I don’t know about you but there is some serious mental tae kwon do I am doing more often than not lately because this is the last year I shall be in my twenties. Yes, I shall be thirty this year. I feel it’s a sad thing and I feel at the same time, like it is a thing I have wanted all my life. In the same measure, I am disappointed with how, but immensely proud of myself for getting to this point. It is a strange-but-true reality.
Obviously, it is trite and well known that any timeline imposed pressure to be in a “particular place” by a “particular time” is a societal conformity only energized by your own mind entertaining and ruminating on the expectation, that makes imposition a constant persecution, right? Like I can simply decide that it doesn’t matter where I am when I am, or wherever you or society think I should be at whatever time, and my agony would be ended, right?
I was in a conversation with a friend yesterday where I found out that they thought I was thirty- four; and during the Christmas holidays I met a seven year old kid that said they thought I was twenty-four, and the disparity in my reactions to both those incidents affirmed it’s not as simple as it us usually represented to “simply” do you. Maybe the interim solution is for our civilization to finally reach the point where identifying as ageless picks up some traction and becomes the thing. I could have clarified to both persons in those incidents that I identify as such and save us all these words from that learning moment.
They say look back to look forward; so, allow me to do just that. How did I arrive at this point of incompatible perspective within myself regarding the inescapable death of my cells and their inability to regenerate? Let’s get to the crux of the fuss in the hope that metacognition for once shall inspire hopefulness and not despair from an existential crisis.
I had this obsession with growing up that I always talk about (especially on this blog) because I tell you, my eyes would literally tearfully glisten in joy just imagining all that I would have achieved by the time I had grown up; and by this, I mean by the time I had reached thirty. I need Jesus to explain in great detail why my twenties just went completely rogue and thus, heaven is the goal for that meet-and-greet.
When I closed my eyes, I saw the “successful” creative. I dreamed and planned musical tours in my notebooks in boarding school, reckoning that the only reason I was at that moment in time, not touring the world, was because I was stuck in boarding school. How much more when I was actually done with UNEB’s torture? I filled other notebooks with songs I composed during math and physics lessons, that I would be singing on those tours because it was the expression of artists and not the four fundamental force that kept the world turning on its axis. Amidst other dreams I had in life, I knew so vividly that I would always be making and sharing music; and I am today thankful for the privilege to even have had and nurtured that dream from such a young age. But as you can imagine, it has really shaped life.
More than anything and ironically so, my twenties have been about actually growing up; not in the accumulation of years through time alone, but in the gradual ability to synthesize observations, conclusions and the inescapable imperative to keep moving forward, more fluidly with each experience. A lot of the incentive to fill notebooks and planners with ideas was the giddy excitement and high I got from visualizing the slight possibility that these things I was articulating could and in fact would one day, come true. As I realized (very quickly) that life doesn’t pan out exactly the way I imagined or hoped it would, was the secondary realization as well that nonetheless, and in the end, life pans out; albeit in some other sense, or direction, even for the creative.
I still make music like I imagined at sixteen I would be doing when I was older. I share music with people and have the opportunity to perform and share my art with them like I envisioned I would be doing as an artist if you fast forwarded ten years into the future from my dorm room in secondary school.
I still have and feel a desire to make and release music with my every breath. Life panned out that way and in that sense. However, life is also riddled with the overwhelming pressures from myself and extrinsic expectations I must continue to synthesize, convoluted by comparison, self-doubt, muddled self-concept and realizing that I should have figured out that Katy Perry had way more money than I should have imagined I would also have when I grew up, much earlier. (what was I thinking.)
For the dreaming teenage creative that exuded positivity every time January came around because the start of a new year symbolized a proverbial blank page to write some more songs and project ideas on, is now this almost thirty year old anxious and unsure human being having to tool herself with the ability to escape the sheer panic and trepidation with the fears, that to hope for this year might pan out, but as always, in some other sense or direction at some traumatic cost.
For a person that has lived these past couple years that I have lived (the hyperbole-as if in some apocalypse) , is some sort of entrenchment of some negative reinforcement. Yes, I expect the worst, but I still have to balance the seemingly antithetical lesson that being pessimistic doesn’t make it hurt any less when dreams are crushed or unachieved. All I know is I have to keep going no matter how hard or whether it gets better.
There is also the knowledge that I have garnered that somehow, somewhere; there is a silver lining and unfortunately, something to always be happy and thankful for or about. Nothing about all this enlightenment excludes the ambitions of my creative self.
It applies just the same.
This is me, your treasured motivational blogger, encouraging myself and ultimately encouraging whatever creative that needs to hear this, that you don’t need to do anything else in this moment and for the rest of the year but breathe.
Be.
Just be and celebrate that for a minute. Seriously; set the timer and do it right now.
It’s a new year and there’s existing expectations and new ones to come around for as long as your creativity wills to burst out of you; and all you can do is keep breathing fam. It’s difficult to think clearly without doing so. It’s damn right near impossible to get through presented crises without doing so. It’s even more difficult to be hopeful without the ability to register, there is indeed some sense of positive light and love to keep you going out there because you are having a panic attack.
The pressure for “this year” to be “you year” never relents and understandably, especially for a creative. “What’s the next collaboration?’ “What’s the next song to help me break out as an artist?” “How do I maintain my success?” “What’s the next step?” “Where am I going to find the money to shoot this video?” “What if people don’t like the music I’m planning to put out?” “What if I’m not good enough and this year is going to reveal that?”
Just breathe.
Breathe.
Life goes on whatever happens. It shall pan out; maybe in some other sense and ultimately maybe in a different direction.
But it shall.
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