- T.S. Eliot
I remember thinking once, whilst poised playfully at the top of the loomingly lush, grassy green hill at my local park, that: if I were to roll down it - on my side, sausage roll style - there was a distinct and definite possibility that I'd find myself splashed or smeared in dog poo. And as I toyed with the idea; my arms rhythmically swaying, ready to propel, I thought about the countless times as a child I'd catapulted myself down this very hill, carefree and thoughtless as to the perils of the possible poo-poo. Hundreds, if not thousands, of rotations, and not a single hesitation…so why now? Why suddenly was I more concerned about the risk of ruining my clothes than I was about the timeless hilarity of diving down the hill? The fact that I’d dawdled at all upset me deep inside somewhere, but it did get me thinking. At 20 years of age, had I finally succumbed to what people refer to as ‘growing up’?
At twenty-years-old, most people don’t even make it as far as the hill, let alone contemplating lunging down it again, and their reasons for abandoning vernal behaviours such as this are their own, and no doubt varied. But, irrespective of the reasoning, the disheartenment I felt that day within myself and for myself has never really gone away, and is certainly applicable to most ‘grown-ups’ I know or have met in my time. For me, it was that I had gone to the trouble to do my hair and dress smartly; rolling down the hill may undo all the work I had done, and I still had much of the day to go in which I wanted to retain my look of respectability. And since then, faced with similar and equally juvenile situations, I have seen my friends deny themselves the laughter and adventure for equally ‘adult’ reasons. They consider the possibility of defacing or harming themselves; the cost of new clothing should they soil /tear/stain/set fire to their current ones; or they worry simply that people will be judgemental, and with these niggles firmly fixed about their beings like some societal chastity-belt, they walk away from the giant pile of wood-chippings or dangerously high tree branches…but not without a visible mist of dejection or melancholy meandering beside them. You’re told far too often as a child that your years of youth are the best you’ll have, and to cherish them, but to paraphrase George Bernard Shaw, youth really is wasted on the young. And, before we know it, we replace the swingset with a beer garden picnic table, and the bat and ball with flat, flavourless liquor.
Three years on from that moment on the hill, and I feel the rest of life slipping off the same way those cheery childhood jaunts do. Something as enjoyable and frivolous as a barbeque becomes a battle of organisation and cost, and rather than just ‘carpe diem-ing’ the dungarees off of each sunny day that dances into view, we have to hope we can book the day off work, then find enough friends who can do the same. And then, when it’s all fallen through like shoddy upholstery and you spend the sunshiny day at your desk, you can be sure your next day off will be the one wrapped unreasonably in rainclouds and riptides. Eventually, we all seem to grow tired of this turmoil-trodden boardwalk splintering into our psyches, and so we settle for not doing things quite as often as we once did, until eventually it’s easier to just hang up the hammock altogether and settle for the bed of nails. However, it would seem, in at least the majority of these cases, that it isn’t just the fact we ‘grow up’ that sucks fun from our vocabulary. Instead, it would appear that it is the necessity of responsibility and need of money that instigates this required ‘growing up’ and this in turn straps us firmly to the torture rack.
Currently, in my own life, I am stuck in a bit of a sadistic revolving door when it comes to the work vs. career situation. And, as to be expected, money is the concierge. For most of my life, each step I’ve taken towards the ever-ominous Future has been an obvious one, and one that I’ve smoothly switched to when required. Following school I attended college; I picked what I deemed to be the best college for me within the local area, and chose subjects I enjoyed or excelled in. Following my time there, I was given advice as to which university would best suit my desire to be a writer, and proceeded to get a place there too. But now my three-years have come to an end, I have found myself in a garden of forking paths, if you will, as to where I should stomp next. Unlike courses which lead directly into a specific area of work or employment, a degree in English Literature and Creative Writing doesn’t really lend itself to any one field at all, and this has left me with a feeling not dissimilar, I imagine, to agoraphobia. I love to write, but I also love music, acting, singing. And, without a direct path to pursue as my ‘next step’, I feel torn and pulled in several directions at once, but all the time aware that I can’t really back out of my retail job, which keeps me afloat economically. And as I spend one day attacking the writing prospects in my life, and another making the most of my musical affiliations, I have come to realise that I am soon going to have to pick a single avenue of these entertainment options, or else fail to develop a career in any. What it has also made me realise is that these things that I once found to be escapisms, hobbies or pastimes, are now also under pressure to be money-makers. In the same way that rolling down the hill began to hold a lot more weight than it used to, it would seem my escape routes are beginning to merge with my career paths, and once again I can feel the enjoyment and frivolity of each area starting to fluctuate. Once again, I am left with a sense of disheartenment.
However, despite feeling sometimes that hitting rock-bottom is inevitable, and that eventually there will be nothing left but a ringing in my ears, reminiscent of the crazy party that was once my life, it is actually far from the gloom that occasionally fogs my view. Sure, life can weigh down on each and every one of us at times, and it does often feel like there’s little or no respite or escape to be had, but what we can always rely on – if we allow it to be there – is our sense of self, and our desire to smile and have fun. Even if I have to work gruellingly on a novel, with the completion of each page tainted with a feeling of expectation or necessity of its successful publication, or even if I’m critical of every word I sing knowing that it must be something truly astonishing for me to ever use it as a stable income, what I will always be able to do is shut my door after a long, hard day, and belt out a song for my own enjoyment. What I will still be able to do after I find myself with a speeding ticket (thanks a lot, variable speed limits…) is sit down and write a poem just for me that gets the grisliness off of my chest. And, what I hope we are all able to do, in spite of what anyone else may think of us, is metaphorically throw ourselves down our own personal hills, and to laugh at each and every stain and snag we encounter along the way. Yes, people may look at us with a sense of distaste. And yes, we may not be adhering to whatever mundane social codes have been set in place. But what we are doing is keeping a firm grip on our imaginations, on our adventurous, curious, playful sides. We are allowing some of the animal that we are deep inside to live outside of the zoos and cages we are thrown into as we come of age. And, most of all, we are being true to ourselves. If we want to run around in the rain and kick puddles, why shouldn’t we? If we want to climb trees to dangerous heights and jump out, who’s stopping us? And if we want to spin uncontrollably down dog poo-plastered hillsides just because it’s a sunny day, then why on Earth shouldn’t we? It can be a long and demoralizing wait at the bus stop of life, holding out for the bus to our true calling or perfect career, and the weight of that delay can be crushing – but only if we let it. Our job – our real job – is keeping the sun shining, even if there’s nothing but black clouds.
Some people walk in the rain, others just get wet. The question is: which person are you going to be?
