Tiny hands, big mind

I’m four years old, and I’m alone in my room, doing whatever it is that four year olds do alone in their rooms.

I feel the urge to look at my hands. They are tiny and attached; two tools for grabbing. But are they even mine?

Suddenly, I begin to have an out of body experience.

Not a trauma response. Not a dissociative episode. But, for the first time in my life, I become acutely aware of my own consciousness. Cognisant that there is a part of me separate from my body.

Despite having the brain capacity and lived experience of a preschooler, a primordial knowing washes over me: there is who I think I am, based on what mummy and daddy have reflected back to me, and then there is also what I am; an essence that doesn’t reside in my flesh or rely on the projections of my environment. Who is that? What is that? Am I that? Or is that part of something else? 

Sweet Jesus. No wonder I was such a nightmare to raise

In three weeks, I turn 33. And I have never been able to stop asking the question, who am I? I’ve never been satisfied enough with the answer.

Those meta-moments of mindfulness continued throughout my childhood but, eventually, life began to deliver external opportunities for me to find out.

Not long after my spontaneous awakening (as a four-year-old), I started school. Those years are hazy but I remember my best friend wetting himself in class. I remember vehemently protesting language lessons and getting a hall pass to do art in the corridor. And I remember the conductor of the school band overhearing me singing on the toilet, and later, getting down on her knees so she was at my eye level, and asking me if I’d like to be the vocalist for the jazz ensemble. Duh.

I sang Summertime, Rock Around the Clock, and The Girl From Ipanema. And I freaking loved it. I loved it so much. I loved the weight of the microphone in my tiny hands, I loved the vibration of the instruments behind me, I loved that I got to steer the ship of sound with my voice. My dad sat in the front row of the audience at our end-of-year concert and it’s the only time I’ve ever seen him utterly weep. Pussy.

And then… I tried to sing in high school and I tried to sing in uni. But my body contorted, my mind raced, and my essence retracted. Everyone was better than me. I had become too self-aware.

I tried acting. But I was never spontaneous enough to be believable. I tried DJing. But I always second guessed my own inner rhythm. I allowed the challenges of having an in-built capacity to observe myself knock the expression right out of me and, eventually, I gave up. Maybe an artist isn’t who I am?

In the light, self-exploration has been behind some of my greatest achievements, my most profound growth spurts, and my most moving creations. But in the shade, my unrelenting introspection has been a source of crippling distress, unhinged self-criticism, and has almost killed me.

The truth is: I still haven’t nailed how to live sustainably with this part of my nature. I maintain what I like to call an agreeable level of insanity, day-to-day, but the balance does (often) tip. Expressing myself in smaller, less explosive, bites is what I hope to create here. And what I hope to do as a commitment to myself, moving forward.

I have also found, especially in the few months, that sometimes it is less important to analyse who you are, and more important to remember…

Tonight, as my 33rd birthday-month present to myself, I’ve joined a singing circle. There are fourteen people in it, none of whom I know, and the aim is to spend five weeks singing harmonies to popular songs rewritten with uplifting lyrics.

And I am going to love it. Again.

With gratitude for your valuable time & attention,

Paige xo.

P.S. If you think there is someone who might relate to my stories, send ‘em this link to subscribe 💟 https://paigeleacey.beehiiv.com/subscribe

P.P.S. Absolute tune from this week: Afraid to Forget by Hammock
https://open.spotify.com/track/47o5lF6GRDtwnkrbubAyHf?si=040d5c99ef5e4a8b