend in the last few months.
You can’t possibly be there for someone all the time but it’s worth trying ;)
I’ve been lucky to have the steady, unwavering presence of my best friend for more than half my life now.
It’s great knowing that someone’s always got your back.
Interesting things I heard this year from various people:
-“No need to say stay safe because we are always making safe choices in life. I like to say ‘be brave.’”
-“You’ve built so many fences in your head. Freedom is in your head too.”
-“Today I saw a guy riding a motorcycle without a helmet, driving on the wrong side of road, overtaking a bus from the right, but had a big mask on his face and cotton in ears and he says he's scared of coronavirus!”
-“It’s cool to be uncool sometimes.”
-“We define the reality we live in.”
-”Why do you feel guilty about thoughts in your head that have no bearing in the external world? Enjoy your fantasy.”
I woke up one day a few weeks ago and felt like going on a train somewhere.
So I did.
I took a train up to the east coast and sat near a river.
I watched curlews wade in the water and barn swallows catch insects in the air.
Birding continues to change my everyday life.
I love knowing that I just have to look up to find something awesome.
I told a friend I was going mad the other day. He replied that if I was sane enough to acknowledge it,I wasn't there yet.
I guess that’s oddly comforting?
Going for a swim almost every day has helped me stay sane.
I love swimming at my own pace in my own lane, knowing there are others ahead of me, knowing that others are taking over, but I’m still swimming and moving forward.
Okay no, I absolutely hate these annoyingly fast people, BAN these show-offs plz.
I skinny-dipped in a river for the first time this summer, impulsively, spontaneously.
It was so incredible.
You know those moments when life seems so worth living? And the world tells you it’s got a slot reserved just for you?
It was one of those moments.
I’ve been lucky to have plenty of those moments thrown my way.
I also swam in the sea “properly” for the first time.
The movie Jaws still haunts me: sometimes when I’m alone in the pool, I feel like a shark will emerge out of nowhere. I've graduated from thinking that sharks will emerge from the loo though, so I guess it's an improvement.
I love growing vegetables.
Cucumber flowers are simply so pretty.
I’d love to play bass guitar.
If I could do it all over again, I’d have a real, honest shot at music.
I love the idea of throwing myself into something with single-minded dedication.
Unfortunately I don’t think I can ever be happy with single-minded dedication to just one thing.
I can have single-minded dedication to many things perhaps?
My level of self-awareness has exponentially increased with age.
I used to think that I wasn’t a bold person, but when I look back I find enough proof of having demonstrated fearlessness.
I used to think that I was a bad decision-maker but when I look back I find that I’ve made some incredibly kickass decisions.
Woohoo I’m awesome.
I’ve been told that self-diagnosis is dangerous but at least helps boost ego in this case.
This year, I worked on a secret project in which I created sad and depressed comics: the antithesis of thetapcomics.
I called it the sink comics, upon the suggestion of a friend (“You’ve got the tap for the happy stuff, just put the sad stuff in the sink.”)
It’s worked very well in helping me stitch together dark cynical thoughts into some kind of coherent form.
Yes yes I do have a Dark Side. So there. Ha!
One day I will release it into the world to balance out all the sappy cutesy "happy" preachy motivational inspirational nonsense that I've unthinkingly contributed to
It’s really difficult to solve a problem when you’re in it.
You can’t really see it when you’re in it.
There is no greater feeling than the feeling of someone having placed their trust and confidence in you.
I spend 12 days in a hotel quarantine and I had a surprisingly nice time in isolation.
The greatest gift of all is to be able to amuse yourself even when you're most alone, I think.
Access to WiFi helps.
I’m used to feeling “too much”.
I think it’s so much more empowering than it is limiting.
I feel too much all the time. Now all this too much has to go somewhere. I can’t possibly be the container for it all you know?
And so I draw, write, make music, talk to people, create stuff.
I must say it’s been very enjoyable.
When you think about how to live your life, you just want to do more of the stuff you like doing and less of the stuff you don’t like doing.
I’m getting closer to that dream everyday.
Not bad I say, not bad at all.
I thought I would at some point end these posts saying I want peace and quiet, but I once again find myself saying that I'm looking forward to more adventures :)
Here’s to more loud laughter to bad jokes, beautiful walks along the river and quality time with family and friends.
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