Motivation Evacuated
Australia Day weekend. Yesterday was a mammoth day of adventures and fun. Joined by couple friend of ours my husband and I went out for brunch, then to the National Gallery of Australia to partake of the Picasso and Matisse exhibition currently running there. This turned out to be a full day and evening thing culminating in the ever-exciting complete evacuation of the apartment block. A smoke bank from the local 400+ hectare bush fire only 5km from our house had rolled through and triggered a smoke alarm in the gym downstairs. PS. One small comfort is finding out that our precious cat is more drawn to the sound of the treat door opening than she is motivated to hide from the sound of the alarms. That is the first time in all our moving around that we have experienced an evacuation. Made me realise how dreadfully under prepared I am. Outside on the lawn surrounded with everyone else and their pets, I remembered all the best laid plans I had for how I would deal with one. None of which I had done. Even the collection of the cat was thanks to the husbands thinking. I was too far in the “who burned the toast?” mind frame to have thought it all through. Didn’t think to collect any identity papers, didn’t think to collect the hard drive with three years of irreplaceable photograph work on it, nothing. Before anyone mentions off sight backups, I usually have one but have been in the process of collating and triplicating my work so it’s all here in the one spot.
Today, I have a wah. In the light of yesterday’s non-event, realising how dreadfully under prepared I am for such things (like not having it cross my mind to collect my cat!) made my goals feel frivolous and silly. The overwhelming sense of not feeling adulty enough to adult has gotten hold of me. My inner critic is having a field day telling me I need to be more, different, better. Have you ever considered that line of thinking? When someone tells you they wish you didn’t have (insert negative character trait here) or that they wish you did have (insert positive character trait here) or I wish you were more like (insert name of person not you here) they are essentially tell you they wish you were different than who you are. Almost like they are saying they wish there was a different person with most of your personality and character but not that chunk in your place. Like they can almost accept you but not as you are, you need to be fixed first. This is quite devastating to hear when the trait is one you cannot change. Even more so when you have internalised people in your life telling you this message so frequently that your inner critic starts to use it against you. How can you be content pursuing the things that make you feel you are finally coming into your own when you have such a loud voice in your head that you need to be someone else to be enough?
My logical arguments for my goals will come back nice and loud (probably even tomorrow) but today I couldn’t bring myself to be creatively productive. I comforted with the logic that the husband is still home today (Yay for long weekends) and therefore time spent on him is time well spent.