Thursday, March 22, 2012

SXSW Can Really Hang You Up the Most

This is the last, the very last, of my SXSW recaps.  After this it will be a whole year before I start talking about the supermassive invasion of creativity and partying that happens around the Ides of March.
Like I said, this was the best SXSW year in a long time.  But man, great time and all, I was still pretty hung up with some serious SXSW induced anxiety. Serious.
Because when something so gigantic hits town I feel the need, the need to make something happen. I mean HAPPEN. You know, hob or knob or see and be seen or whatever.  Just make. something. happen.
But it's been so long since I hobknobbed that I can't remember which one is the hob and which one is the knob. I've been on a baby island for the last year. I've been at the park, or at the bouncy house. I've been in bed by 8, up by 6. I've been in the Baby Bus, rolling down the road as a self contained family unit.
I've been everywhere but out on the town.
And this year, with my kids grown-ish and with Ray's Birthday and with Elizabeth McQueen Meet Brothers Lazaroff, I felt like it would have behooved me to get out some. To reconnect with folks who did what I did.
But I was tired. And kind of sick. And way, way out of practice. So I did the best I could, but still found myself running home to feed the baby and take a breath. To go to the park and take a step back. Which made me feel, well, kind of lame. Kind of like I was letting this whole big festival/opportunity/experience pass me by because I was too freaked out.
I just wanted to put this out there as a counterweight to my previous posts. I tend to write in the "and a good time was had by all" style.  And I did have a good time...but as with everything there was another side to the story. The anxious making side. That's where my shadow self tends to show itself.
And there you have it.

2 comments:

Gtwodagee said...

OMG You mean you (gulp) were focused on your family instead of the Pollyannaesque dream of becoming a star? WHAT? SXSW is like a bus, there's another one coming soon. You will be schmoozin' and knobbin' at the next one and the one in 10 years when you'll be on the Mentors of Rock panel telling war stories for all the young whippersnappers! Now get back on the bus and get those war stories going!

EMQ said...

Leave it Gary Classic to set my worried mind straight. You are the best!