A Cost to Quiet
The mandated Aussie summer is great for work/life balance unless it upends your mental balance.
As a fairly recently minted citizen of Australia I still take my patriotic responsibilities very seriously.
The most important of those is the understanding that come the first Tuesday of November and the annual Melbourne Cup (think Kentucky Derby with fewer mint juleps but more ‘C’ words), professionals everywhere wrap up any work they can finish by the first Monday of November and proceed to turn the country off until the end of summer break… you know, February.
This is, of course, insane but also why you haven’t heard from me in a while. My hands were tied.
While I have been on six weeks of government mandated vacation, I have certainly not been idle.
I’ve had time to host in-laws I haven’t seen in 7 years. I’ve had time to lounge with my family, the freedom from hectic school and sport schedule lifted for a time to be replaced by sun and surf. I even got my scuba certification.
But I’ve also had time to sit, relatively still, and think.
Sometimes that is just what the doctor ordered but sometimes that inactivity can prove incredibly dangerous. Particularly off the back of so much effort made over this past year.
As hinted at (or not so hinted at) in the recent few posts, I have worked hard to position myself to have larger agency over the work that I do, the projects that I say yes to and the time I keep for my own creative work. All very much counter to everything we are taught and told about responsible and productive, professional conduct.
Terrifyingly, though, with so much mental quiet, my inner dialogs, the old one and the new, are now in open conflict, each more and more loudly - well one, more and more loudly - vying for supremacy of not only my mind but my actions and reactions going forward.
Let me explain.
This morning I woke up to a fish on the floor.
Wait. Maybe that’s not back far enough. Try this.
I’ve recently purchased, prepped, cycled and stocked a new aquarium that will serve as stand-in for a growing obsession, still too fragile to express openly.
In my long life, I know-well the trials and tribulations of the aquatic pet going all the way back to the Whispering Pines apartment complex of my childhood where a playmate, Katy (Cathy?) Goldfinger(?) came over for a play and, while my seven year old self was digging through toys in the other room, fed the fish in my tank their food… all at once…to death…
It certainly wasn’t her fault - being seven in her own right - and it definitely wasn’t the last time the cold hand of fate pointed its bony finger at my tanks and called her cichlids home.
There was the time a full tank of fish died in the move from Washington to New York (no one could prove I left them on the sidewalk in Bethesda ((I didn’t!))).
There was the time the kids got their first taste of liquid death when we got a goldfish to fill the Woodstock house with the glittering light of morning as the sun rose and shone through the bowl on the dining table…
Sadly, light enough for glitter but not bright enough to keep the water from freezing. A weird goldfish version of Hans Solo, surprised face and all. God, Woodstock was cold.
Yes, death comes for pet fish fast and often.
But this one was different.
For starters, the tank is covered. Well, mostly covered, with the exception of where the filter intake and heater are on the left and the filter return on the right.
Thing is, both of those openings are in the back of the tank.
This fish was on the floor, out front and, bless their soul, nearly dead center to the tank above.
This fish either had to choose or work or both to die on this spot.
Standing in the quiet above him, looking at the safety of the tank, I thought about the battle being waged in my own head.
I had a meeting this morning. Well, an interview. An interview for a full time job.
Interesting? Definitely.
Challenging? Sure.
Inspiring in a way that you’ve heard me write about in these pages - or those lucky enough (haha, I know, ‘unlucky enough’) to hear me talk about in person?
Not on your life.
And therein lies the rub.
When we first arrived in Australia we landed in August. We got a car, a place to live and settled the kids into school. By the time those tasks were complete and it was time to look for gainful employment it was round about the middle of November. Yes, the third or fourth Tuesday in November.
Happy Thanksgiving? Yes.
Happy job-hunting? See you in February, mate.
Unaware at the time, I am now deeply familiar with the dread and fear and doubt that that long fallow summer stretch can bestow upon one waiting for the lights to come back on and work - full time or more specifically that of your own - to return to the fore.
An old acquaintance but newly invaluable and dear friend who has long forged his own path refers to it in his household as the ‘full-times’, as in, you’ve come down with a case of ‘the full-times’. That moment of doubt where the slow period has outlasted the confidence in yourself as well as your belief in the transitory nature of everything.
It is this same gnawing at my foundations over the past six weeks that has allowed insecurity to return and my eyes turn from ‘The Path’ toward an endless and blurry death-scroll of job postings.
Not because I believe I’ve made a mistake but because the voices tell me otherwise. The old ones. The bad ones.
And the voices are loud.
And the voices are mean.
And the voices make you think because the quiet period has been so long and you ‘aren’t there’ means that you are wrong…
How do you keep skating when everyone says the ice is too thin? That the safest thing to do is to lie down and spread as wide and as flat as you can to keep from breaking through.
But you know that if you do, that when you listen, it will be YOU that melts the ice.
It will be your own stasis that plunges your prone body into the frozen water as the weight of your blades pull you under and all you can think to think is, ‘why didn’t I keep skating?’
I wonder what choice the fish on the floor thought it was making.
Rest in peace, LemonJello.
Love this. Nailed it about the 6 week "everything is off" which turns more into 10 weeks with work related things. I haven't done the kids in school thing yet (2025/2026) so I have 2 years before the proper 6 weeks. Daycare is a saviour... even though it's super expensive.
love the long Aussie summer break!