Old Man, Young Men and Mental Health

My past few weeks have been wild and I'm convinced I should be learning something.

I'm trying to pay attention.

At the end of September, I headed east to Saskatoon for Breakout West – a music festival and industry conference packed into 4 days and very late nights.

Like, way too late.

To take is as much as I could, I found myself getting to bed at 2:30 in the morning. Shows were scheduled to start at 12:30 AM and the official wind-up party didn't begin until midnight.

The whole experience left me feeling old, while also feeling like I was back in high school.

I was new to Breakout West and didn't know many people. Every event required intense networking that I had to initiate over and over. It never got easier. It never felt natural. And I'm a solid extrovert. At one of the final mixers, I gave up and sat on a speaker in the corner feeling a little sorry myself for several minutes. I just didn't have it in me to start the social engine up again.

This is how I often feel at these events – like I'm not good enough, or cool enough or young enough. The music industry can feel like a young man's game.

I don't think people were unkind. I don't think there were impenetrable cliques. But that's how it felt sometimes. That's how I experienced much of the weekend, which I think says more about me and my own inner voices.

My mental health never does well with late nights.

Honestly, I had a great time at Breakout West and would go again. People did invite me into their conversations and on little excursions for drinks or thrift-store shopping. I made new friends. I talked with people I've seen "around" but never taken the time to connect with. I saw incredible shows with wonderful musicians.

All the more confusing then that I felt so often on the outs.

Where do those inner voices of rejection come from?

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Immediately after getting home, I went to pick my kids up from summer jobs.

They crashed at our place for the week until, one by one, we moved them into their own places. Adult children.

Again, I felt old and resisted that feeling.

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Just last night I joined my brewery workmates to celebrate some wins at the Alberta Beer Awards. It was very fun, and I stayed up very late.

It may have been too much fun based on my headache today.

Another 3 AM bedtime for this old guy.

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Friday night I'm joining other local musicians at The Blue Chair cafe to celebrate the music of Neil Young. One of the songs I'm practicing is called Old Man. That's a little on-the-nose for my tastes.

(see how that one is coming along here)

With all of my travel, many Big Life Changes with our kids and a few other things going on I've been worn thin.

I can tell my body I'm young but eventually it catches up. The body wins.

I haven't made time for regular exercise or even normal eating patterns.

My mental health never does well when I stop taking care of myself.

As I write this on World Mental Health Day, I'm reminding myself to slow down and take care.

The truth is, most days I feel much younger than 44. I love the familiar shock in people's faces when they discover I have adult children and 10 or 20 years on them.

I'm far from being an actual "old man" but I don't even feel middle-aged. Yet the world is putting me in a new category. It's uncomfortable.

I know to many age is a condition of relevance or a criteria of worth. And that hurts.

It feeds those voices in my head.

So how do I still those negative voices? How can I tune in to a deeper voice?

I need to take care.

I need take time and space to ground myself in deeper truths about who I am and what I am here to do and who loves me and who I love. To hear those truths, I need to slow down.

I hope you can find the time to slow down and take care, too. I hope you are well today, and if you're not, that you lean on those around you to pull through.

In dumb hope,

(Dave) Von Bieker
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