Oh yes.

Sitting in my living room watching musicals on DVD and researching travel insurance. Yay, my life.

I'm not happy. But I will be. I want to daydream through the woods in Wales and explore the winding streets of English villages. I am going to go swimming at completely inappropriate times of the year when my lips will go blue and I want to wear the completely wrong shoes when I go walking so my feet are covered in blisters. I want to eat disgusting meals I've bought in supermarkets and blow my last couple of dollars/pounds/euros/whatever on some time at an internet cafe so I can send emails lamenting my financial situation to the people waiting at home. But not home because home is what and where you make it and I plan to make it wherever I am for the next few months.

I want to hear strange accents that make me doubt that I've heard people right when they talk to me. I want to get lost in strange places while it's dark and raining and I just want to get somewhere warm and dry and familiar. I want to get so tired I fall asleep on trains and I want to get so hungry that I consider eating dairy again just because it's available. I want to just give up because everything's gone to hell and I want to come home and I miss what I had.

I want to come back to University desperate to study again because of all the life experiences I've had that have led me back to higher education. I want to outwear my welcome with people in other countries who I barely know but foolishly offered their couch to me. I want to want more than I can have in other countries and I want to want more than I can have from this trip.

When I feel completely overwhelmed at work and I resent the way I'm spending my summer, I remember just how greedy I am about my travelling plans. I'm not happy. But I will be.

Maybe someday you'll ask for me by name.

I could never forget the busy, eccentric local market or the way memories of my bedroom are of incense smoke spirals and folded, freshly laundered pyjamas. And sometimes they feel like one of my limbs, or my heartbeat; something essential to my life. I need to lose that feeling. I wonder when and how I will do that. But not if. Never if.

I'm going travelling in order to learn more about myself. I write for the same reason. But too often I feel like I'm not succeeding. So I stop writing altogether.

*

The closer I get to leaving Melbourne, the more I realise how much I owe to this city. I grew up thirty minutes from the centre of a mess of a metropolis. And I love that.

I love that my city stinks but people still like to sit by the putrid Yarra river and have coffee at filthy laneway cafes. I love that we all dress like we don't care (shopping at sales and Op shops and boutiques in the suburbs) and yet everyone is highly fashion conscious at the same time. I love the public transport in Melbourne and the issues that plague it (I finish my crossword while the tram sits in one place for forty minutes). I love being a walking stereotype and getting away with it at my wankerous inner-city university where lesbian, feminist, vegan Arts students are kind of the norm. I'll miss the Lord of the Fries store on the corner of Elizabeth and Flinders. I'll miss Brunswick Street where weirdos outnumber sane people. I'll miss the crazy arse weather in Melbourne that leaves you with a different season in each suburb you travel through on your way from one side of the city to the other.

I'll miss all those things but I won't. That's what happens when you change. You're rearranged and a little lost but you don't regret. I hope I feel that way when I'm walking around London in three months. And when I'm sitting in my shoebox of a bedroom. And maybe even when I'm remembering home.

Someone to share this love with.

Sometimes I think I completely understand relationships and other times I know I have absolutely no idea.

I have no social skills but I love hugs. I like human contact. I like jokes with people and laughing too hard at things. I love when you're close enough to someone that tears don't make it awkward but can be shared and understood.

I am trying to navigate my way through the different sorts of humans you come into contact with in the different sorts of ways on the different sorts of days. Quiet people. Boisterous people. People who are talkative one day and silent the next. Or those who like you one day and don't the next.

Workmates. Friends. Family. Friends of friends.

I feel like I'm drowning sometimes when I'm too tired or inexperienced to know how to talk to people. Even when I'm treading water and getting along with people; I know that it's only a couple of words, the wrong tone, the way I look a little bit confused at something that was said...

How do you make it work? Find people to complete you and the person you're trying to be, round out your projection of self? I wish I knew how to feel secure around people but ultimately that sort of security is an illusion.

Improvement is the ultimate goal in anything in life so relationships have to be a part of that. Evolution of friendships is necessary, I suppose. We have to feel lost and unsure around each other in order for that progress to occur, in order to get closer or even to find new, better companions than those we can't seem to relate to no matter how hard we try.

I have to believe that feeling of insecurity has a purpose. Otherwise I'm just inept. I prefer to think this way, that love and friendship and understanding are achievable only through uncertainty and that through that uncertainty we can feel bonded with one another. Our angst and worry and little failures- with people and communication and relating to each other- all lead to a better future where we are happy and loved better for all of our fear and pain.

And if I'm wrong... well, I'd prefer that you didn't tell me.

I am displaced.

When I was fourteen, I was older than I am now. I was someone who had done too much and hurt inside. I had learnt life lessons too quickly and I wasn't ready for that knowledge. Eventually, I buried it deep inside myself until I was ready to reclaim it and acknowledge who I am.

It was a strange year for me when I discovered things I was too young to properly comprehend. Love was the main thing but there were others. Life. Consciousness. Friendship. Acceptance. Innocence. Time.

I managed to distance myself from everyone who truly loved me. The people who could hold my hand forever and be comfortable in the warmth of us. Not the ones who were on fire and itching to keep moving and who burned me in their haste toward better things. But that's not fair. I was in a hurry, too.

I fell in love that year. I spent until now deciding whether that was true, and if it was, if I could deal with what that meant. I'm still not okay with the way I treated her or myself. We could only have existed as what we were, who we were, in that time. Our attempts since then to be around each other have always failed, probably because pain is the one emotion that never eases. It only gets submerged from time to time; still in tact, but sunk beneath the surface. When you're afraid of who you are, and what you've done, moving on feels impossible.

Which is why I retreated. I lost the friends I worked so hard to accrue. Or the friend, really. I became reliable, simple, pure. I ignored adolescence and focussed on being a unique blend of child and adult; at this I failed, miserably.

Having a breakdown at age fifteen is not great, but neither am I.

The entirety of "I" is a pretty big concept for a little girl. And I was very little, really. Being drawn to people who are bad for you, or who you're taught are bad for you, is the key to breaking your own heart. I did that so many times that my head gave way before my heart could. When my mind came to terms with how to deal with my self destructive behaviour, I was able to decide how to deal with the emotions that went with it.

My solution was to be boring. As boring as possible. Part of that was this; writing about these things like they're not real and I'm just a teenager prone to discussing their life online in a highly stylised way.

Some of my best friends, the ones who've known me since then, wouldn't believe the person that I was- or the things that I did- when I told them. Every now and then I feel my palms sweating a little and I know that it wasn't a dream and for a while that was the girl I was. But for the most part, I'm working to make that chunk of the past smaller, day by day. Because from a distance, even the whole world looks small; even my whole world at age fourteen. And I can see myself waving goodbye.

With the venomous kiss you gave me.

Ash's LJ entry got me in the mood for HIM. Goth, adolescent angst music still appeals; so sue me.

There are so many things I could write about so I'ma pick whatever falls into my head as I go and everything else can get left out and just deal with it as best it can until it grows up and can afford the counselling sessions that'll help it finally recover emotionally. That was a longwinded joke and not a very funny one so I should probz just get right into the proper blogging, yes? Good, let's go.

My work had its annual Christmas party last night so that was bucket loads of fun. There was some truly awful, cheap alcohol being served all night along with the massive awkwardness of an "intimate" end-of-year party for a large company of people that is inevitably rather clique-y. However, even my rather aggressive and domineering negative side can't ignore the fact that I really enjoyed myself.

I finally achieved one of my- more recent- life goals and received a real hug from Allison. I really love that girl, from her accent to her stylish yet affordable boots. I also got to watch Annie down her weight in beer. I know she weighs about thirty grams but, still, she was going for it. And a whole lot of people who are normally rather reserved got royally sloshed and started chatting to me and everybody else about everything from travelling to high school bullying to wait staff with crushes on ... well, the object of their affection was much debated all evening.

So that was my Friday night. Saturday morning was far more subdued.

Julia and I went to market and purchased lots of things; among the more interesting of our conquests were a finger puppet, elephant-shaped keyring and a dress- gasp!- for none other than Hannah herself. Oh, and we had a friand with ingredients including, but not limited to; chilli, beetroot and belgian chocolate. It was a great morning and really needs no explanation other than; I love Julia, I love vegan food, I love quirky clothing, I love markets, I love Saturday mornings and I love hippies. This particular morning had all of these things in abundance and thus, I have had a really good first-half-of-weekend.


Oh, and before I forget (HA! Never going to happen, actually);

While at the market, Julia decided to go taste some hot sauces at one stall. This young boy was manning the place and his old man told him to warn "the lady" about how to pace herself with the sauces but the boy stayed silent for a minute or two with no explanation about any of the products. Julia tried one such item called "Dragon's Blood" with a heat rating of "10/10" - she ignored me when I suggested starting with the "2/10" range- and complained after having one or two drops that she needed more because it did nothing for her. So, a good dollop later, we discover that the boy behind the counter actually has a voice when he says "it takes two minutes to reach full hotness". Julia's eyes widen as quickly as a VCE student's waistline during exam period and for the next couple of minutes she gets steadily more teary eyed and starts coughing.

I am beginning to hope this guy is actually an adolescent descendant of a native American tribe where the men turn into werewolves so that he can reach full physical maturity, develop an awesome personality and confess a strong attachment to me and my weird emotional screwed-upedness; all so I can marry him today for being so thoroughly spot on with his timing. Then the kid just smiles, watches Julia take a swig from her drink bottle and says "Water makes it worse."

It's not faith if, if you use your eyes.

I thought after my last- very ugly- post (I read it back and wanted to cut off my own fingers to stop myself ever writing anything so vitriolic ever again. Ugh, it was bad. Apologies.), I might try writing about less... stupid? topics.

My life is nice and boring right now. Work and seeing friends. Every now and then I know I really am inhabiting my "old lady" moniker when I get really happy in my battiness.

I've started talking to the characters in the books that I'm reading when there's no one else in the settlement room with me. I giddily drink in the smell of pine leaves in buildings prematurely decorated for Christmas. And I lament my aching feet to anyone that will listen.

Oh, and just to be uber positive in this entry; here is an overdue quote for you (from last week).

Heard:

"It's the awesome threesome!" - Amanda at work describing me, Annie and Allison. I do love those girls.

Why was I the last to know?

Friday night was interesting. I was determined not to write about it because my mother considered me horrible and judgemental but, hey, I've always been a 70-year-old in a teenager's body in terms of grumpiness and whatnot; why end such a marvellous tradition?

A family friend who is exactly one day older than me is leaving the country to go work in the ski fields of Canada so he was having a goodbye celebration at his house. Our mothers have been close friends since they were in their twenties so we've always sort of had that "go play together... seriously, I don't care if there is nothing to say- make it work!" thing going on. Sam is a lovely guy so that makes things easier.

What makes things a wee bit awkward in the relationship between our families is the difference in wealth. See, his parents each make a stackload of money while mine have stuck to their lower-middle class roots. It means that outings and stuff are always awkward because they want to pay for us to experience luxury and my family are just not okay with mooching off others. And it means that while I was always sent to public schools by a staunchly left-wing mother, Sam and his little brother, Oscar, went to one of the most expensive private schools in the city.

This leads me to Friday night. At his farewell party, Sam was hanging with all of his school friends. I try as hard as I can not to judge people based on their background or where they went to school. And, who knows, these kids might have been exactly the same no matter where they'd been sent to school. But I doubt it. All they could talk about was alcohol, kissing girls (and boys, interestingly enough), schoolies, alcohol, marijuana, schoolies, alcohol... the list goes on, in a similar fashion. Sam's mother, Therese, informed us that we should consider ourselves lucky that at 6 in the evening, the boys were only drinking copious amounts of beer and not also getting stoned as was their normal habit. Therese was determined that I go "talk with the young people" but, unfortunately, I have very limited experience where schoolies, alcohol and marijuana are involved. Kissing girls on the other hand... I kid, I kid.

I sat there for an hour but try as I might, I could not either find anything I could contribute to the conversation or a way to look interested. I found myself staring at the "intellectual" of the group who one girl complained "used too many big words" (I think he put "sarcastic" in a sentence at some point) and being amused at his Julius Caesar haircut and tortoise shell glasses. Who says money can't buy class?

That last sentence pretty much sums up everything I thought about the entire group until I was able to leave, around three hours later, after having one semi-decent conversation with a newcomer (thus a sober participant in the party, at least at first) about his geographical origins; he was from Europe so I picked his brain about it... because I could/had to in order to keep myself awake.

I know this all comes off as incredibly conceited and judgemental but I can't help but wonder about two things;

a) what happened to me to make me despise people with money, especially teenagers, so much that I couldn't bring myself to try and communicate with them rather than ridicule them in my blog

b) why these kids are destined to have great lives with lots of success and a feeling that they somehow earnt it despite the fact they'll essentially be buying their way into a distinguished University course and thus to the top of the socio-economic order. At least I can already guess what substances these eventual doctors and solicitors will be spending their "hard earned" cash on at the end of the day.




I'ma go hate myself some more now. Thanks for reading.