Ten Years Brave

Ten years ago yesterday, the Umbilical Brothers were in town and I got together with a group of friends to go see them. I don't remember any part of the show, but I do remember a few things about that night.
1. I was sitting behind my cousin Julie - and did not know that this would be one of the last times I would ever have a conversation with her.
2. I got to meet the Umbilical Brothers after the show. My friends disappeared momentarily and I wanted a photo with the guys, so they took it in turns taking photos of me on my little blue flip phone.
3. I got a lift home from my good friend Chris.

I was desperately, not-so-secretly in love with Chris. He parked outside my house, and we got out of the car and commenced a chin-pinch fight, as we had recently started doing at the end of many evenings. These fights involved each of us trying to gently pinch the other's chin, and they were epic, sometimes two-hour battles. I generally lost these battles; my arms weren't as big and strong as Chris's were.

On this night, ten years and one day ago now, we eventually grew tired and decided to call it a night. We hugged goodbye. And then I did the strangest thing I have ever done in my safe, meek little life. Without warning, running on adrenalin, I stood on my toes and I kissed Chris on the cheek.
"That was different," he looked surprised. But then he dipped his head and kissed me on the forehead. And that was enough bravery for me. I squeaked a feeble "Goodnight!" and ran inside.

I would spend the next 48 hours imploding and agonizing over every last detail with my best friends. I would attend a Thursday night choir rehearsal at Church where Chris happened to be doing some tech support a few rooms away, and I would become so overwhelmed that I would walk out of the choir mid-rehearsal, find Chris in the office, and beg him, "Can we please go somewhere and talk?" I would spend an hour or two sitting in Gelare across from my unrequited crush, blushing profusely, staring at the floor, at my mocha, at the window, anywhere but his face. I would hear the words, "I don't want to date anyone at the moment, but when I do, you're the one." But despite the awkwardness, and my waning bravery, I wouldn't accept that. The signs were there, we were closer than we had ever been, people already assumed that we were a couple. And I don't know how, or when, but the conversation began shifting to hypotheticals: "If we were together" "Let's say we had a fight" "What if it didn't work out" "How would we do this". And then, his eyes burning into mine, he said "You know, I actually can't think of a logical reason why we shouldn't at least try this." Not exactly romantic, but it's our story!

It's pretty awkward transitioning from close friends to something more, but we managed it. We were exchanging I-love-yous 10 days in, and a few days after our first month anniversary, we knew we were getting married, and we knew when. And here we are ten years later, thick in the life that first blossomed with that super awkward kiss on the cheek; raising a baby, renovating a home, loving each other purely and honestly, navigating the highs and lows of life as a team.

The moral of this story is not "Here's how we got together, and we lived happily ever after". This story is my defining moment of bravery. I never would have dreamed that I would be brave enough to do something as bold as kiss a boy on the cheek, no matter how much I liked him. But for one crazy moment, it felt like a risk worth taking. I knew that if I hadn't taken that chance, and he had ended up dating, even marrying another girl, I would have had to live with serious regret. And the idea of that regret scared me more than the idea of rejection.

I want to challenge you to be brave. Heck, I want to challenge me to be brave! I just bet there is something burning inside you right now, a crazy thing that you don't think you have the guts to grab onto. But you do. Brave people aren't born, they are made, one decision at a time. Just try it - do that one crazy thing. It might work, it might not, but either way you will know. Then try the next crazy thing. And the next. Keep challenging yourself, keep trying. You may not end up exactly where you hope to go - but you won't be right where you are now either.

If you want encouragement or a sounding board, validation from someone who's a bit removed from your situation - email me. I would love to be a small part of that journey with you.
flowerz _ in _ her _ hair @ hotmail (dot) com

On Tongues and Mums

Something horrific happened to me yesterday. I was eating my lunch, chatting with my Mum, and suddenly - BAM - the most intense, searing, blood curdling pain came out of nowhere. I had bitten my tongue. I'll spare you the gory details, but I'm fairly certain I bit down harder than any human has ever bitten their tongue and lived to tell the tale. With puppy dog eyes I sat back on the couch, grasping my bleeding tongue in a cool wet flannel, and in that instant I began questioning God's design. What business does a thick, soft, unpredictable piece of flesh have, nestled between 32 chomping teeth?
As you can imagine, though the initial pain dampened somewhat, I was left with a very tender tongue for the rest of the day (and, well, it's still sore today to be honest!) I don't know if you've ever been in a similar predicament, but if you have, you will know what I mean when I say that I became acutely aware of my poor sore tongue and all that it does. When you consider the function of your tongue, what comes to mind? It tastes. It help you swallow. It helps you talk. I've pretty much covered it, right?
Wrong!
It turns out that tongues involve themselves in way more than we give them credit for. I know this because my tongue screamed at me during some surprising moments yesterday.
Tongues pronounce the letters C, D, G, J, K, L, N, Q, R, S, T, U, X and Z. Tongues are the first to receive a hot cup of tea, testing that the temperature is safe for the mouth to receive. Tongues squish up under your front teeth when you blow a kiss at your baby. Tongues absent mindedly clean food out of your teeth when you chew on bread. Tongues push toothpaste and water out of your mouth after you've brushed your teeth. They do so much. Do you give your tongue credit every day for all that it does for you?

It's Mother's Day today, and for some reason I drew a correlation between our tongues and our Mums. Sure, we know that Mums feed us, clothe us, give us a safe place to come home to. But do we consider, really consider, every tiny little function of Mums? Obviously every Mum is different in the way they serve their families, so this list is by no means an attempt at covering it all, nor is it a definitive list of things that Mums should be doing. But for consideration's sake, here are some things that Mums do that their families may not always see:
- Some Mums cook everything from scratch, from stocks to sauces, cakes to salad dressings, to ensure their families are eating the safest, most nutritious ingredients
- Some Mums organize play dates and outings to ensure their children are enriched socially and engaged with their surroundings
- Some Mums spend their down-time in the evenings catching up on dishes, laundry and vacuuming to ensure their families wake up to a clean, calm home
- Some Mums visit countless doctors and undergo invasive fertility procedures in order to conceive the child they have been dreaming about
- Some Mums get up early to pack their kids' school lunches
- Some Mums will forfeit a much-needed coffee catch-up with a friend to stay home with their sick baby
- Some Mums do everything they can to get keep their kids active, to ensure they grow up fit, healthy and strong
- Some Mums sacrifice wine and soft cheeses and deli meats and sushi to ensure that the baby growing inside their belly is kept safe and sound
- Some Mums cry as they watch their children grow, moved to tears by the passing of time
- Some Mums pray every night for their children to be blessed with good health and safety and joy

When I was growing up, I didn't see all the things my Mum did. She stayed at home to raise us, she cooked dinner every night, she showered us with affection and gifts, and she and my Dad instilled in us a fervent belief that we could do anything we hoped to do. She gave us days off school to hang out at home with her in our PJs and watch movies, she took us on endless shopping trips even though she hated shopping, she left encouraging notes in our school lunches. She knew our favourite animals and the pop stars and movie stars that we were nuts about, the books we liked to read and the friends we liked to hang out with. If we showed interest in a hobby, she would buy supplies and help us learn. At the time I just didn't really consider what it was that she was doing. She wasn't just parenting, she wasn't just putting food in our bellies and clothes on our back. All of these things that she did, big and small, whether we noticed and acknowledged them or not - they were what made her our Mum. Just like the tongue with all its secret talents and uses, my Mum - and every Mum - did many things that can easily go unnoticed and unappreciated. She still does, too. It turns out that since my sisters and I have grown up and moved out of home, she's unleashed a whole new bag of Mum tricks.

I'm less than a year into my own motherhood journey and as I reflect on this new role, I can already see the little things that I do without thinking, that became second nature the moment they put a crying baby next to me on my pillow in the hospital 7.5 months ago. It might be that nobody will ever see all these things, or realize their place in my puzzle, but they're an important part of me as a mother.

So today, as we close out Mother's Day for this year, I ask you to consider your Mum, or if you're a mother yourself, dig deep, and see the little things that go unnoticed. Take a moment to pause and look at the little picture as well as the big picture. If your beautiful mother is no longer here with you, and such a reflection isn't too unbearably painful for you, it could be a lovely way to honour her and may even be a new way of remembering her.

Let's see our Mums for every little thing they have done. Let's see ourselves for every little thing we do. Let's use Mother's Day for years to come not simply as a celebration or a day of pampering, but also as a reminder to dig a little deeper, think a little harder, and feel a little more grateful.

Mums and tongues. Who knew there was a link there?

Becoming Mum: Time

Have you seen the tale that occasionally makes the rounds on Facebook, called "I'm Going To Bed"? It compares the difference between a man and a woman "going to bed". The woman busies herself with an onslaught of little tasks - picking up toys, putting away dishes, locking the back door, packing lunches, folding clothes - and the man? He simply goes to bed. I'm not posting here tonight to draw a generalized comparison between the sexes, but I will say this: I am becoming that woman! 

Tonight I put Jackson down after his bottle, and thought to myself, "Right! Time to get ready for bed!"
Tonight's bed time routine included, but was not limited to: bringing in the nappies on the line, filling the water bottles, putting away Jackson's clean clothes, changing our bed sheets, cleaning out the sink, packing Chris's lunch, finding Jackson's Child Health folder (4-month shots tomorrow! Wah!), putting away the dog bowls, sticking vinyl decals on Jackson's wardrobe (I've been meaning to do it for weeks!), and now here I am sitting down to write a blog post about it all. Yep, bed is still the goal. Aaaaany minute now. But since becoming a Mum, these energetic bursts at night are how I get things done! Before Jackson, I was more like the man in the tale. After an evening of watching TV with Chris, I would yawn, call it a night, jump in the shower and snuggle up under the sheets. Usually by 9pm. It sounds nice, doesn't it? But the interesting thing is, before Jackson, before I had these designated little pockets of time in which to achieve things, I had a lot less motivation. Dishes would pile up. The sheets would stay, unchanged, on the bed for an obscenely long time. Laundry would happen in a mad panic on a Sunday afternoon when I realized that we had no clothes for the week ahead. The mess would slowly pile up around us. There was always the promise of more time in which to do those things, but instead of using that time, I just imagined that at some point I would.

I'm far from being the perfect house keeper (please do not inspect my floors. Ever.) But I am seeing improvements. I'm enjoying the productivity of it all. And although it's difficult having less time to work with, it seems to be a good thing for me. I know when I worked, if I had one easy job to do for the day, I was sluggish. Easily distracted. I could get to the end of the day and actually, that one easy job might not have been completed. But as soon as I had a lot on my plate, and a short amount of time in which to do it - I was in my element. I could get it all done with time to spare.

How about you? Do you thrive more under pressure? Do you have lots of time (and discipline!) on your side in which to get things done?

Now! I'm going to bed (for real).

Becoming Mum: Everything and Nothing

Well, it's official. Thanks to the arrival of the cutest little man in the whole wide world, I am the stay-at-home-Mum that I've been dreaming of becoming all year. When I was working half a day short of full-time, I looked ahead to this life stage in wonder... what would it be like actually staying at home every day while the rest of the world works? The concept seemed wonderful, but bizarre. Now when I look back to my days of being a worker just a few short weeks ago, it feels like it was a whole other lifetime.

So, what do stay-at-home-Mums of newborns do all day? If they're anything like me - everything and nothing. Five weeks into this new life, here is what I have learned. It turns out that babies are every bit as hard work as people say they are! One day I can do dishes, bake pumpkin bread, smash out a big batch of chicken pies for the freezer, take out the trash and prep a week's worth of salads for lunches in the time between feeding, burping and playing with my little man. Other days just one tiny thing can shift, and that load of laundry I feebly threw into the washing machine as I heard the sounds of my baby starting to stir is still sitting there, unhung, hours later. There have been luxurious days where I've managed to squeeze in a morning AND an evening shower. There have been days where I've scheduled a trip to the toilet "after this feed is finished" and halfway through the next feed, I realise I never ended up going. There have been nights when I have only had to get up once, for an hour or so. There have been stretches in the middle of other nights when my baby hasn't let me put him down for hours. There have been mornings where I have had time to put together a proper cooked breakfast. There have been other mornings with cold cups of tea, and no possible chance of squeezing in breakfast before 10am.

On the days that fly by with little more to show for it than a half-emptied dishwasher, I feel like I'm failing. On the magical days when I spend the day on my feet and still have a happy, fed baby, I feel like a super hero. When I worked, I was in a routine of ticking boxes and achieving tasks to a schedule. In comparison, this life is chaos. Each day is different, but one thing never changes. This life is good. Every time I pick up my little boy from his bed and hold him to me, every time he looks up into my eyes during a feed, every time he gurgles and does his funny not-quite-there chuckle as he lays kicking on his play mat, my heart is full. I am so, so lucky. I'm already so aware of how fleeting this time is, and I'm embracing all of it.

Becoming Mum - Leaving Work

All of a sudden, my desk at work isn't my desk any more. I'm 4 weeks from finishing up at my job, and a replacement has started. A replacement that I dearly hoped that we would find in a timely manner, yet whose presence has me feeling unsettled and leaving me to hop between empty desks for the remainder of my time. Am I excited that in 4 short weeks I'll be starting a new chapter (at least for the foreseeable future) as a stay-at-home Mum? More than anything. But it turns out that the process of closing the previous chapter isn't actually as easy as I thought it would be. In fact, I'm more than a little bit heart broken to be leaving. This job and I have had our ups and downs - it started as my former boss warning me that if I wanted to come back and work for the Church after a 2-year break, I would need to do "a little bit of finance" as part of my role (knowing that last time, finance was the thorn in my side) but it became my heart beat, a job that I gradually built myself, that I loved, that I learned so much from, and that I'm damn good at. Not to mention the amazing work environment, and some of the fantastic people that I work with.
For the next year, I won't be unlocking the giant creaky gate at the side of the building at 7 in the morning, flicking on the lights and putting together a breakfast of porridge or avocado toast and tea to gulp down while I check my emails in the quiet, empty office. I won't be watching the clock, waiting for the different time check-points when I expect each of my colleagues to arrive. I won't be taking screen breaks at reception to clear my head or keenly watching the office kitchenette for the arrival of home baked cakes and biscuits. I won't be whipping through data entry or feeling the immense satisfaction of an empty filing tray. I'll be in my house, catering to our little boy, re-heating cups of tea that have gone cold and missing the extra income that my job provides. But I have no doubt at all that I will love every moment of it.
It's a strange thing to face a big gap in work, when I have worked in some capacity or another since my first job at the age of 16, washing dishes in a tea room. I've never committed fully to study (two semi-baked degrees to my name, baby) but I've always been a dedicated worker. And now? I won't be - at least not in the same way. The more I come to terms with it, the stranger a reality it's becoming.

Claim It Back!

Want to know something that I've always had a bee in my bonnet about? It bugs me how easy it is for my week days to revolve completely around my job. Don't get me wrong - I love my job! I work in an amazing office, with amazing people (including my husband... totally not biased at all), AND I happen to really enjoy crunching numbers all day - take that every maths teacher I ever had! Did you guys know I failed maths in year 12? I didn't even go to my TEE exam because I'd already failed the course. And now I work with numbers and spreadsheets all flippin' day. Life hey?

ANYWAY. I work for 8 hours a day - that's one third of my day, yes? (Maths, my friend). Then I spend roughly another third of my day sleeping, more or less. And that last third? That should be my time - but how easily it becomes focused on the day I've just had at work, or the day I'm about to have at work. How easy it is to get home from work and spend the night on the couch, recovering from a day at the office. How easy it is to wake up as late as possible in the morning, then rush to get ready for work. And suddenly, work isn't just taking that one-third of the day... it's consuming a whole other third of the day that should be mine! That's 8 hours that I'm not getting paid for, and I am all for claiming it back. And that can happen with the smallest things - getting up an hour early on a sunny morning and doing some laundry, reading something good with a hot beverage, going for a run, making pancakes from scratch, playing piano - these sound like lovely weekend activities, but why not enjoy them on week days too? And after work - what about doing some gardening and soaking up the last couple of hours of sunshine, going out for coffee with a friend after dinner, writing a story, making a special dessert, or doing some craft? Maybe it's just because it's Spring, but I'm feeling ultra-inspired lately!

One of my mini-goals for September is to get back into running, and yesterday was day 1... it was the first time in a very long time that I've gotten up well before I've needed to for work, and it was difficult but good! The air was cold and burned my lungs every time I inhaled, and I'm so unfit that I could only run in bursts, but it felt amazing. I got home, I made eggs for breakfast, I washed my hair, I checked my favourite blogs and THEN I started thinking about getting ready for work. By the time I walked into the office at 8.45, it didn't feel like I was just starting my day - it felt like I was hours into it. I felt good all day - imagine if every day were like that! (All these pics are from my run by the way... Kwinana is pretty in the mornings!)

My New Year Has Arrived!

I know, technically I'm fashionably late. But today, January 10, really does mark the beginning of a new year for me! So much has happened since I last blogged (December 1, seriously!?) Namely, I quit my crazy theme park job. No more answering phones for the craziest place in Perth! Today I returned to my favourite job that I've ever held, at my Church. So while the first few days of the year were nothing out of the ordinary - working Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays, the year has taken a sharp turn in a much better direction. The thing that makes my new job even more exciting is that Chris will be coming on board with me later this month! We'll be working in entirely different fields, and predominantly different buildings, but we'll be co-workers! Yay!

So, happy new year! I've been thinking non-stop about 2012 and all of its promises, and here are a few that I'm personally hoping to see happen...

1. God: He deserves so much more from me than I've given. This year, a life-change needs to be set in motion.

2. Debt-blowing: we have wayyyy too many loans. This year we're seriously focusing on blowing those debts out of the water and getting that little bit closer to financial freedom...

3. Health: I need to catch onto this whole healthy-eating/exercise thing pronto. I want to feel amazing, and I want to be in great shape by the time we think about having babies a few years down the track. Seriously, I need to get my head in the game.

4. Fussy-busting: I'm still growing out of the fussy-eating mindset that I developed as a kid, and each year I like to challenge myself to enjoy a wider range of foods. The last couple of years have seen me master the tomato, the prawn, the olive and the avocado, and this year I'd like to increase my tastes a little more. Maybe conquer a bunch of seafoods? Game meat? Hmmm!

5. Socialise: Since getting married, I've fallen into the trap of spending lots less time with friends. And spending time with my friends is fun. So here's to lots more good times with the amazing people in my life.

6. Craft: I have a whole stinking craft room, and the only reason I've set foot in there at any point over the last year is to hunt for fairy lights, and to store things. Mad. I love craft. I need to do it more.

7. Positivity: I've become jaded over the years. I miss the 18-year-old version of me who was psyched about everything, who didn't get grudgey, who didn't get stressed. She's someone to aspire to.

8. Be intentional: I need to be intentional about spending time and connecting with the people I love (Chris, my family, my friends) rather than taking it for granted that things will fall into place.

9. House-keeping: I'm not the greatest house-keeper, and as a result of this I'm embarrassed to have people in my home. Crazy, since one of my huge loves is entertaining. I need to get in better habits so that I, and my friends, can actually enjoy my home.

10. Dress better: It's time to start putting some effort into my appearance - not just for special occasions or nights out, but for day-to-day life.

Thanks for reading through! I'm hoping this year that my blog can really reflect some of these changes as I bring them about in my life.

In other news, did you know that I turn 26 on Saturday? Old. Old. Old.

The Art of Remembering

Hi there! I've been pretty quiet on this blog lately, as people have started to remind me. Sorry! I think my 365 is starting to bum me out - I let it get soooo far behind that it's getting harder and harder to write about the photos that I took all those months ago. Depressing that at the tender age of 25, my brain is forgetting the very details of day-to-day life that I set out to remember by taking on this project! When I was a kid, we travelled to America a few times. Those were some of the greatest times of my life! My Mum got us in the habit of keeping a travel journal from day 1, but being a kid I'd sometimes go for a while without writing anything in it. Then weeks after the trip, I'd finally pick up my travel journal and start writing in it again - back-logging all of my memories and writing about each day as if it had only just happened. It didn't matter that a whole month had passed, I still remembered what we did, what we saw, what we ate on every single day. I still remembered the name of the tiny little towns we stopped in on our road trip, and I knew every event in chronological order, too. Crazy right?! A couple of months ago I noticed that I would come into work on a Monday, and someone would ask what I did over the weekend, and for the life of me I couldn't remember! I would have to think hard before remembering a hen's night, brunch with friends, dinner dates. I mean, wow. These things are the highlights of my days, and yet they escape my immediate recollection so easily. What's with that? Crazy cakes, that's what it is.

So those are the thoughts that I leave you with. I hope that you can relate on some level. Otherwise I'm clearly losing my mind!!!

From The Sick Bed...

Gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I know, I'm a terrible person. As more and more of you are beginning to point out, I am like 2 freaking months behind on my 365s. Disgusting, I know! The good news is that I've still been taking the photos (most days). The bad news is that a lot of the time, I'm forgetting the little anecdotes and details of many of my photos already, which is completely messing with the purpose of this project - remembering the little things. Grrrr.

Anyway, me-bashing aside, I am cranky as pants with my health at the moment. In the last month and a half, I've been sick a whopping three times! Three! And these are not short and sharp little head colds... they're hard-core, 9-day-long stretches of splitting head aches, the sorest of sore throats, congestion so severe it would protect my insides from a nuclear explosion (yep, just from my nose being totally blocked up) and the worst part, coughing fits that are so hard and so frequent they've reduced me to a teary ball on the floor. This is not how I've ever experienced sick before, and I'm wayyyyy over it. Thanks for listening to my melt down.

On a slightly less self-pitying note, I've been spending this weekend thinking about the future. I've decided to switch my uni degree back to primary teaching (I'm currently doing early childhood education) and I've been offered a more secure, permanent position at work which has me feeling more settled than I have basically all year since giving up my full-time status for a casual one. But this offer has brought a lot of things to the surface and I'm now trying to answer questions that I just can't - what do I want my immediate future to hold? A stable job? A baby? A focus on finishing my degree? Do I pursue the dream I've had for years, to open a cupcakery? Do I dabble in the event-planning path that's caught my interest lately? How brave do I let myself be? Bless my husband, who is waiting patiently for me to work these things out for myself.

I don't understand people whose lives are black and white - and I don't mean that in a negative way at all. I just don't get how someone can come up with the 'grand plan' that they then stick to for 50 years. Life would sure be a lot easier that way. I just change too much - my hopes, my dreams, my goals, my mind... it's all just constantly moving.

Anyway, my cold & flu medication is swirling through my brain right about now and my eyes are slowly being forced close, so I'll leave you with my thoughts and take a good, long sleep. I hope!

All I Want To Do Is...

Finish this sentence: My name is _____ and all I want to do is _____

Can you answer that? I can’t. I don’t have that one definitive idea of something that will make me feel satisfied. What do you do when you want to do everything?

I’ve always been a huge dreamer. My head fills up with ideas all the time. Songs I could compose, hair accessories I could make, novels I could write, recipes I could invent, pictures I could draw, events I could plan, photographs I could take. I live in this place in my head where I could do anything I want. I feel like if I concentrated hard enough on one of these things, I could actually succeed at it. In high school I decided to be a screen writer, and I would sit at my desk for hours after school and on the weekends, banging out movie scripts, usually with 10 or more on the go at any given time. A bit later, I decided to be a song writer and within weeks I’d half-filled a journal with lyrics and sketches of guitar chords and progressions. So what happened with that yearning, that passion to pursue the thing I loved? As sad as it is, I think that when there are so many things that I want to pursue, I lose motivation to really pursue any of them. On my computer, I have countless beginnings to stories that I end up abandoning as soon as writer’s block hits. This morning I purchased a midi keyboard and the recording software I learnt to produce music with when I studied electronic music in 2007. This afternoon I’m meeting with my designer-friend Kirstin for a monthly business meeting, to discuss our business plans – for me that means an online shop that I closed and want to re-open some day in the future. I’ve started planning and writing a dinner-party themed cook book. All of these are incredibly happy endeavours, but my fingers are in too many pots! I know that there will be people who read this post and say “There are no rules – pursue everything that your heart desires!” But I can’t. I have loads of passion, but I can’t stretch it out that far! You can’t become amazing at something when you’re trying to become amazing at four other things at the same time – developing skills requires a solid commitment, not a commitment split five ways. So instead of making sacrifices and picking something to pursue whole-heartedly, I take the opposite end of the spectrum and spend most evenings planted on my butt in front of the TV; pursuing nothing, achieving nothing.

So how do I choose? How do I commit myself to fewer exciting pursuits, when I just want them all?

I Miss Being A Muso.

If you've only met me in the last 4-ish years or so, you probably don't realise this but my background is that of a serious muso. Like a large percentage of the population, I did the obligatory piano lessons from primary school, and once I hit high school I dabbled in guitar before landing a music scholarship and the opportunity to study the trombone. Yep, the trombone. And I was damn good at it. My life revolved around music - I was in every high school band, as well as the WA Youth Orchestra Philharmonic. And when I wasn't at rehearsal or in a lesson, I was still banging away on the piano. I fell in love with writing music in late high school. I wrote a piece for our senior school concert, and at our first rehearsal, when I sat down at the school's grand piano and played the first chord, accompanied by the various string players, clarinet, flute and vocalists I had enlisted to play with me... I almost wept. There were tears pricking my eyes because I had the utter privilege of hearing every part of my arrangement come together - without the assistance of my faithful 6-track midi keyboard. A few years later, I even got to do some post-high school study in writing and recording with ProTools through the then-brand-new Mount Pleasant Baptist Community College. It was the most fun I'd had in a long time.

Fast forward to today and I don't actually touch any musical instrument. Even the hobby of singing which I took up to fill the musical void when I stopped playing has fallen by the way-side. Today I (finally) started listening to Sleeping At Last's Yearbook Project (3 new recorded songs each month for a year). The album so far takes my breath away - I think their music is pretty special. Just listening to the album from the point of view of someone who knows the process of song writing, I was pretty floored. And my heart just started yearning. Not particularly just to write songs again, but to bring my music back somehow. It makes me pretty ashamed that I went from being such a music nut, to being bland and passionless in my pursuit of playing. Sure, every couple of months or so I'll have a tinker on the keyboard and try to remember how to play something, but that usually ends as quickly as it starts.

I'm not sure where to start with all this, but something needs to change. Because I seriously miss being a muso.