I Just Wasn't Made for These Times

Way back when I was a wee girl I went to Catholic School.

Our health education textbook was called Fully Alive and it did provide a basic understanding of the mechanics of sexual activity, as well as a thorough explanation that these mechanics were for married, heterosexual adults.  But that's a rant for another day.

Point is, the earlier years were more about personal development, ambitions and values.  My grade one textbook asked me to draw a picture of what I wanted to be when I grew up.  Although I've never been an artist, much less when I was six, my multicoloured pencil crayon scribblings show a pink-haired person with a purple electric guitar surrounded by pyrotechnics and lasers.

I think I was kind of obsessed with Jem and the Holograms at the time, but I, for sure, wanted to be a rock star.

Fast forward.

I never learned to play a purple guitar.  I never dyed my hair pink.

At the age of 9, my friends and I wrote this song, the first verse of which I still remember and could sing, if pressed, after several gratis shots.  We spent half the day choosing outfits and putting on our mothers' makeup, and then had a concert on the back stoop for our parents.  I remember really thinking that, despite the fact that I had a cursory knowledge of how to play the piano and my friends played no instruments at all, we were totally going to make it.  We would be discovered by an agent who just happened to have a flat tire on a back road in rural Canadian Shield Ontario and we'd be signed immediately.  I remember, many years later, finding a diary entry outlining my struggle with the fact that we were going to be famous, but I wasn't really sure about the obligations of fame and how they would conflict with my desire to one day be in a relationship and have a family.  I clearly was wise beyond my years in some ways, but also vividly imaginative in others.

I spent much of the rest of my teen years and young adult life lamenting the fact that I never learned how to play the guitar, despite many New Year's Resolutions pledging otherwise.  I did become a very capable pianist and that has served me well.

When I finally started adulting, my piano skills came in handy.  They opened doors for me when I moved to a small town in northern Ontario.  My electric piano often had food dribbled on it because I would spend more time practising than tending to my activities of daily living.  I melted more than one spatula because I started cooking something and thought I could squeeze in a few minutes of practice while something simmered.  I was the pit band leader for four community musicals, and learned thousands of pages worth of sheet music for the local music festival.  I remember once having a stage pass for the local Fall Fair and thinking "Yes, this is it!  I'm a rock star now!  I have a stage pass!"

Since I've moved away from northern Ontario, I've had the pleasure of being in two bands.  I get to rock and/or roll every week with great musicians and cool people, and sometimes I'm even on a stage.  I tell people I can't come to their party because I have a gig that night and the tiny six-year-old inside of me squirms with glee.

But the rock star life is not all I thought it would be.  It's definitely not stadiums full of cheering fans and pyrotechnics like I thought it would be when I was 6.  It only takes one or two "shows" to empty, seedy bar-rooms to feel disheartened.  More than one person has had "helpful" comments between sets about what we or I could do to make our show better and it makes me wonder what I did wrong to make them feel like they should say something. And even when it's good, it's hard work.  Yesterday, I spent 10 hours driving to a gig, hauling and setting up (that's right, only the rocking-est rockstars get roadies), playing my heart out, tearing down and hauling again, and then driving back.  I drank water all night, had one regrettable shot of rye to celebrate a great show, and still feel like I was hit by a Mack truck today.  Plus I missed my friend's birthday party and had to squelch out of a phone date with a good friend.

So why do I do it?  Because I literally got paid to sing and dance on stage last night.  Because it's awesome to see people shaking their hips and pumping their fists and mouthing the words, and it's awesome to know that I was part of what made that happen.  It's super gratifying to hear the crowd yell out that they want to hear one more song.  I like when strangers shake my hand because they enjoyed what was in their ears all night.  And mostly I do it because I feel like I owe it to that little girl who dreamed of pink hair and purple guitars and pyrotechnics.  I think she'd think I was pretty cool.

Happy Halloween!

This year, my costume is: D.I.N.K. secretly hoping fewer children than usual come to the door so she can eat all the Smarties herself.

Cheers!

Anxious

I would say that, in general, I do not suffer from anxiety.  At least not in the way most people mean when they say, "I have really bad anxiety."

If you need someone to make a public speech, I am absolutely not going to be the first person to volunteer.  But if I draw the short straw, I'll probably be fine.

If I need to work in a group or find a partner in a room full of strangers, I am going to have the same moment of panic as everyone and then make the same "Well, I guess we're all in this together" face to the person next to me and hope for the best.

I have the same social reservations as everyone, and some might call it anxiety, but I've never left a room or bailed on a meeting because I was too anxious.

Things that DO make me anxious:

1. People not showing up when they say they're going to show up.  This is my kryptonite.  If someone is not where they say they're going to be at the appointed time, I will fo sho be texting to be like "i'm here.  where u?" and if you don't respond like, immediately, I'm going to be texting you every five seconds until I receive a response.  This is an endearing quality that wins friends and influences people.

2. Having to arrange a booking or purchase requiring a deposit and a time limit. 

This, I would say, is turning into some kind of super-kryptonite for me.  When I was trying to secure financing to purchase my house last year, I think I actually was clinically insane due to lack of sleep, developed stress-related styes and more than once did my boyfriend have to put me in a nelson hold so I could stop hyperventilating and go to sleep.

I'm finding the same thing is true now of booking a wedding venue.  My dream (insofar as I've "dreamt" of my wedding) has always been to get married at my family cottage.  Which is far from cities and hotels, and is in the middle of cottage country.  Point is, it's getting booked up pretty fast.  I'm one event application and one phone call deep and I can already feel that tingly feeling in my ribcage gearing up to put myself into some kind of hypocapnia.  I'm sure I'm going to lose the venue that my mother put on hold because they needed a deposit last week that I won't know about until tomorrow.

I'm starting to see why people elope.

New Things I've Done: Uh...filled out an event planner for my wedding?

Weird Things That Have Happened to Me: I performed a feeding course for other staff at work.  Sounds normal because I'm the dietitian, right?  Weird because I've actually only fed someone who could not feed themselves one time in my life.  One. 

Resolutions: Deep.  Fucking.  Breathe.  I see a lot of lying face down on the floor and breathing into my belly in my future.

HALP

Anyone else tried to plan a wedding while they were also trying to make minor (but not inexpensive) improvements on their house?

Like, I have a budget and I make pretty good money, but it does sort of feel like I'm going to be at the bottom of a giant debt hole forever.

#firstworldproblems?

Probably.

Still, my nightguard is in rough shape these days.

New Things I've Done: I pickled pears.  I feel like there's a rhyme about this, but I also feel like I might be mixing up Peter Piper with the Bare Necessities.  ...And now I'm going to be humming Disney tunes all week.

Weird Things That Have Happened To Me: I have one of the worst bruises of my adult life because I was playing a tambourine too vigorously.  True story.

Resolutions: Get adequate sleep.  I thought I was legit suffering from depression because I just couldn't get excited about anything.  I had a meltdown about not meeting my gym obligations this week.  (Also, since when do I have gym obligations?).  It's 8 hours or bust, now.

In the Immortal Words of Whitesnake...

I joined another band.
I was elected to the roller derby league executive.
I watched a semi-professional production of Rock of Ages and I'm feeling the kicky-chorus-member/cranky-pit-band-member itch.  Also, I'm humming Whitesnake more frequently than usual (how usual is usual in this case?).


Here I Go Again.

I've been here before, and the knee-jerk reaction is to think to myself that I'm super predictable.

Someone wants me to make up harmonies and sing back-up in their rock band? I'm there.
Someone thinks I'm a responsible, even-handed person with reasonable critical thinking skills?  Yes, I will serve on your board of directors!
Watching some broad play the piano in a fun musical production and knowing I could kick her ass at a game of "Who sight-read it better?" while simultaneously knowing that I will never volunteer and will wait to be asked which will never happen and I'll feel wistful about what might have been forever?  That's me.

But then a tiny part of me that should maybe be a bit louder is saying that maybe I find myself here because of key parts of my personality.  And maybe that's not a bad thing.

Yes, I do have a good ear and a pretty ok voice.
Yes, I am a pretty even-handed person, with good critical thinking skills, who is good at setting aside her own feelings and seeing the big picture or playing the long game.
Yes, I am a pretty damn good piano player and also a really dedicated worker and I can learn three hours worth of pretty complicated music and play through the shoulder and back pain.
Yes, I am not as humble as I like to seem, but I do feign humility because I was taught from a young age that to blow my own trumpet was unbecoming.

But wait.

Why do I own a trumpet?

Maybe if I actually practised blowing it a bit I might become a reasonably good trumpeter.

(True story: I actually do own a trumpet, and I am learning [relearning - I did play in high school] how to blow it, but I think you get I'm being metaphorical here).

You get what I'm saying.  And if it IS the only road I've ever known, maybe I should just keep on truckin' (she said, mixing her music references).

New Things I've Done: I got engaged!  Hurray!

Weird Things That Have Happened To Me: I got engaged?  I will admit that I was starting to think that the universe just didn't have it in store for me.

Resolutions: Blow trumpets that belong to me!  No, seriously - I should just do the things I'm good at more and let more people know about them.  Because I actually really enjoy positive feedback.

Reminiscing

I've undertaken to make .pdf copies of the many, many binders full of sheet music I've collected over the years.  It's been a strange process.

On the one hand, it's incredibly rewarding to toss empty binders out of my home office that were once filled with slightly crumpled, somewhat tattered photocopies of music of almost every genre.

On the other hand, it makes me wistful.  For six out of the past seven years, I played the piano for a small-towny music festival and that is where most of these pieces of music originated for me.  Every time I scan a new song I am reminded of the time in my life when I played it.  Some I barely remember playing at all.  Some I could happily never hear again.  Some remind me of the terrible children who sang them (terribly behaved, or terrible-sounding).  Some remind me of great triumphs (my own or someone else's).

I smirked to myself when I scanned the pages of a rather challenging Christmas song sung by a pretty tipsy soprano in striped Mrs Claus stockings who skipped several pages in her song while I simultaneously turned pages like a madwoman and calmly played until I found the spot she had jumped to and kept playing.  The audience never knew any different.

I became teary when I came across the song I played at the beginning of my career as an accompanist; two cousins dedicated it to their dying grandfather when they sang it at the music festival and then bravely sang it again at his funeral.

Even the satisfaction of tossing used binders was tinged with the memory of the somewhat sadistic glee of the music teachers I worked with as they filled the binder or the wonder of some young lady's grandmother that I should learn ALL THOSE SONGS and the satisfying thunk of the binder on the music stand of the piano when I first sat down for the day.

And I wonder if I will ever come to use this music again as meaningfully as I once did.  Will my sight reading skill and my ability to not sweat it when a terrified child with a pretty voice freezes like a frightened deer and bursts into tears three words into her song ever be put to as good a use as they were in that time?

Being an accompanist was a strange combination of voyeurism and exhibitionism.  I was always performing, and yet nobody was ever there to see me.  I witnessed crazy things - friends becoming frenemies becoming enemies, miniature prima donnas and boy sopranos experiencing crushing defeat when the preteen nerves or puberty interfered with their natural talents, children growing into adults, ugly ducklings (in every sense of the word) becoming swans.  And these were the things anyone could see.  As the accompanist, I had a backstage pass as well.  I was aware when a plan went awry.  I always knew when a panicking soloist went off-book; I was the one who had to think fast to make it look natural. I was the first to realize that a struggling singer had surprised themselves with the fruits of their own hard work.

I hope I get to do it again someday.

New Things I've Done - I got a new job.  I start next month.  I also plan to add "started commuting less" to the new things I've done list.

Weird Things That Have Happened to Me - I got some dental work done last week and my whole mouth feels worse for it.  This is why I hate the dentist.

Resolutions - Drink more water.  In a fit of pique I recently tossed out all my loose leaf tea, and as it turns out, that's where most of my fluid intake comes from.  Lately, I've been waking up with hangover-type headaches, and I'm pretty sure it's from reverting back to my non-hydrating ways.

Decisions

Vagueblogging:

In one area of my life, I'm faced with an imminent decision to make a drastic change, or continue to do something I'm pretty sure has an expiry date only to do the thing I could do now, but in the future.

This decision is confounded by the fact that a second decision I've made in another part of my life may make the first decision unnecessary.

Continue with something probably doomed to fail only to bring it to a natural end with a previously made decision, or make a big change only to cut it short by the same previously made decision.

What to do?

New Things I've Done

• I made jam today.  I think it was somewhat successful, but how does one figure that out without opening what I've just sealed?  And I already have a store-bought jar of apricot jam open in the fridge.  Waiting is hard.

Weird Things That Have Happened To Me

• We built a raised bed garden this spring.  We bought soil and then topped it up with compost from our kitchen scraps.  As a result we've had a few surprise plants in addition to those we transplanted from a nursery.  The surprise zucchini is the healthiest plant in the garden, almost taking over our carrots.  If only I could have such luck in other parts of my life.

Resolutions

• Stick with the plan.  I've been weight training for the last month or so, and it's been going pretty well.  The idea is to cross-train for roller derby, but being strong is also just bad-ass.  It's paying off too.  I played a game yesterday and didn't feel completely useless.  I was able to get an extra lap on an impromptu endurance test at practice last week.  People are asking if I've lost weight, which always makes me feel weird.  This is about the time that I start to get cocky and get off message to myself.  I'm starting a new phase of training this week, and it's as important now as it was a month ago to stay on track.

Keeping my Head Up

I've been looking for inspiration, as I had previously resolved, but lately I'm not really finding inspiration that I can boil down to a theme for a single blog post.  I've had a few conversations this past weekend, mainly with my boyfriend, about how unobservant I am, though.  On at least three different occasions in the last 3 days, he has completed a sentence to me that started with "How could you not notice that..." and that makes me wonder what kind of opportunities I've missed because I've got my head in the clouds.  Or more likely, because I'm looking inward rather than outward.

This is especially frustrating because I suspect that if you were to interview me 4 days ago and ask me to describe myself in 20 words or less, observant would probably feature in those 20 words.  Definitely not the top 5, but probably at least the bottom 5.

Something else to work on, I guess.

New Things I've Done:

• I started, on the advice of my new online coach, setting alarms for myself to drink water.  Every 4-ish hours, I have to finish my 800 ml bottle of water.  I have to chug at least one of them every day still, and at least one of my colleagues has asked me if I'm pregnant because I'm peeing so frequently, but I've been successful at this for one whole week.  So YAY!

• I skated with my roller derby team for the first time ever in a parade.  Up north, I had been in the Christmas Parade with my team, but at that point in the year there was usually a carpet of snow on the road already, and often a mid-grade snow storm happening concurrently with the parade, so I'd never actually been on skates.  It was really fun.  I'm pretty certain that some of the people I passed had never seen 8 girls and women dressed in red and white athletic gear looping around on roller skates, and the looks on their faces as we wheeled past was pretty rewarding.

Weird Things That Have Happened To Me:

• Two of the residents at one of the nursing homes I work at got married (to each other) this week.  On a Wednesday during business hours.  Ok, truthfully, this isn't something that happened TO ME, but it was something I bore witness to.  Apparently the nuptials had caused quite a stir in the community among both resident and staff.  Some thought it wasn't right that two elderly people were expressing their love for one another in a commitment-type ceremony in the common room of their long-term care home.  Some thought it was a wonderful celebration of love.  Real talk: I think this home is a pretty great place to work and the atmosphere is usually pretty upbeat, but that day was buzzing with positive energy.  The chaplain I share my office with was practically skipping back to the office to grab his bag before he left for the rest of his day.  I think we should celebrate love more.  Because, based on my sample size n=1, it's nice and makes everyone feel good.  Even if, like me, you're quietly celebrating it by more-or-less eavesdropping on the ceremony from your office while you work on your quarterly assessments.

Resolutions:

• Wear sunscreen.  Back when I was in high school, there was this popular recording that started with the words "Always wear sunscreen."  I first read it in a "Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul" book, and it was full of really excellent advice which I have intermittently followed in the fifteen or so years since I first came upon it.  However, the piece of advice that was most emphasized was the sunscreen bit, which I failed to heed today as I embarked on my first parade on a sunny day in late June.  And as I discussed with a fellow roller girl, I inherited the transparent fish-belly skin of my Celtic ancestors which burns if you even think about the sun.  

• Notice more.  My conversations with my boyfriend make me wonder: How many beautiful things have I not seen? How many people have I not helped? How many conversations have I missed because a cool thing was happening right next to me and I completely didn't see it because I was on auto-pilot?  The answer is: probably too many.

Being Wonder Woman?

I often feel like I'm standing on the edge of something look at the edge of something new, and I have to decide if I'm going to take a run at the chasm, Wonder Woman-style (and last time I checked, I'm not a mythical Amazon warrior woman), or jog along the edge to see where that takes me.  To extend the metaphor, I've mainly been jogging on the edge these days to see if I can find a bridge or something that'll take me across, but you can jog for a long time and that is sometimes pretty exhausting. And sometimes the cliff takes an unexpected turn and you end up jogging right off of it.

My band decided to pack it in a couple of weeks ago.  We had some fun, and I think we had a lot of potential, but we struggled to strike the right dynamic and in general we felt like it was better to call it now and still be friends than have a crazy fight as our plane crashed into a field.  Or wait.  That was a movie I like.

If you were to ask me when I was a little girl what I wanted to be when I grew up, the answer was probably "rock star."  Somewhere along the way, after many twists and turns, I ended up being a dietitian instead, which is kind of like the opposite of being a rock star.  But I have always been an avid music appreciator and in my adult life have dabbled in being a semi-professional pianist.  And that's a pretty cool thing to say about myself.  Once in a while, mostly when I was playing the intro to Joe Cocker's "Feelin' Alright" I actually did feel like I had achieved my childhood dream of being a rock star.

Since I moved here, I've struggled a little bit with who I am in this new place.  I had carved a pretty comfortable niche for myself when I lived up north, and for some reason, the things I did there don't all fit here.  Even though my band taking an extended hiatus was probably the right thing to do, I had a teensy identity crisis.  "Who am I supposed to be now?" I thought.

So, it's time for some Wonder Woman-style leaps across the chasm.  I don't know what that's going to mean yet, but I know it's going to mean more writing.  

New things I've done:

• I started one-on-one coaching with an exercise specialist, via the internet.  Doing it on my own has definitely not resulted in anything more than the same old same-old.  Consequently, my butt hurts.  All the lunges.
• Yoga with Adriene. I started at the beginning of her videos, which mainly are foundational poses.  I do them first thing in the morning, and it's been pretty nice.

Weird things that have happened to me:

• This past Tuesday, a transport truck somehow managed to straddle the median of the QEW through town.  It was full of phospine.  Ever heard of phosphine?  Me neither.  But apparently it's a poisonous gas.  The subsequent evacuation of ground zero resulted in my having my commute time tripled to 3 hours, during which time I really had to pee.  I've learned exactly how long I can hold it.  Roller derby practice was cancelled because the arena was in the evac zone, so I went for a walk instead.  A cyclist was coming down the walking/cycling trail behind me just as a chipmunk was crossing the path.  The chipmunk sustained a serious (probably fatal) brain injury during a collision with the cyclist.  I watched the poor bleeding chipmunk writhing in pain in the middle of the path and didn't really know what to do, so I have to admit that I kept walking.  Shortly thereafter, I saw two deer drinking water across the canal from me.  I feel like if I told this story to a psychic, they would tell me this is some kind of portent of things to come, but I'm too cheap to pay a psychic.

Resolutions:

• Watch less TV.  I love Netflix, but I can certainly attest how habit-forming its full-season releases are.  I literally have to make myself not find a new show to watch when I finish one.  It's not good.

Coming Back

Hey.

Long time no see.

I don't have any excuses.  I just wasn't inspired.

I often find I look back on periods where I haven't done what I should have done, and I think to myself, "It's been a hard couple of months."

And it's true, things have happened.  I rehabbed my broken ankle.  I came back to my sport.  I've been working hard to help rebuild my crumbling team that never seems to be able to keep its head above water.  I bought a house.  I may have gotten my mortgage advisor fired in the process.  I'm in a band.  The band has performances.  And band drama.  And true, I only work 4 days a week, but if you add in my commute, there's another full work day every week spent in the car.

But every couple of months is a hard couple of months, so that's really no excuse.  Life is hard.  Engaging in this little bit of public self-exploration is actually pretty important, and being uninspired should be a giant red flag that something is missing in my life.  I should be looking for my inspiration.

What's going to inspire me, though?

When I think about that, I often think about my 100 Happy Days journey.  It was work to find something that made me happy each day, and be able to take a picture of it.  But I persevered for 100 days and I found that I was a happier person at the end.  Furthermore, if I look back at my previous posts over the years, most of my personal inspiration hasn't come so much like fireworks as a punch to the gut or a fish that got away.  Maybe a hard couple of months is just the inspiration I need.