Growing Pains

Traditionally, I’ve always found January to be awkward. Whilst the previous year has just ended, and the new one is supposed to hold so much promise, this is generally a time when I lose my bearings, and consequently, the plot. Funnily enough, after only a few weeks of relative “idleness”, the weird dreams I was having while writing up are persisting, my sleep patterns are no more normal, and I’m already hankering for the treadmill of work to start up again. Back in high school, I used to fossick through The Age every Saturday morning, largely in pursuit of the Leunig at the back of the Saturday Extra. The ones that most appealed to me are stuck throughout my high school diaries, and some are now faded and yellowing, stuck on the wall above my desk at home. I particularly remember coming across one during Year 12, where Mr Curly has written a long letter to Vasco Pajama (or vice versa?) talking about the virtues of just sitting back and “having a rest”.

I guess the danger is that while you’re “resting” and looking around at everyone else busy “doing” things and acting their age, you fall into the quagmire that is “taking stock” – something that everyone seems to be doing around this heady New Year period anyway. Late last year, I went along to help a friend of mine house-hunt, and got an incidental crash course in the nuts and bolts of what purchasing a place entails. I had the kind of moment that someone like Demitri Martin pokes fun of so well, thinking, “Jeez, why aren’t I doing more grown-up stuff like this yet?” and “Jeez, what have I got to show for, um, anything so far?” and “Hmm, might be time to er, grow up?” I guess the other thing is the acute anxiety related to crossing over from being a student to embarking on real work. The student life is pretty charmed. You can keep irregular hours if that suits you better, you can also try the dubious “work at home” caper if your supervisor is amenable to that. As a good friend pointed out to me just last week, once you’re (really) working, you become (really) accountable and it’s assumed that you know what you’re doing. And this is made even worse when you’ve got a groaning load of expectation on your shoulders from both inner, and outside sources.

Oh well, if ever the load of expectation gets too much, and I feel like I’m being pursued by a crocodile, I’ll just bear in mind Tom Waits’s advice – to run in a zig-zag fashion.