Moving Out (Is A Terrific Pain In The Ass)

For those of you who follow me pretty intently (a grand total of five people, I'm assuming, including Anson Nesci. Hello, number one fan), you may have noticed a lack of written word explosions emananting from my general direction. There is a good reason for this- recently, after spending a good few months after the HSC cutting loose and generally attempting to stay inebrieted consistently, I decided I was ready to take on some adult responsibility and began making plans to move into my own residence. This may prove to be one of the more stressful decisions of my life, up there with actively encouraging my parents to divorce (I was seven. They didn't take my advice until around 8 years later, and I'm still not sure they should have) and moulding myself into a competitive overachiever who views a mark under 90% as abject failure. While I'm sure when I'm kicking back in my cool student pad in a few months, all this stress will seem laughable, at the moment, I feel like shaving my head ala Britney Spears and having an utter meltdown. The reason for this is simple; this whole "moving" process unfortunately combines a fair few activities I hate into one big bundle of awfulness- namely, driving around in a cramped car with no air conditioning, spending a lot of money of fuel, dealing with new people, dealing with people in general, Brisbane traffic and the possibility of all that effort being for absolutely nothing when our applications are undoubtedly rejected. Add three friends who are relying on you to be their spokesperson and organise the technical aspects of house hunting and you can see why I'm this close to running outside, laying on the super-heated tarmac and yelling "I QUIT" at the next vehicle that comes along.

However, as I don't think it's far to expect the Tweed Shire council to scrape my remains off a suburban road (or indeed do anything at all except conduct roadworks in the wrong places), I will repress my self-destructive tendencies and try to handle things like a person who isn't being driven half-mad by this appalling heat. Fuck you, Australia. Your country is so hot, they had to use a whole new colour to record temperature readings for your centre. It's ridiculous, you should behave more like your charming mother country and be subjected to wind, rain and hail 9 months of the year. Or like your brother Canada, and be covered in snow and moose. Anyway, back to moving. 

I am not sure what other people have experienced with moving out, but I assume most people are able to outsource help from various family members and trusted adult figures. I mean, most of you would have parents who'd only be too happy to sit down with you and tell you what on earth all these stupid, needlessly bureacratic forms mean. An added part of my stress regrettably comes from the fact that the parent I currently reside with couldn't possibly be taking any less interest in what I'm doing. In fact, because of the negative atmosphere permeating my current residence, I have considered vacating early and couch-hopping until I have somewhere to live... providing of course, that I don't take advantage of the hospitality of my friends. I mean, I do have a perfectly good car to live out of, and now I regret writing that because it'll undoubtedly cause a mass panic and I'll have to get on my podium and explain that me living out of my car is indeed a joke. Being perfectly honest though, I have begun Operation Go Home As Little As Possible today.  There is a yellow backpack in my car with enough essentials to last me a few days before I have to think about doing some laundry. I've taken all my important documents so I can sort this moving out thing on the go. This all sounds pretty silly and childish, I know, but without me explaining finer details that probably don't belong on the public forum of the internet, you won't understand why I don't want to be at my home any more. Besides, to be very brutally honest, it's not my "home". It's the place I go to sleep occasionally. I sometimes manage to feed myself there (read: not often). I keep my stuff that won't fit in my car there. That's about it.

The worst thing about moving out, I'm finding, is it makes you feel quite small and useless. Usually, I love to brag about how confident I feel about being part of the adult world (read: porn industry. Just kidding. Hopefully I'm not naked on the internet somewhere) and my ability to handle most of what is thrown at me. But when you're dealing with feeling totally out of your depth all of the time, while knowing you're being pitted against numerous people who have way more of an idea of how things work than you do, and realising that most of the time, you can try your hardest and see no results... I get scared. I feel like exactly what I am- a financially dependent kid with no real life experience other than knowing how to cook, clean and wash my own clothes. And I hate that, because I want to skip the hard stuff and just be a cool, indepedent uni student as soon as possible. I hate it, because I have no idea where to start asking for help or if I'll even get any. Asking for help in itself is a problem for me because I a) have an engorged sense of  pride and b) never want to inconvinience others with my meaningless, insecure bullshit. So no matter exhausted and strained I get, I will continue to try and mask it behind a veil of dry wit, because it's the only way I know how to deal with these harsh periods of life. It could be so much worse, I acknowledge this. I acknowledge this and I try to deal with it as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, sometimes my methods of dealing with these sorts of things is to cut myself off from others and become incredibly self absorbed. So, I apologise for not being the best human being I can be at the moment. It's shitty, it's selfish, but I need to focus on meeting my own needs right now. When I do, I can open myself up again.

It's times like this where I wish I could let go of my pride and just admit that I wish I could be looked after and babied for the rest of my life. When I daydream, it's frequently about being brought up in a nice, standard middle class family, because honestly, those who are in them have no idea how much support and stability they get. No family is perfect, but there's a distinct difference between the occasional argument with your parents and the fear of having nowhere to live and being utterly broke because for whatever reason, you can't communicate with the person who's supposed to love you more than anyone else in the world. You kids need to appreciate how lucky you are. You're cared for. You're taught how to handle things. It's not a huge muddle of guesswork that might result in you being completely fucked over for a few years. There's a safety net; and it must be so lovely knowing it's there. I wish so much I could have had that. But I didn't and that's okay. I'll deal with what I've been given, because it's the only thing that can be done.

I am well aware this post sounds a tad more emotional and pleading than usual, so I'm going to kindly ask whoever is reading this not to worry too much. Most likely, I'm exaggerating the situation and will laugh about it later on when the shit really hits the fan. But I'm not going to lie- I feel like crap at the moment and I think I want the world to know that. Not to get help, not to make excuses, but simply because it's so nice to be honest about how utterly shitty I feel right now. I feel like shit, but I'm going to get better because things always have a habit of working themselves out. And if not, I'll make them, because there's no other choice.

Peace.

Being Honest (And Why Not Many People Do It)

In a world that seems to thrive on creating false images for its citizens to aspire to, there is nothing more important than developing a sense of honesty. It should be simple enough- as children, we are taught that lying is wrong and that dishonesty will always be punished. But, that particular lesson never seems to stick, as when we grow up, we realise a harsh truth about the world; self preservation nearly always overrules a person's ethical code. And honestly, it really isn't surprising that so many people are driven to lie about themselves. While you're spoon fed ideas of tolerance and understanding from the moment you're able to talk, it's not enough to combat the insanely judgmental nature of the human race. Whether this behavior is residual from our tribal days where all social interactions were based around resource efficiency and finding a healthy mate or because the human race is a bunch of self-absorbed -pricks is irrelevant. Basically, we are in an environment where any wrong move could cost us the respect of our peers. As I said before, with that kind of pressure, no wonder we're driven to lie.

I doubt many people can say they've been 100% honest throughout their entire life. I know I certainly can't. In fact, my almost confessional style of brutal honesty has really only taken hold in the last two or so years, and I still wouldn't say I tell most people everything. It used to be worse- when I was younger, a lot more insecure and extremely depressed, I'd make up all sorts of reasons for people to leave me alone. Sometimes, it was reasons for me to be thought of as less pathetic than I actually was. I still remember a time in primary school where suddenly, all my friends had boyfriends (okay, I'm trying to stray away from using brackets any more because it interrupts the flow of my writing- thank you to the person that told me that- but seriously, come on. Having a boyfriend at age eleven is like a baby holding a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of Jack Daniels, they think it makes them look cooler, but we know they have no idea what they're doing). Of course, my reaction to this as a socially awkward nerd girl who no one wanted to date because she was taller than everyone else was to make up a boyfriend who occasionally bought me cheap trinkets suspiciously similar to those you could pick up at Kingscliff markets for under ten bucks. Unsurprisingly, no one bought this crock of bullshit I was offering up, so I resigned myself to being the butt-ugly nerdling that would never, ever possibly be desirable to the opposite gender. This, along with other incidents such as the time where my best friend told the first boy I ever had a crush on I liked him and his friends chased me around the playground all lunchtime heckling me until I burst into tears and hid under some playground equipment, or the frequent times where boys and girls would walk up and call me ugly seemingly randomly, almost scarred me for life romantically. However, as no teenager will ever realise until they've almost finished with being one, these things get better with time, getting puberty done with and learning how to apply make-up correctly (or if you're a boy, giving up on that pathetic scraggly bit of bum fluff hanging off your chin and going for a clean-shaven look). So, while I'm probably never going to be comfortable with accepting compliments on my personal appearance and will nearly always act incredibly awkward around those I fancy, I know I'm not a troll-faced harridan doomed to the life of a maiden aunt. Anyway, the reason why I just unleashed all these embarrassing stories upon you readers is to stress how easy it is to hide these horrible moments deep within your past and just pretend you've been cool, confident and mistake-free from birth. Don't want someone to know that you once vomited so hard from alcohol poisoning that you peed your pants? Just don't say anything about it. It's very simple.

However, I don't like this particular approach. I never have, as it means you start out in your personal relationships on very uneven footing, just waiting for some embarrassing detail to slip out and trip you up into an entanglement of social faux paus. And it will always happen, because unfortunately, most people that you confide in will one day let you down and tell someone something they shouldn't. The way I see it, if you're upfront about everything at the start, there's less risk of something turning around to bite you on the ass later. No one can talk about something behind your back if everyone already knows. However, this doesn't mean you should ever take it upon yourself to blurt out something someone's told you in confidence. Complete trust is a rare and wonderful thing and all too easily ruined forever. I don't trust many people because I'm naturally cynical, but when I do, I prize it over almost all else, except maybe having others trust me in the same way.

Recently, I was drunkenly burbling on about this kind of honesty, and a person who I rarely speak to any more because of personal differences seemed to take offence to what I was saying. I don't remember too clearly what happened, as a drunken haze had fallen over my brain,  but it sounded like they were saying my idea of honesty is selfish because it has the potential to hurt people. I would like to clarify one area where I don't think brutal honest is necessary- where the act of being honest is just going to result in someone being extremely emotionally damaged without any sort of gain. As the cartoon rabbits said in Bambi, "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all", unless someone's actually asking you for constructive criticism or said person is not getting the extremely obvious hints you've been dropping and needs to be told point blank to fuck off. If you're using your perception of honesty and truth to hurt others, I feel sorry for you, because that's a sad little existence you must lead. I remember what it's like to feel that sort of insecurity and truly feel sorry for you. However, it's never too late to wake up to your own dickish behavior and change for the better.

I've always found myself trying to surround myself with people who believe in this type of honesty, as it's a welcome release from the constant bombardment of lies targeted at us by our modern culture. To have the ability to be genuine with the people you care about is probably something I'd view as one of the most important aspects of life, as if you can't bring yourself to show who you are to the people who are least likely to abandon you, you have some serious insecurities indeed. If I can tell a bunch of strangers on the internet that when I was fifteen, a guy I liked rejected me without even knowing I liked him and it made me cry on the floor all night, you can tell your friends that you once made a homemade enema out of a shower head, or whatever it is you kids get up to these days. Being embarrassed about your past is counterproductive, as there's nothing you can do to change it. It's better to be able to express your finer failings to others, as it's much easier to get over these things when other people are laughing with you.