volume sixteen

you can plan on me

Do you remember when you stopped playing? When you decided you were too old to play dress-ups or make-believe or with toys? I think for me it was around the age of twelve, at least when I started thinking about it. Much younger than I wish it was.

When I started high school, I was eleven about to turn twelve years old. With my birthday at the start of the year, it meant I made the cutoff of enrollments, which means I was one of a handful of people in my grade throughout my school years that was consistently a year younger. (For those of you who read this digital journal who might not know — the Australian school year also starts toward the end of Summer but that means the start of the calendar year because everything is opposite day down under).

Eleven is young to be entering a brand new school, far bigger than the primary (elementary) school I had been to my whole life so far. My grade was almost as big as my whole school had been, and now I was the baby of them all. We all went through those feelings, from being the oldest (and therefore coolest?) kids in school to the youngest, most childlike, therefore the super uncool ones — and I was so uncool.

I was eleven. I didn’t get my second ear piercing over the school holidays like all the other girls in my grade seemed to have gotten the memo for, my shoes were not the same skate-brand ones every other girl had and my backpack was last season that I got on sale using birthday and christmas money. So I was just a boring little one-earring-per-lobe gal, my uniform hung off me because I was still pre-pubescent and stick-thin wearing my sister’s hand-me-downs, and I found joy in things that were no longer considered cool.

I went to acting classes at the YMCA after school. I went to singing classes once a week after school. They were more like choir, but with a voice coach, and it took place at the dance school. So while it was something I loved so much, I also wasn’t a dancer and felt very out of place walking through the building finding the classes too.

At home, I wrote wildly creative short stories and journaled a lot. We lived out of town until I was fourteen so I found joy in make-believe — with acres to roam and use my imagination to pretend that it was more than just a paddock of grass and a few trees —it was a magical playground that could be anything I wanted it to be.

I came from a long, long history of putting on plays whenever our ‘city friends’ would come and visit from our previous home, Sydney. There would be new kids to entertain so what better way than for me to write, direct and star in a play we would all perform for the parents? Even better if I choreographed a dance number for us all, please, may I remind you I was not a dancer?

I of course joined drama class and art class at school and loved them more than any other subject. I thrived in them if I am honest, being among the top students of both. I hadn’t lost my nerve yet, I was still young enough to just let the things that made me happy be things that I did, instead of realising that you get judged pretty harshly when you do that.

but the party was actually just code for life

I remember a few moments that were pivotal in taking me from the playful, creative, child to the wannabe cool girl who longed for the older boys’ attention.

Do you remember as kids and young teens you would write on each other? Was that just my school because everyone did it — picking up a pen in class to write or draw or doodle on the hand or arm or leg of the person next to you. If someone wanted to draw on you, you were friends. That is why it was so cool when I was partnered with the coolest, most beautiful girl in our grade in cooking class and she drew on me, so I went to draw on her back and my pen wouldn’t work. That is when she announced that she put Body Shop Shimmer Lotion on her arms and legs every day to get the shimmer skin look and so, therefore, pens didn’t work on her.

I am sorry every day? How much time did that take? I’ll tell you! About ten minutes and I have lotioned my entire body every day since. That habit of trying to be cool has stuck with me since then — it started out as shimmer lotion that I purchased from the dollar store or in case of emergency ‘borrowed’ other items from the bathroom cupboard supplies of my older sister or mother. It later became delicious Vitamin E cream and other goodness as I grew and learned to take care of my body’s biggest organ. Thanks to her, my skin is baby soft and youthful in my thirties. But also, every day? Back then I had to cut into my morning playtime to do this.

This was a big moment for me though because it BLEW MY MIND that I should have been thinking about this stuff and I wasn’t? How silly of me to be walking around with my skin as it is! How would people know I was beautiful if I didn’t shimmer in the sun? Plus now I was noticing all the cool girls shimmered, so of course, I had to, too.

I gradually got partnered with this cool girl more and more in cooking class and we hit it off! She wasn’t scary or intimidating at all (okay maybe a little intimidating but she was so nice). She was silly and childish and funny... in class. As soon as we walked out of that room she was captain cool, she walked like a woman, not a girl. She laughed only when older boys were walking past, but otherwise kept her composure. She stopped by the bathroom between every class to make sure her perfect curls were still bouncing and her mascara hadn’t bled and to reapply her sparkly lip-smacker gloss.

I realised I had my priorities all wrong. I started stuffing my bra with tissues and plucking (destroying) my eyebrows and raiding my mum’s old make-up to use every day. Playtime, cartoon time, writing time, reading time and daydream time all had to take a back seat because now my morning was BUSY!

It didn’t stop with lopsided brows, lopsided boobs and bright blue mascara. At school I slowly realised that talking back, not doing homework and being late for class was what the cool kids did and they for sure weren’t going to drama class and enjoying it — it was a place to chill and do nothing for an hour. I had detention for the first time around this time, something I had never come close to getting before.

My hair is naturally pretty straight, but when it gets layers it gets this bounce to it. I had the brilliant idea of trying to get a Farrah Fawcett look, without putting in the right kind of effort I am sure. I heard girls laughing and whispering about my hair from across the playground and I walked to the bathroom to fix it right away and never styled it like that again.

I had someone ask me what brand my shoes were, and lying I said I didn’t know, my mum bought them for me. I knew damn well where they were from, and I acted clueless when they responded that the other girl in our grade with these shoes said they were a [insert cool brand name] - was she lying? They wanted me to say yes, to call her out, she had somehow slipped into the ‘cool group’ and this would be their way of getting her out. Nope, she was 100% telling the truth because that means I was also wearing brand name shoes and not Target knock-offs, thanks.

I remember my first school dance and showing up in my favourite clothes but soon realising how childish they were. There were alcoholic drinks, what I now realise were drugs but for sure at the time didn’t, and tank tops with mini skirts galore. My jeans, t-shirt and pigtails were not going to cut it there.

So the next dance I got ready with friends instead, and I raided the dress-up box at home to find things I could work with — heels, a skirt, a tight tank top, and then I looked like one of them and suddenly I wasn’t invisible. Boys talked to me, alcohol was offered to me. I sure as heck don’t remember anyone from drama class being there even though they for sure were.

I remember envying this one girl in my grade who effortlessly was friends with everyone — the drama kids, the ‘cool’ kids, the sporty kids… how did she do it? I wanted to be her so badly. In hindsight, she didn’t give a fuck and was herself. I thought she was RAD but I didn’t have the guts to be her.

I remember even after a lot of peer pressure, I still was a child at the end of the day. I recall a day in my second year of high school, sitting in the library in the silent study with our class and another, passing notes from my friend and I at our table to our other friend’s older boyfriend (did you get all that?) at another table. He was confiding in us that she had cheated on him and he didn’t know what to do. I wrote back some very exciting news: that I met the Scooby-Doo and the gang last weekend while on a family vacation at a theme park. I can still see his face when he read it like “what?”.

So when did drama class stop? When did I stop with after school singing and acting? When did I stop writing stories and plays and putting on acts? I think when other things took priority like being cool, looking the part and having a ‘too cool for my own joy’ attitude. That grew and evolved over time but that stayed with me for the next couple of decades if I am honest. Sure it faded, maybe it lost its power the more I connected with like-minded people, but I can honestly say I recall feeling this peer pressure as recently as last year.

So I am again going to mention that the biggest blessing of the pandemimoore is how I lost a lot of outside influence, how I regained my love for writing through Writers’ Hour, how I connected with a few groups of likeminded people through the power of the internet in other meet-ups, how I have slowly started to imagine and daydream creatively again and how the more the world opens, the more I feel myself slipping back into old habits of but what will this make people think of me?

I often think of the home videos of me, from when I was young, seeking the attention of the camera with the songs I wrote and sung, the dances I did, the music videos I made, the plays I wrote and directed… I think “oh gosh I hope my Mum never figures out how to get them from VHS to digital and then share them with the world” (and honestly there are some that never should be seen from when I was young and silly I said and did things I didn’t know anything about and that don’t represent the adult that I am). But for the most part, maybe I shouldn’t be scared. I miss that version of me, she was young, free and found joy and pleasure in things I have for so long missed.

So how do I play now, and be the person younger Lauren would be so excited to know she became?

In hosting my podcast I get to learn from and connect with like-minded people and also have ah-ha moments every time knowing I am not alone, being the person I wish I had when I was younger.

I write — this digital journal to you each week, from writing prompts, slowly back to short stories, freewriting, a pilot for the first time…

Once a month I jump on zoom with my niece and nephew and we do ‘art class’ where we all come with one drawing prompt and draw together, and laugh and play and be silly too.

I make time to read and get lost in other stories as often as I can.

I love playing dress-ups.

I put on one of the many playlists I have created for any mood and I blast it and dance or sing or cry or treat myself with taking time in preparing a nice dinner and maybe bubble bath away from my phone, free to have my best creative ideas come to me there.

I enjoy my sanctuary, for that is what my home is, a safe space I can be myself, freely without judgement.

I colour in colouring books.

As the world opens I continue to seek out groups that will allow me to have fun creatively, or express myself honestly with zero pressure.

I find people who allow me to feel safe and excited to be me and I surround myself with them, as we always encourage each other that joy is precious and shouldn’t be taken for granted — follow it!

I have shared before my favourite quote from Elizabeth Gilbert: What are you willing to give up in order to have the life you keep pretending you want? Today I am willing to give up fear, pride, the overwhelming need to fit in, the worry of what others think of me, the pressure of spending my time any way other than doing things that bring me joy.

I love you,

Lauren xoxo

Three things I struggled with this week:

• Seasonal depresh, back so soon?

• Ooooooh the cold and dark mornings are making it hard to get out of bed, and, of course, it’s going to get worse before it gets better.

• Is anyone else sick to death of their own cooking? After a year and a half of almost only that, I sure am! Please feel free to send me your fav (simple, vegan) recipes!

Three blessings from this week:

• Kind interactions with strangers warmed my heart. I have missed talking to people I don’t know, and the magic of speaking to a stranger so, so much.

• Dogs keep coming up to me in the street. I’ll be walking nowhere near people with a dog and the dog will stop in their tracks and turn to walk towards me to come to say hi and jump on me to give kisses and get pets and be so lovely. It’s not like I’m calling for them, I am usually in my own world blasting Queen in my headphones. I don’t know what it is but it’s happening every time I leave the house, where they are coming to say hi and getting pets from me — I think they’re just very intuitive. Look if this is my superpower, I’ll take it! It’s really lovely.

• THIS IS NOT A DRILL: I’M GOING HOME FOR CHRISTMASSSSSSSS!!! 😭🤗🎄

Three goals for the coming week:

• I have set reminders for myself this week to make sure I plan things for my weekend, if you can believe it. I do not want to find myself in the seasonal woes and confine myself to the apartment for two days again, so I will plan ahead because so far, just saying I will to you as I have in past volumes, isn’t working.

• To finish reading my current book and start the other I got in the mail this past week.

• Finish my voice acting class on Hit Record, I have one lesson left. Help me stay accountable please pals.

What I am enjoying this week: Being my damn self. Have you seen this 2021 Halloween look where I asked myself “but what if Gomez Addams was a hot queer woman?” I felt so cool, confident and honestly, hot as hell.