growing pains.

Recently I turned 22. I always thought that was still pretty young.

Apparently not.

I used to think "So what are you up to these days?" was a genuine inquiry into how I'm doing. Again - I missed the day they explained it's actually a test.

I dread any conversation that begins with the above phrase because I never have anything remotely interesting to tell them and more often then not, it's a trick. It's a way for whatshername's mum to harass me in the supermarket so she can feel that little bit more smug about her angel offspring who has life plans and job offers and grown up stuff galore.

More and more I notice "Oh I'm still at uni" never really gets more than a polite "Oh I see..." and a swift but none-too-subtle subject change.

I always feel like they expect me to say something impressive and even I'm slightly disappointed when I give my answer and it's not.

I can't say I'm honestly surprised though. It doesn't sound all that interesting. I belong too a none-too-elite club of undecided twenty-somethings not old enough to command the workforce and not young enough to avoid it.

I never realised that my "figuring it out" phase had an expiry date and that sooner or later I would have to choose. It's more than that though - more than just being undecided - I feel disappointing. I'm just not sure who's expectations were bigger to start with - theirs or mine.

Though not a huge fan of the show, I did catch an episode of the ever vulgar Sex & the City the other day and in one of her ramblings, Carrie did actually make a point I identified with. She said -

“When you're young, your whole life is about the pursuit of fun. Then, you grow up and learn to be cautious. You could break a bone or a heart. You look before you leap and sometimes you don't leap at all because there's not always someone there to catch you. And in life, there's no safety net. When did it stop being fun and start being scary?”

I often wonder that.

It really does seem like at 18 the world is your oyster - all possibilities. All opportunities. All infinite hope.

Then at 21 it's a slightly smaller crustacean - not as tempting but still with a spark of determination that tomorrow you'll be amazing.

But after that? Most days you're not even the main event on the specials board. Even the #2 combo seems to have more on you. You're a disappointment because you're not completely decided on where you're going, how you're going to get there or why and in the end it seems like every decision you've made up til then has been the wrong one and no amount of justifying can take you back.

I just want to know where it's written that I was supposed to have it figured out by now? I mean, in some civilisations, going to university is the dream. Unfortunately not this one.

Okay the pity party stops here. I do realise that an undecided career path is hardly reason for a hunger strike but sometimes it really does feel all that hopeless.

I promise to be amazing somewhere along the line.
Just give me a minute more to figure it all out.

Lesson Seven: To be old and wise, you must first be young and stupid.

Let's enjoy it while it lasts. xx

it's raining.

"hold my heart, don't break it - it's yours."

I just got home from a much needed weekend away. When I spend a few days away from the city, I always return in a much better frame of mind: batteries recharged, soul replenished, sanity restored.

While I'm away (and often even when I'm at home), there's nothing I enjoy more than a bit of people-watching. I've lost count of the hours I have spent watching people; simply observing people as they go about their lives. My favourites are those I see in airports.

I like to imagine their life stories. The lonely cowboy catching a flight to New York to see the big city & maybe meet a lady. The pensioner knitting scarves while she waits for her flight to Sydney to see her youngest grandson graduate. The recent divorcee heading to Wellington to meet her internet lover, giggling like a schoolgirl full of nerves and untapped hope.

Of all the people I saw this weekend, two married couples on my flight stuck with me. The first was a young inter-racial couple. The other couple were in their early 70s at least. The younger couple were seated in front of the older couple and I sat directly across the aisle from them - watching, taking mental notes like a stalker, thinking things way too deep for so early on a Friday morning.

Both wives were obviously fraught with nerves at flying but what interested me was the way in which their respective husbands comforted them.

The younger man put his arm around his wife in an awkward side-hug as she drew her knees up to her chest and shook violently at takeoff. She spent the rest of the flight with her head in her hands, pale as a ghost while he patted her shoulder with one hand and continued to finish his crossword with the other.

The older man however, feeling his wife's discomfort as we began takeoff, held his wife’s hand tightly, looked directly into her eyes and smiled reassuringly. Almost immediately she visibly relaxed, returned his smile and gave his hand a squeeze.

After takeoff, the elderly woman opened her eyes and the couple shared a smile - one I was sure portrayed a lifetime of secrets - squeezed each other’s hands one last time and then went about their separate in-flight business.

She stared out the window peering through the fog at the mountainous landscape pointing out things that interested her along the way. He picked up a thick novel and read, silently nodding at his wife’s commentary in all the right places.

There was something comforting about the easy, unassuming silence they shared. Something about what they didn’t say that told me all I needed to know about their lives: that come what may they had found contentment with one another and themselves. That their life together had been built on solid foundations. That he could say "I'm here for you" by simply holding her hand. That she could reply "I'm thankful I have you" with a smile.

That their love had seen and endured many things and still passed freely in the spaces between them.

My grandparents had that. My parents have that.

I hope one day when I’m old and wrinkly, I have it too.

Lesson Six: Sometimes all you need is someone to hold your hand.

Enjoy your Sunday x

these songs of freedom.

As a matter of principle, I try not to like music that doesn't mean anything.

For me, it really isn't about escaping the labels of being conformist or mainstream. I just love what music does to you. It can make everything seem so much better. Or worse. It puts the feelings you weren't sure you had, into words that rhyme - what can be bad about that? Also, I mean I don't have flowers in my hair or a braided belt wrapped round my head or anything but I'm still a firm believer that music could change the world, man.

Jimi Hendrix once said that:

'Music doesn't lie. If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music.'

In days gone by, music changed everything. It changed the way people thought about the world and their place in it. I wish it still had that capacity but somehow looking at the charts, I'm not convinced.

In those days music was the spirit of slaves, the protest to war, the way to get things done. Or undone.

That might be why I always feel guilty when I find myself unwittingly singing along to those Top Twenty pop hits on the radio. And why I have a secret playlist on my ipod filled with all the songs I'm too ashamed to admit I like - full of uninspiring lyrics haphazardly thrown together more for their rhyming potential rather than their meaning and set to a hauntingly catchy tune that I can't help but love.

Despite my secret indulgences, I do try and stay loyal to the cause (loving music that displays its purity as an art form, music that struggles against the man to define itself, music that means something).

It’s hard though. Sometimes you don’t want some lyrical genius to articulate your every thought. Or fear. Or regret. Sometimes it's not enough that a songwriter a million miles away is thinking what I'm thinking - that in these lyrics of a stranger echo the ramblings of my heart.

Sometimes you just want to forget and get lost in a string of ‘ooh ooh oohs’ and ‘baby baby babys’ so it doesn’t hurt so much.

Lesson Five: Where words fail; music speaks.

You can't hear it if you're not listening; turn it up & let it speak to you.

xx

i wanna be M(ad)E.

I'm watching MADE. Don't tell anyone because I'm pretty sure Dad didn't pay to fix my laptop so I could daydream while my essay sits untouched.

For those of you unaffected by the virus that is MTV, MADE tracks the physical and emotional transformations of American high school students on their quest to fulfill their innermost heartfelt and often surprising, dreams. This week's episode is about a girl who wants to be Made from the school skunk mascot into a stage goddess.

Yeah I'll let the visuals conjured up by that sentence sink in for a minute.

Anyway her Made coach (a beauty pageant-esque life size barbie doll) forces her to engage in all kinds of awkward social experiments - speed dating, eating lunch with the popular kids, wearing heels to school even though she's a 6 foot giant etc - but despite her good intentions, still leaves you questioning exactly what she'd know about being a social misfit.

In the end, old skunky gets her day in the sun with an underwhelming performance as a featured extra in the school play and in what I'm sure is a rigged vote, the ever coveted prom queen crown.

The episode closes with her getting her first kiss and proclaiming that prom was the best night of her life. Darkened school gym, streamers and a sea of pastel taffeta? Not exactly setting the bar very high but okay.

It did get me thinking though - as things often do. I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed in her new image, her new personality, her new life. While it's questionable how long after the show any of these life changes lasted, it did make me wonder about how much of her old self she got to keep. Whether any of those things which made her unique and interesting in the first place would survive the makeover aftermath. It just annoys me a little that they're not MADE until they toe the line of conformity.

I mean I enjoy the cringeworthiness of their fails as much as the next person, I'm just kind of humiliated for them that this is the extent they have to go to be comfortable in their own skin. That feeling like they're enough depends on whether or not other people approve of who they're pretending to be.

In the end, I'm kind of disheartened that the standard by which we judge their success relies on whether or not they fit into our prescribed categories of what's acceptable - normal - cool. In our eyes they don't 'win' unless they get the seal of approval from their generally cruel and unaccepting classmates and I can't help but wonder what kind of irreparable damage we do by condoning and then encouraging these kinds of attitudes.

Not to be overdramatic - some of them do indeed get the crown but it's just that they always seem a little less of themselves in the end. Like some of their fight is gone.

I just wish there was a way for them to be MADE without being broken first.

Lesson Four: Embrace your crazy.

xx

tell me what you want (what you really really want).

I'm a secret fan of all things passive-aggressive. It's too easy to say "fcuk you" and be done with it. I've always enjoyed the subliminal stabs in life because (unless they're as fluent in sarcasm as you are) the subject of your ridicule won't even know you're roasting them until you've slipped back into the shadows.

I think that might be why this anonymous blogging thing appeals to me. It's like my very own secret little 'eff you' to the wardens and moderators of my life - the self-appointed watchdogs who patrol the avenues of facebook and the like to update everyone at the next meeting that I went out on friday with X wearing Y and saw Z.

It did get me thinking though. Why is it never okay to just say what you really feel? To do what you want to get what you need? Why is that so unacceptable?

I mean I understand it potentially borders on the edge of crassness, but I for one am a little bit sick of tip-toeing around the point to save people from the truth. Sometimes you need to hear things you don't want to. That's how we grow and learn. I just think we could save a lot of time if we put all our cards on the table at the beginning instead of trying to navigate the emotional minefield of human relationships not saying the things we need to, not feeling the things we want to, not being who we are.

Generally speaking, I try and make sure I don't say things that I don't mean but I think from now on I should make it my goal to say more of what I do. To be clearer in my thought and in my speech outside the safety net of those who know me well. It might get me into trouble now and then but I think I've learnt about as much as I can by playing it safe.

Time to mix it up a little.

Lesson Three: Tell it like it is.

a musical interlude.

Okay - sidenote from the life discovery, I attended the John Mayer concert here in Auckland last week and while I know he's gotten a lot of bad press lately, there is no denying that the kid has some serious music genius going on.

Personally I'm not easily impressed or fazed by the whole celebrity phenomenon. You will not for example, catch me up at five in the morning waiting at the airport to catch a glimpse of a teenage pop icon waving an "I Heart Bieber" sign over my head but after thursday's date with Mayer, I'm reconsidering my commitment to the notion of celebrity.

Though the venue was barely 3/4 full and many suggested the gig would have been better suited to a lounge-type set-up, fans that were there for the music were not disappointed. Okay so he didn't play a few of the classic favourites like Your Body is a Wonderland or Bigger Than My Body but what he did play was nothing short of amazing. Particularly inspiring were Waiting on the World to Change, Belief and a fiery version of my personal fav, Gravity, to close.

Between his sexy drawl and amazing guitar riffs I now understand why during the 1970s women gave up their lives to follow bands across the country. I'd follow John Mayer to the gates of Mordor if he asked me. I know he's a bit of a racist prick in some of his interviews but it really doesn't take much of an "ooh ooh ooh" in that drawl you love to hate and I'm won.

In addition to the musical ecstasy that is John Mayer, I am now a huge fan of New Zealand songbird Lisa Crawley who was joined by her band The Conversations as the night's opening act. Having not heard much of their stuff before, I was decently impressed - not only by her effortless musicianship (including a whole range of instruments from keyboard to snare drum) but by her unassuming stage presence which was just the right amount of cute without being sickening.



With song titles like The Loneliest Girl in the World, Birds and Brother, Crawley easily won over the crowd who ranged in no even mix from seven year olds pumped up on sheer excitement to be out on a school night to crazy alcohol-fuelled teenage hooligans who always ruin everything for everyone - and back again.

She has a genuine likeability factor that is deliciously sweet which contrasts beautifully with her edgy, soulful lyrics which make no apologies for who she is or isn't but come to your senses in a kind of 'take it or leave it' manner and then stay there.

While she's still in the process of recording her first album, she has got a few little gems up on youtube that are worth checking out in the meantime.

Despite my early resistance (in a bid to remain aloof and unaffected) I have to say I didn't put up much of a fight last week. I was musically wooed from the opening stanza and though I never expected it, I left the show a shameless fan.

xx