Growing up is hard

There are three bits of wisdom that I've worked all my life to realise. Do you want to know what they are?

1. Life is random. While this is awe-inspiring and wonderful, this occasionally means that it isn't fair.

2. Actions have consequences.

3. It's not always about me. Not even most of the time.

I always have to fight against my inner two-year old. I want to stamp my feet and say that "It's not fair!"

I'd also like an army of people rushing after me to clear up my mistakes, but that aint going to happen. What does happen is that I learn.

Slowly and painfully. I don't want to. I want to be rescued. I want the prince/ss to swoop in on a white horse and take me away so that I never have to deal. I never have to clean up after myself and face the consequences of my failure.

And then I thought--"but what if I didn't?" What if I just dropped things that I'd broken, went further into debt, abandoned relationships where I'd hurt people and moved through the world like a bulldozer, leaving wreckage in my wake?

Then I realised--To hurt is human. So is to be hurt. Eventually, even in this world of limitless resources, if I stopped at the first sign of wear I'd run out of shiny new things and people to play with.

I believe that cracks can accentuate the beauty. That we're not born unique, but we become so through experience. That nothing and no one is entirely disposable.

I still want my prince or princess on a white horse. But that's mostly because white (sorry--grey!) horses are awesome.

I'm thinking about the concepts of real life. Versus what--imaginary life? Our thoughts are formed by our imaginations. Our thoughts are formed by our identities. I am female. I am queer. I am special. I am a musician. I don't know how others think--it's part of the separateness I've talked about before that we can never really connect, only try.

By imaginary lives, I don't mean fantasy lives although that is informed by our imaginations. It's also formed by our real lives as well: largely by the frustrations thereof. I've had to deal with a moronic client who just doesn't get it today? Tonight I'm going to dream about rehearsing with my band and actually getting the songs right.

It's possibly sad that I'm so prosaic that my mind goes to the nitty-gritty of my dreams rather than the big "moments". But doesn't that make me more likely to achieve if I go after things? I really, really don't mind the hours of practice, it's just finding the time to do them.

The question is not whether androids dream of electric sheep, but whether the practical and down-to-earth can be satisfied with dreaming large dreams. I'm finding that the answer is no. Others may dream of bright lights and wild cheers but I keep on breaking it down to lighting designs and venue capacities. My large dreams are made up of small increments.

Living in a city, I travel to work each day. Carriages full of people. It doesn't matter how many humans there are, packed into a tiny space, we're all separate inside ourselves. It doesn't matter how close we are, bodies pressed against one another, elbow to ribs and arm against shoulder, we avoid each others eyes.

Let me be clear: I do not think this is a bad thing. As human beings we are driven by two separate and conflicting impulses. The desire to be alone and the desire to make connections within our web of community. It's when our communities become unwieldy, too large to know each individual personally that we need rules to ensure our interactions remain civil.

Civil. Civilised. Another word for "Too many damn people and they're not allowed to kill each other." Intelligence goes against instinct goes against emotion. And those neo-savagists are completely miss the point. We can't go back, we can only go forward and hope we find something that works.

I hope we find something that works.

My heart doesn't break, it freezes

Since you left, then I left you, I haven't felt anything. I'm happier like this. I think my heart may be chilled, but there's a kind of crystalline beauty in being a shard of ice in a frozen wasteland.

It was eight years. I feel that maybe I should be feeling more, but I find I enjoy the cold.