"ugh, you want to be a dj now?"
on why you should do the thing and why you shouldn't stay in your lane
6th March 2026
I can already hear the comments from a mile off: you moved to melbourne and now want to dj? of course you do. join the other five thousand people that want to do the same. blah blah blah blah. Don't worry, I've berated myself enough for it already.
Let's rewind to last year:
I’ve never had a ‘proper’ job. I’ve had MANY jobs: tour guide, bar crawl rep, barista, you name it, just nothing conventional (which I keep telling myself is fine.) Whenever anyone asked me what I wanted to do, I spat out the same bullshit response that went along the lines of: I want to write a book, have it be a New York Times bestseller, earn enough money from it so I can then dj all around the world, and then maybe have an art gallery or renovate houses on the side. I would say all of this with a complete straight face (and still would now to be honest.)
I've had these conversations with certain who people very frankly responded with what is wrong with you? and proceeded to tell me that I was ridiculous and unrealistic and unreasonable.
Look I get it, it's pretty insufferable behaviour, but I realised a long time ago that music and writing have always been the two main things that bring me joy (cringe). So I decided Melbourne was going to be the place where I would start seeking that out. As soon as I moved here, got a house and a job, I launched this blog and bought myself some DDJ-200s. And then proceeded to use them approximately three times over the next eight months.
2025:
And then I moved in with my bestie mimi (dozie) who is extremely talented and conveniently had decks of a decent size that I could use whenever I pleased. So what did I do? I used them twice. Do you see where I'm headed here?
Mimi was hosting her first event in September in Melbourne and asked me to do a b2b. My gut reaction was fuck it hell yes, and then wait, actually hell no. Naturally, I ended up drunk at a pub in Balham, having a pep-talk with my sister, and I agreed to it, waking up in the morning with a hangover and a looming question hanging over me: why the actual fuck did I say yes?
"Chat, can I learn to dj in a week?"
After flying back over from the UK, I had five days to prepare; I did, however, have to go immediately back into working full-time, oh, and I also kind of had nowhere to live.
Approximately 48 hours before, I sat down with my tiny decks and very limited skills, tried mixing two songs, and half laughed / half cried at my apparent lack of ability. When I typed into chatgpt 'can I learn to dj in a week', I was met with a resounding NO and sat there in silence for a solid 15 minutes thinking about the three hundred different possibilities of how I was going to embarrass myself in two days time.
It really didn't help that people kept saying to me things along the lines of well, you wouldn't have said yes if you weren't good, to which I would just respond (in my head) but I'm really not, so why did I say yes?
So, for the next two days I read every beginner article I could, watched many, many YouTube videos, cringed at half of the questions I typed into Google and locked the fuck in.
I know what you're thinking, it's really not a big deal babe!! there's going to be no one there and also no one cares. But as the perfectionist and over-thinker I am, it was a big deal and everyone would care. Honestly, the only thing that got me through was that I knew if it all went absolutely tits up, then it would be very on brand and I could at least make some good content about it.
The outcome
Was it the best thing ever? no. Did I make mistakes? yes. But did anyone care? not really.
The main outcome was that I fucking loved it. Without sounding all corny and wow music is my life, I honestly do just love to go out to dance to music. It felt as though I had finally met my match. I've done a couple of sets since then, and look, will I become a dj? who knows. But that's not the question here.
People love to tell you to stay in your lane, and who knows, maybe I should stick to writing, or honestly, sack them both off altogether. The main takeaway is that I finally pushed myself to a commitment that I otherwise would not have made, making a new hobby from a long withstanding passion. And it is something I'm extremely interested to keep pursuing and build my skills in. All those years of teaching myself how to play the piano and studying music theory had finally come in to use for something.
So is it a quarter-life crisis, or is it valid? I'm going to go with valid on this one. I hate when people profess that they'll do xyz and proceed to then never do a single one. You don’t ever want to be a sayer and not a doer.
Because if not now, when? Sometimes we must just bite the bullet and switch lanes (even if it is only temporarily).