Diary of a Whinge Artist

Firstly, I can’t sleep. Well, I’ve been disturbed and woken up so many times in the last nine months, I’m now the sleep version of gun-shy…pillow shy? I get panicky at the thought of how much sleep I need, that I end up not sleeping. I have a baby. So the no sleep thing is no big surprise. The surprise is how well my 9 month old slept last night, whilst I got a grand total of 2 and a half hours.

I’m 34 by the way and I have a great life. I love my life. I have a fucking rad husband. He is a stunning human being. (And the sex, when we do have it, has been better post birth than I can remember. That was definitely an unexpected bonus. Especially considering it’s not like we had any issues there in the first place.) TMI? Oh well, too bad. Moving on.

We’ve lived a life that has been entirely selfish and heaps of fun. And yet, I find myself feeling like I’m 15 years down the track and I have nothing to show for it. I feel like I haven’t worked hard at anything since I left school. It’s never really bothered me until now, because for the most part, I’ve been having such a lovely time. It’s just that now, I want to work hard. I want to achieve something. I want to feel like I have something to show for myself. I want to use my brain. I know I have one. I got 97.35 on my ENTER goddammit. (Clinging onto that one like it means something, clearly.) I want to feel like a success. My big problem is that I have no fucking idea what to do. Or how to go about doing it. Or how to earn money while doing it, more to the point.

This is all excluding the fact that actually, as a mother, I’ve worked relentlessly hard at keeping my son alive for 9 months straight and yet this doesn’t feel like an achievement. I also have a Bachelors degree of Performing Arts and a Diploma of Acting. Can you see all of those capital letters? But again, neither of these feel like usable achievements. To make matters worse, my son is fucking gorgeous. So I feel pathetic that I’m not completely satisfied.