The Long (and Shitty) Road to Feeling Okay

By now, most of you should realise that there are precious few things in my life I won't freely talk about. Although I update this blog sporadically, I have cheerfully thrown the intimate details of my messy personal life at you like a plate of hot spaghetti, hoping that it will one day bond us in a dripping tomato-flavoured camaraderie (and second degree burns). Rather than pretend I'm some sort of otherworldly creature that has no use for embarrassing bodily functions and is always photogenic, I admit that I'm human and I fuck up. There's no shame in that, because there's not one human being that doesn't.

Except this man. This man is perfect.

So everyone knows that I do dumb things more than occasionally. In fact, if you're one of my nearest and dearest, you've probably seen it in person. You know that I drink too much, I don't understand most basic social cues and can't sing to save my life. You've heard my numerous stories about vomiting every colour of the rainbow, and that time everyone saw me naked at my birthday party. If you went to school with me, you've probably seen me cry in class more than once over something as insignificant as a fucking 16 out of 20 for creative writing.

Seriously, fuck you, 15 year old me. Grow some goddamn balls.

I'm establishing all this because despite my proclaimed love of honesty and being genuine, there are still things in my life that make my gut churn when I consider bringing them up. I know it's hard to believe, but behind this huge, hulking testosterone-fueled exterior... I am just as scared of rejection and criticism as I was at age thirteen. I am a human being with stupid, useless emotions and unfortunately, said stupid, useless emotions make it really hard to not care about whether people like me. Sure, I'm not too much of a wimp about it. One of the benefits of getting older is realising that there's no way to please every single person at the same time (unless you're at an orgy and have vibrating dildos strapped all over your body, like some sort of magical super sexual hedgehog. And no, I can't find a gif for that metaphor). However, you also realise that sometimes, it's best to try and limit the damage you may accidentally inflict on your personal relationships by keeping your goddamn mouth shut.

For example, there are certain topics a well-meaning person can bring up in a conversation that will quickly devolve into everyone flinging shit in each other's faces, no matter how innocent the original intention was. Topics like "feminism", "abortion", "refugees", "the environment", "veganism", "politics" and the granddaddy of all argument-starters, "religion" very rarely can be discussed without someone getting offended. Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one, they stink sometimes and no one wants someone else's shoved up in their face (unless they're extremely close and like butt stuff). This is why that unless I'm with people who know me well enough to accept that I have some controversial views on things, I won't discuss these topics. After years of needless conflict, I've learned my lesson- that voicing your personal opinions very rarely enlightens others, it just gives them more reason to think you're a complete douche.

One such topic that I rarely discuss, despite its huge presence in my life, is mental illness. And to be honest, can you blame me? Despite living in a world where there are so many facilities that cater specifically to understanding and spreading awareness about psychological issues, there is still a massive taboo surrounding the mentally ill. Be honest. When I use that phrase, do you think of an average, everyday person or do you think of a urine-stained homeless guy ranting and raving to himself at a bus stop? Or better yet, does your mind immediately go to white padded rooms, grim-faced orderlies and hypodermics filled with opiates? To be honest, I'm guess I'm just making a huge generalisation here, but it astounds me how many people simply do not understand that for a lot of people, mental illness is just another part of their lives. They get up, they go about their daily routine  and the only difference between them and everyone else is a little voice in the back of their head telling them how pathetic they are and convincing them the world would be better off if they just crawled under the house and died.

I'm talking specifically about depression here, because I don't really have enough personal experience with other illnesses to address it in any way other than making some sweeping generalisations. Oh boy. Depression. One in seven Australians experiences depression in their lifetime and yet so many young people haven't the faintest clue about how and why it happens. To be honest, I can kind of see why it's so hard to understand. You're sad, right? Well, then... do something that makes you feel better! Look at you! You're just sitting there, moping. Why don't you get up and do something? Everyone else can do it. Why can't you? It's your own fault you're depressed. You're not even trying to do anything about it.

Thing is... sometimes, you just can't.

Depression has been a presence in my life for as long as I can remember, even before I experienced it myself. To be honest, with a background like mine, it was probably inevitable that it would eventually happen to me. One of my earliest memories of my mother is of her in bed, ashen-faced and tired because one day, everything just got far too hard and she had to stop. And although eventually she got back up again, she never was quite the same. Depression is like that. Whether it makes you weaker or stronger, ultimately something changes within you. 

Just typing this is making me feel a little sick in my stomach. I have a fundamental fear of divulging any information that makes me look weaker, and if there's anything that stops me dead in my tracks, it's realising that my own brain often betrays me. But, to be honest, it shouldn't be a source of stigma. So many people are walking around with the knowledge that something inside them is making them unhappy. So many people find it hard just to place their feet on the floor every morning to get out of bed. Sometimes, it can be damn hard to find a reason to keep being part of the world. It happens.

The first time I ever experienced serious, clinical depression, I was thirteen years old. At this age, most doctors won't even consider diagnosing you with a mental illness unless you do something absolutely batshit insane, because there's always the possibility that you're just whacked out on hormones. I couldn't tell you the countless times I was hauled into a doctor's office from thirteen to fifteen only to be told that all my feelings could be attributed to simply being a teenage girl. To be fair, I see their point. Crying a lot and being moody is pretty much part of the territory for going through puberty. However, waking up every morning and feeling so stressed because I didn't feel like I had the energy to get through a whole day was not, and no amount of prescriptions for various types of hormone-adjusting birth control could change that.

It happened gradually.I remember that all I wanted to do was sleep. The funny thing was, I just couldn't. I'd go to bed utterly exhausted and drained, usually crying over something or other, and my brain just wouldn't shut off. I'd lie there in my bed, completely paralyzed as I replayed every single personal failure I ever had over and over again.  Everything I obsessed over, everything that I saw as so fundamentally bad and wrong about myself I now recognise as meaningless, trivial bullshit, but at the time, it seemed so much bigger. I was slowly convincing myself that not only was I a bad person, I was so awful, pathetic and lowly that the world would be so much better if I just plain didn't exist any more.

And to be honest, not existing sounded like a fucking pleasure cruise compared to what I had to live with every single day. It was like all my senses were gradually fading and all I was left with was this odorless, palette-numbing experience of the world occasionally punctuated by the metallic taste of fear One of the main signs of depression is losing interest and enjoyment in the things that used to give you pleasure. For me, the concepts of "interest" and "enjoyment" ceased to have any meaning.

Oh, I tried. I still blundered around, hoping that if I forced myself through enough activities I used to find enjoyable, I might just be able to trick myself into having some fun. Of course, this didn't work. As soon as I tried to do something remotely distracting, my brain would pipe up with a definite "no, fuck that, you're not getting away that easy" and would proceed to systematically ruin any hope I had of escaping the immense farty cloud of boredom that was slowly enveloping my life.

Reading a book? Fuck you, you'll never be able to write like that. Watch a movie? Fuck you, all those girls are beautiful, thin and perfect, and you will never look like that because you're too fucking lazy. Hanging around with my friends? Fuck you. They only hang around because they feel sorry for you. All you do is hurt people. They'd be so much happier if you just curled up into a ball and died.

Just fuck you, Phoebe. You are shit. You will never be anything other than shit.

Of course, now that I'm a lot older and have self-esteem shooting out of my ass, I can laugh off all the horrible things I used to say to myself. Writing well takes a shitload of practice, not even the girls in movies look that good in real life and if my friends didn't like me, they would have given up on me long ago. I made a huge mistake by being narcissistic enough to think that all my flaws were of utmost significance to the happiness of those around me. Turns out, they aren't. Much like how I don't really give two shits about what other people are doing most of the time, people also don't really give two shits about what's going on in my life. In a way, it's strangely liberating. Sure, I'm probably doomed to live my life in obscurity, but at the same time, no one will be reading about me centuries from now and hear all about how I deliberately put off shaving my legs and armpits until I have to go out.

Oh come on, like any of you shave when that part of your body isn't on show.

That's the really shitty part of depression, the part where you become so self-centred that you forget that people exist outside of their relationships with you. You're so focused on your own inability to feel happiness or pleasure or yearning or fucking ANYTHING that other people become expendable. I found I couldn't listen to anyone's problems any more, or respond to their requests for help, because how on earth could I be any use when I couldn't even help myself? Ultimately, this was a pretty selfish thing for me to do and I let a lot of people down. I expected them to be there for me when I needed them and then refused to offer the same back, because not only did I not have the energy, I was also so scared of being a disappointment. It basically broke down into me being incredibly parasitic in my personal relationships, which would sadly recur numerous times during my teens. And here was the worst part about finally recovering... I had to face up to just how badly I'd treated everyone around me.

It's pretty ridiculous- here I was, finally feeling things other than abject disgust about myself for the first time in years, and I had to come to the realisation that yes, I was a completely selfish, shitty douche. It took a long time to make up for, but luckily I happen to be surrounded by people who somehow overlook my assholish behavior because for whatever reason, they love me. And I'll always be grateful for that, because honestly, I don't know what I'd do if they weren't around.

Here is where I'd tell you guys I love you... but that would be so fucking sappy, I think I'd puke. 

So instead, here is a dog with a duck on their head. 

So basically, the story sort of has a happy ending. I got better. I learned how to be a functioning human being again... mostly. I experienced true love's kiss, rode off into the sunset on my trusty steed with a fair wench and never experienced such dark and dreary misery ever again.

Of course, that's total fucking bullshit. The story never ended. Turns out, depression has this habit of recurring and while I've not experienced anything as intense as that first incident, I know that it still happens to me. It's kind of like watching a horror movie. I saw the monster die, and for a moment, I am so certain in my knowledge that it'll never bother me again. Then, I feel something cold and dead grasp my ankle, and the pit of my stomach drops, because oh fuck, it's happening again. 

I don't really know how this is going to affect the rest of my life. Maybe in a decade, I'll wake up one morning and realise that I can't recall feeling any form of soulless ennui for a good many years. Maybe when I'm dying, I'll look back at my life and wearily note that all along, parts of it withered away into a grey blur. But it is something I have to acknowledge about myself to even have the slightest hope of dealing with it.

I am Phoebe Montgomery. Some mornings, I don't physically feel capable of getting out of bed, but that's okay. I beat myself up over the smallest of failures, but that's okay. I may feel like there's no way forward a lot of the time, but that's okay. Even if it's only in the smallest possible measure, it's okay and one day, I'm going to feel okay again.

My name is Phoebe Montgomery and I'm mostly okay.

I hope you're okay too.

BeyondBlue (the facts)

A Big "Fuck You" To Romance

Honestly, most of the time, the thought of romance gives me the shits. As a perfectly modern woman who's all for things like gender equality and splitting the bill, some of the absolutely ridiculous gender stereotypes that arise from dating seem so illogical that at times, I wonder if all these decades of love songs, poetry, Disney films and saccharine Nicholas Sparks novels have made our race borderline retarded. Now, I'm not saying we're like this all of the time. When human beings are capable of being objective, rational and calm, we can make some fairly decent decisions. However, throw in some fevered glances and the strong desire to touch each others' genitals and we devolve back into the sex-crazed primates from whence we came. Love, lust, desire, infatuation, ill-timed erections or whatever you care to call it, makes us incredibly stupid. I wouldn't really mind this, but often it's a stupidity most of us could really live without. Maybe I'm just bitter because my love life runs about as smoothly as a giraffe with four fractured ankles. Maybe love and sex just turn people into stupid, inconsiderate assholes. All I know is that when I play word association games with my therapist, whenever she says "love", I say "the pain of being fucked in the ass by a massive freshly cut diamond."

I may need a quick drink or five before we continue. 

Consider briefly the whole male-female dichotomy. The way I see it, the reason why we are so divided is purely based on sexual tension. Case in point, when I was a young, slightly overweight lass with acne, braces and no sense of style, I could easily be "just one of the bros" (a phrase I hate, by the way- what, you can't just be friends with someone just because they have a vagina you have the slightest possibility of entering some day?). However, then something happened. I became marginally more attractive and suddenly everyone realized that YES, I am a GIRL with BOOBS and a VAGINA. Funnily enough, this directly coincided with my forays into the world of underage alcohol consumption, and so for years now I have been becoming wearily accustomed to this simple equation:

 Male friends and acquaintances + alcohol  = I'm going to be felt up... a lot.

Every dude I know after a few drinks.

Don't get me wrong, it's not strictly a male thing. In fact, it's a rather human thing. Bring alcohol into the picture and suddenly everyone's a possible conquest. Any magical liquid that makes everyone slightly more attractive and silences that little voice in the back of your head that stops you doing stupid things is going to cause a lot of sexual misadventures. However, from a strictly personal level, sometimes it can be a little disheartening that so few of your friends stick to their boundaries when they drink. It's even more disheartening when the same shit happens when you're sober. Again, I know I'm picking on men, and I apologise- I'm sure that every possible gender and sexual orientation (because fuck, there's so many these days) does it. But I'm speaking from personal experience... and from personal experience, I'm starting to kind of hate it.

Okay. Time for a little personal anecdote of mine, which is kind of hard to share, because honestly, I'm still embarrassed over it. It was kind of a game changer for me, in the sense that it took my massive ego and chiseled it back down into something that would let me function in everyday life, but without being a massive tool. Honestly, that probably needed to happen. Let me try and put it into perspective for you readers who probably have no idea what I'm rambling on about.

From the age of about nine until I turned fourteen, I considered myself to be extremely ugly. Not just plain, not just unattractive, but mirror-shattering, eye-melting, brain-exploding ugly. I realize already that this is probably going to be taken as a way for me to blatantly fish for compliments, but honestly, I can assure you it's not. One, I no longer think of that- while I have my ups and downs, I managed to somehow stitch together some sort of borderline healthy self-image that keeps me well-adjusted most days. Two, I probably wouldn't accept them anyway, because compliments on my looks make me sort of uncomfortable. Actually, any sort of comment on my looks generally makes me uncomfortable. This is probably because I used to have people repeatedly come up to me when I was little and tell me how ugly I was. I'm not really sure why this is, it's just one of those many things from childhood I couldn't explain.

Anyway, predictably enough, this resulted in me having extremely low confidence when it came to attracting dudes. Luckily, it was in the sense that I was actually too scared to approach them least I get rejected, rather than surrendering my vagina to the first semi-interested party and getting knocked up.

This could have been me.

And BOY, did I get rejected a lot. Still do, actually, so I'm hoping it's just one of those facts of life and not because I have some weird birth defect no one thought to tell me about (seriously, guys, if the reason you keep disappearing on me after we hook up is because I have some tiny deformed baby face on the back of my head, I'd like to know). While everyone around me was reveling in their two week long relationships and school social hook ups, I was getting used to hearing the same line over and over again: "I think we're better off as friends". Which, of course, is the polite way of saying "it's really awkward that you like me because I find you less attractive than a small pile of  nutty squirrel poo, so please take your misguided romantic interest elsewhere". I'll admit it, the first few times it hurt quite a lot. I've lost count of the many times I had a big, typical teenage girl melt-down where I lay on my bed and cried my eyes out to bad indie folk songs because I was so certain that no one would ever love me back.

But of course, then something explicitly strange happened. I managed to get myself a boyfriend. I know, I was surprised too. However, it happened, it lasted for a good two years or more and without going into majorly upsetting details, ended. And then my reign of romantic terror finally began. You see, suddenly, for whatever reason, I wasn't being rejected any more. I managed to date a bunch of dudes that I regarded as basically unattainable (and then, while dating them, realised they weren't actually that fantastic after all. Whoops). This had the unfortunate side effect of turning me into a egotistical, overly confident monster. Basically, if I saw a dude I liked, I went after him without fully thinking it through. Trust me, it sounds like an okay way to deal with things, but at the end of the day, you are leaving yourself with a whole airport carousel of emotional baggage. 

All this is just background information. The real story still needs to be told. In truth, part of the reason I'm dawdling so much over this contextual bullshit is probably because this is a story I'd rather not share. Few things in life can make me feel so utterly shamed for me to completely avoid talking about them, but I think this comes close. It's not even just that it makes me feel pretty embarrassed. It also makes me feel pretty sad, because I think the one big consequence of this whole shitty debacle is that I lost the chance of making a good friend. While I won't accept complete responsibility for what happened, because it takes two people to occur anyway, I still regret blowing that friendship because of some hormone-driven drunken fumbling. Who knows, maybe if I'd been smart and held off, everything would be okay.

Okay, Mr Sloth Therapist.

I'm going to be as vague as possible with details because, well, in a nutshell, I think it'd be a lot less awkward for the person I'm talking about and myself if no one has any idea what the fuck I'm talking about. In fact, most of what you're about to read is heavily fictionalized, apart from the very real emotions and the general gist of what was going on. Understood? Okay.

So I was standing in a first class lounge in Abu Dubai, my elegant, slender fingers wrapped around a crystal champagne flute as I pondered my next French undeerwear modelling campaign, when Nicholas Holt shot me a sultry glance from across the bar- too unrealistic? Really? There's not the slightest chance I could somehow get into modelling and end up making love to Nicholas Hoult in an underwater hotel suite? Fine. If you insist, I'll try to aim for a touch more realism.

Sorry Nick, my darling, the story of our love affair will have to wait.

There was this guy. I guess he could really be like any other guy, except for some reason, I happened to get this weird anxious, slightly bubbly feeling from being in the same room as him. Not that it happened very often. Except, then it started to get more frequent, particularly after I moved. We'd be at the same things, and usually pretty drunk, and I'd find it harder and harder to ignore that for some reason, I really wanted to impressed this particular person. The carefully cultivated "fuck everyone, I'll do what I want" attitude that had been my sole achievement of the last few crazed months was suddenly abandoned as I found myself carefully watching what I'd say and do in front of this one person. Why this was, I'm not really sure. Maybe after spending so much time being controlled and repressed, I couldn't help but fall for the first guy who acted like a complete gentlemen towards me. Maybe after all the loneliness experienced from first starting university, I couldn't stop myself from reaching out to a person who I saw as someone very similar. Either way, my emotions got the better of me, and it wasn't smart or logical, and it didn't make sense. When I realized I actually had some weird, complicated feelings for the poor dude, it was like getting hit in the face with an exercise ball.

Okay, honestly, that metaphor wasn't a coincidence, I just really wanted to post this gif.

This is the point where I wish I could have just been content with how things were. There was a person in my life who was actually pretty interesting to talk to, who I could occasionally flirt with and that was the way things should have stayed. But of course, my massive ego wouldn't let that happen. Because I was so caught up in feeling desirable for the first time in my life, I had to push it. So I got drunk (he was drunker), we kissed  (to my credit, he started it), shit happened (but not what you think) and now on the rare occasion that we're in the same room, there's a horrible awkward barrier between us. A barrier that can only be defined as the knowledge that two people did something laughably stupid together and only one of them was dumb enough to wonder if it meant anything later. 

To my credit, my ultimate desire isn't for this person to suddenly turn around, confess their undying love to me and drive us off into the sunset. For one, that's corny as fuck. For another, I know better than to pine after uninterested parties (having spent most of my adolescence doing so). What I want, more than anything else, is to be able to interact normally with this person again. No more stilted attempts at conversation. No more avoiding eye contact. No wondering if it's okay to turn up to the same venues... It'd simply be nice to be able to share a laugh or smile again.

The amount of gay that last statement was.

Anyway, basically, the point of that awkward semi-confessional anecdote was to demonstrate why I'm so bitter about dating, romance, sexual tension and all the rest. I'm sick of it because I'm honestly tired of missing out on good friendships because of it. Sure, dating someone, or even trying to date them, seems like a good idea at the time. You find someone you find cute that you get to potentially snuggle up with, and that feels pretty good. But these things always come to an end somehow, and then you're not only without a person to cuddle, but there's one less person in your life you can connect with. Ditto having sex with them, unless you come up with a really good arrangement. I've said it before, and I'll say it again- sex and love makes us all into gibbering, genital-obsessed idiots.

So, at least for awhile, I quit. I give up. If a nice guy wants to come sweep me off my feet at some stage, he's welcome to try, but I'm not actively looking for anything. After years of having to deal with the shitty complications that come with love, sex, liking someone, not being liked in return, I think it's about time I enjoy being on my own. There are far too many good books to read for me to fritter away time and energy worrying about romantic entanglements. And if worst comes to worst... there's always lesbianism.

"Trying Is The First Step Towards Failure" (And Why I Will Always Love This Quote)

Me when I'm pretending to know what I'm doing. 

As I gradually wade my way out of the kiddie pool that was my pre-university life and get ready to plunge off the high diving board into adulthood, I've been having a surprisingly amount of revelations. While I do pride myself on being more insightful than most (and more egotistical. Seriously, have you counted the amount of times I praise myself throughout these blogs? I'm a piece of shit, guys, but you knew that already), the sheer amount of little but revealing thoughts that have bounced through my brain as I've transitioned from snotty teenage brat that doesn't do anything to handsome, cool adult that knows how to do their own laundry is astounding. Every day makes me feel like I've learnt yet another valuable lesson, and it has nothing to do with my uni attendance (tip: it's non-existent if I'm hungover).

The most recent lesson I've experienced has a lot to do with my observance of the human race. Have you ever tried sitting down and really, truly focusing on the billions of people that pass you by? You notice some lodd things, like mothers keeping their children on leashes, beautiful men with ugly wives and people who still think tribal tattoos are cool (they are not). What's more odd is how we let our perceived judgment by other people rules our entire lives. Take, for example, other university students. Growing up as a little, buck-toothed social outcast, I always saw university as this huge wonderland where I could fa ally find like-minded people and ascend to the level of greatness I was always destined for. I would finally get to learn things I actually found interesting. I wouldn't have to associate with anyone I wouldn't want to. I'd happily find some groups to belong to (okay, just as a side note, I've started visibly wincing every single time I have to utter that godforsaken world. This is what HSC Advanced English does to a person. It destroys the ability to use the term "belonging" without experiencing post traumatic stress). However, this is what I've learned from a grand total of eight weeks at university:

Everyone is just as bitchy. You will feel like just as much of an outcast. It's the same parade of bullshit as high school, except with the added bonus of all the assholes being a lot more intelligent.

I feel your pain, Fozzie.

Take, for example, the UQ confession page. You would think that university students, who have spent a lot of time and money on furthering their education, would be above incessant playground gossip and cat-calling.  However, apparently this assumption is unreasonable and most UQ students are the emotional equivalent of a five year old sticking their fingers in their ears and yelling "NYAH NYAH NYAH". Honestly, while there are a few gems here and there, the contents mainly consist of:
a) copy pastas.
b) failed attempts at green text.
c) engineering students bragging about how much better they are than other degrees, especially Bachelor of Arts.
d) art students complaining about the engineering students.
e) engineering students getting hurt feelings because they're being stereotyped as socially-inept jerks (I wonder why).
f) Rampant objectifying other students as sex objects (but hey, with some of the eye candy around this uni, it's hard not to).
g) The done-to-death mocking and defending of the whole gender studies debacle, which honestly, should have been well and truly over and done with a few weeks ago.

MFW I read anything on UQ Confessions other than a Loch Ness Monster joke.

I was tempted to unsubscribe from the page, as I don't really need that sort of negativity in my life, but it's like watching a train crash in slow motion. You just can't look away. And because it's a university Confessions page, it is so much more intriguing than teenage pages like old, faithful Murbah Goss (with gems like "so and so got their munt licked out by a Labrador", how could one justify not reading it?). But the point is, from this page alone, it is painfully obvious that all the bullshit from high school never really fades away. People still assume their subjects are better than anyone else's. People still get overly self righteous about thinking their subject is better than anyone else's. Everyone's still obsessed with working out, having sex and the quality of faculty toilets. And all this is coupled with the crushing realization that you are no better than anyone else. You may used to think you were some sort of special snowflake, but you are actually as painfully average as everyone else wandering around campus. There will always be someone smarter. Someone thinner. Someone who will repeatedly beat you at Mario Kart. Someone more determined. It's just a fact of life.

And of course, when you try to prove you're good at something to someone, you fuck up.

And this, dear reader, is what brings me back to the quote on the title of this blog. "Trying is the first step towards failure". The single wisest thing I've ever heard Homer Simpson say, and for an idiot, he says a lot of pretty intelligent things. The fact of the matter is, in order to give something your best shot, you have to be prepared  to face a lot of setbacks. For example, going to university- very few people are brilliant at it straight away. I know so many intelligent people who went to university and only got passes their first year, including my own father, who now has a Phd. To be successful, you have to be willing to try different methods, accept that some of them will fail you and find what works. I have never classed myself at successful at anything other than failing. I succeed at failing because instead of giving up when I fail, I know I can try something else. There is no be-all and end-all unless I allow myself to think that way. The world is full of possibility, and most of it walks hand in hand with favor.

So, in short, whatever you do in life, you are courting failure. There will always be someone that is better than you. It's one of those things that just is, and never changes. However, this is not an excuse to put your life aside. While this should make everything seem that more pointless, the fact of the matter is, you make your own point. You decide what the meaning of your own life is by trying things out. And if you try and fail, so what? You at least gave it a go. Only you know what you can and can't do. There's honestly no shame in failure as long as you don't let it defeat you. Fuck failing and fuck listening to all the negativity from the people around you. They live their lives, you live yours and you're the only one that will be dealing with the consequences.

And fuck you, UQConfessions.

On Being Socially Awkward (Most Of The Time)

If only I could do this with style and grace instead of arm flapping and awkwardness. 

I have never been able to figure out whether basic social competency is supposed to come naturally. Honestly, sometimes it seems like everyone else in the world but a few of my associates and I spend hours each day on a tough regime that teaches you exactly how to interact with the people around you WITHOUT being painfully awkward and off-putting. It seems to be something like exercise or studying- it takes what seems to be a bloody lifetime to actually show any results, and even then, all the evidence of my efforts disappear the moment I become lazy. Seeing as everyone other than myself seems to be a natural socialite, this hardly seems fair. However, if there's one message I'd like to impart in all my ramblings, it's that nothing in life is ever really fair.

Having said all that, I think I'm getting a touch better. When I enter a room, I don't immediately dive for the corner any more. I can semi-comfortably chat with the people who I sit near in lectures and tutorials (even though we never end up speaking ever again). I can pick up when I go to a bar, but I can't ever get the guys to talk to me again (and honestly, that's not one I can figure out. Trust me, I love meaningless dalliances fueled by alcohol as much as the next single sozzled first year, but it'd be nice to have a little acknowledgement now and again. Nothing huge, just maybe a "hey, we made out once, let's chat occasionally and never mention it" rather than an "oh my God, I'm so ashamed, please never make eye contact with me ever again."). I probably have more friends than I ever had at any other time of my life, excluding when I was an infant and Mum made all my friends for me, and yet I still feel like I'm lagging behind. While the rest of the herd is galloping ahead with their beer bongs, Sunday sessions and coffee dates, I'm the gazelle with the bung leg, limping along. And everyone knows, if there's one thing you don't want coming with you on a coffee date, it's a gazelle with a busted leg. For one thing, it attracts lions. Anyway, as usual, I'm digressing. Basically, the fact of the matter is, while university is this huge, great mess of social activities and opportunities... I still only have the social skills of a fourteen year old caught masturbating. Okay, I'll give myself a little more credit than that. Maybe a fifteen year old caught masturbating.

Pretend this is a metaphor. I am the duck and the shark cat riding on a roomba is every uni organised social activity ever. 

I think the issue is less the introductory phase and more figuring out how the hell to keep these things going. If there's a formula that causes people to keep on talking to you, I'd love to know it, because the embarrassing is, I can't usually get past that first conversation. Or if I do, whatever energy that goes into maintaining this new social contact quickly flickers and dies. I'll admit, sometimes there's reluctance on my part. I do have this horrible habit of getting rather high and mighty if there's a percieved imbalance in efforts when it comes to making friends. In fact, usually this is how my brain operates:

PHOEBE:  Pfft. All this making friends bullshit is easy. Just start asking people for their names and facebook them if you really think you'll continue to get on well. It's not weird. People add people they don't know all the time. At least you've actually had a conversation with them.

PHOEBE'S BRAIN: But why do you have to be the one to do it? You always end up making the first move! Why can't they want to keep in contact with you for a change? Would it kill them to say hi?

PHOEBE: To be fair, I don't say hi either.

PHOEBE'S BRAIN: BUT WE ARE SHY. You know that!

PHOEBE: Maybe they're shy too! I doubt I'm the only socially awkward person in the world.

PHOEBE'S BRAIN: You know what helps with social awkwardness? Drinking a lot of alcohol.

PHOEBE: *glug glug glug*

Coincidentally, I may mention that drunk Phoebe is markedly better at socialising than sober Phoebe. Fantastic stuff, alcohol. However, I don't know if this applies only when I am drunk (I do feel a lot more sophisticated and charming after a bottle of wine) or when I am drunk and around other people who are similarly intoxicated. The only proof I have regarding these outlandish statements is that I've always ended up making substantially more friends at house parties than in any other circumstance. However, perhaps this is just a universal phenomenon I'm blowing out of proportion for my own needs.

I have been doing a bit of observance to see if I can better my limited social skills and become the stunning, charismatic sex goddess I've always had the potential to be (okay, you can stop laughing now. It's been fifteen minutes. That's just cruel). So far, from what I've observed, I've made the following assumption:

People just walk up to each other, start a conversation and go on their merry way. Rinse and repeat.

What I've concluded from this is that I am woefully inept at being a human. Just walk up to someone? Start a conversation? Surely it can't be that easy, or everyone would be doing it! Wait, what's that? Everyone is doing that? And they've been doing it since humans first developed the ability to speak? Well, then. Clearly the problem is all down to me. When the doctor pulled me out of my mother using a glorified suction cup, they clearly also sucked away the part of my brain responsible for being able to relate normally to other people. Also the part responsible for basic coordination skills. And whatever other people have that allows them to be organised. Okay, so there's a lot wrong with my brain, I know, I know.

But this is one mystery in particular that I'd like to crack.

The reason behind this desire is complex. Obviously, I do like to act as if I don't give two shits about other people most of the time, not in the sense that I'm cruel, but rather that I'm not overly swayed by their opinions. However, like most of my outward behavior, this is something that I cleverly fake. Of course I care about what other people think! It's human nature! It's a complex, evolutionary design there to stop us from committing social suicide! The only reason why I (and the majority of others) try so hard is because we don't want the rest of the world looking down on us. If we truly didn't care, we wouldn't bother getting out of bed and spend our lives reeking of shit and piss because we're too busy watching youtube videos to clean ourselves up. Like it or not, we are affected by the opinions of others. We crave their praise. We flinch at their disapproval. And most of all, we want everybody to be our friends, because there's nothing worse than feeling like no one knows you exist.

The simple fact of the matter is, I know in order to for my life to get better, I am going to have to improve my interactions with other people. You never really know who will be useful to you in life, and even with that selfish motive set completely aside, it just feels nice to know you have a fair few people out there who like you. It's a bit of a confidence boost to know that you can meet people a few times and they're interested in keeping you around. However, this does not mean you get to sit on your arse and wait for the entire world to come to you. If you want friends, you have to be willing to make them. This means saying hello first. It means having the guts to try to talk to someone, even when you're not really sure if they want to talk to you. It means realising that however hard you try, you're still not always going to be successful and that's fine. At least it wasn't because you did nothing. Funnily enough, this doesn't just apply to social interactions- it can be applied to anything in life.

I may not be as charming as I think I am. Truthfully, most of the time, I don't know what the hell is going on with most things, including my own social life. I also can't dance to save my life. But as inept as I am, there's still a chance I'm going to get better with age. And if not, well... actually, fuck that. Things can only improve. Except for my dancing. Pretty sure that's never going to get better, but hey, it's part of my charm.

I can only dream of one day being this fly. 

Some Words to Tell You I Miss You (A Tribute to My Grandmother Lydia)

One ability I have always held in high regard is the ability to tell a good story. Few people know the magical combination that gives a story meaning; a rich tapestry of experience, genuine emotion and a way with words that is both poignant and uplifting. Storytellers are not born, but made; carved by years of trials and instances that leave a lasting imprint on their lives. My Grandmother was a woman with a life that lent itself well to telling stories. When I visited her for the last time in November, I remember she sat in her armchair in her pink dressing gown; small, but with such an undeniably commanding presence that it felt only natural to sit at her feet and wait for her to speak. Her voice was calm as she told me story after story; about her life, and the pain she had suffered, and the people she had lost. Not a trace of sadness was in her voice; she simply told me what had happened, accepting that life can often be painful and that in order to love others, we must be prepared to lose them. Grandma Lydia is one of the first people in my life who I have loved and lost; and while knowing that she is gone leaves an ache in my heart, having the opportunity to love her was well worth the pain of loss.

I first met my Grandmother when I was less than a month old. My mother, Julia, brought me to Oldham to meet her and Grandmother Lydia later repaid the favor by visiting us in London. There is one photo of our meeting. I am tiny and swaddled in a blanket, and my Grandmother holds me like a woman well-practiced at holding newborn children; four of her own, and countless others who called her their grandmother, great grandmother and even their great-great grandmother. It is oddly wonderful that this woman, who lost her own family at such a young age, became connected to the lives of so many. This was not without hardship. My Grandmother frequently reminded me that she started out with absolutely nothing. Born into poverty, she was forced to leave her family and flee to a foreign country; utterly alone in a place where no one spoke her language. She spoke often of how many of her brothers and sisters perished in her childhood; a particularly heart-breaking example being her little sister, who sat up early one morning, cried for her mother and then quietly passed away. They wrapped her in a shroud; made from some material Grandmother Lydia had been saving to make a new dress. She had begged for the material from one of her relatives and never got to do anything with it, as the material went with her little sister into her grave.

There are so many more stories Grandmother Lydia had, each one of which were capable of breaking your heart in two, but this one in particular stuck out to me. This one gave a glimpse into my grandmother’s life as a young girl; a girl who wanted so little, and throughout her life would never have much. However, this never made her bitter. My Grandmother took each hurdle in her life with a grace and serenity rarely seen in our impatient human race. What she experienced would be enough to send an ordinary person reeling; but instead, she internalized any pain she felt and kept on going. Through countless periods of grief, hurt and difficulty, she worked three jobs to feed her family; using every last reserve of her energy to keep them fed and clothed. She sacrificed her time and energy to make others happy, and in her old age, was finally given an opportunity to be looked after by the ones who loved her so dearly. This may have been the only time in my grandmother’s life where she was given a chance to rest. For a woman who gave up so much to give to other people, it is only fitting that we all gave her something back; a loving family, who she treasured above all else.

If you ever needed proof of how much Grandma Lydia loved us all, you would only need to go to her home and look at the many pictures on her walls. In her living room there are countless smiling, familiar faces; the faces of the people who were dear to her, right until the very end. Whenever I visited, we would go through more photos together; kept in old boxes on top of her wardrobe. Pictures of my mother’s first wedding, of my Auntie Linda and Uncle Tony in their early twenties, of Alan in his Boy George phase and countless photos of her grandchildren, sent to her by their loving parents. That she still went through those photos after having them for so many years says a lot about how important we were to her; as does the way she always told me to take care of my mother and father, or how she ended every phone call with “God bless”. For Lydia, nothing was more important than her family, and it is only right that now she is gone, we have come together to celebrate her life.

Grandmother Lydia was a woman of great strength; and without that strength, so many of us would not be here. There were many times in her life where she faced horrors that are too great to be imagined; but she survived against all odds and made a new life for herself. My Grandmother began her life surrounded by death, but rose above the pain and desperation, waging her own private war with the world beginning at the tender age of ten. It is only fitting that she passed away surrounded by life, leaving peacefully in the midst of a group of people that loved her dearly.

There is one lesson Grandma Lydia imparted upon me with her countless stories; something that should never be forgotten, because it is crucially important to living a life that is good and whole. That lesson is that no matter what a person may suffer, they should strive to love the ones around them unconditionally and without bitterness. My Grandmother, despite how much she suffered, tried to see the good in everyone. She never judged, or spoke to me in anger. She simply let me know that I was loved, and I’m sure she did the same to everyone around her. If more people could approach life and love with the same grace and dignity as my grandmother, the world would be a much brighter, understanding place.  She was a perfect human being and the centre of our family, and although it breaks my heart that she’s gone, her love will never leave me. 

The Finite

Part of being alive seems to be a lack of understanding of just how fragile life is. We are at the centre of a constant dizzying whirl of changes; growing up, growing old, growing stronger, growing weaker and we never stop to think that one day, everything we hold dear is not going to be here any more. Not only that, one day we are not going to be here any more. So we fritter away our time on the meaningless and trivial, because that's the only way we know how to live. Unfortunately, a big part of being human is not realising how much time you waste from day to day.

I'm not writing this to gather sympathy. I write this only to impart a lesson upon you all- a lesson that should not have to be learned in such a painful way, but often is, because there's no other way for it to sink in. What I want to tell you is to appreciate your loved ones. Let them know how much you care for them, because while they probably know, there's no harm in letting it be said. Spend as much time with them as you possibly can, because you don't know when they are going to leave you. You don't know when it'll be the last time you'll get to tell them how much they mean to you and how much you care. The last time you give them a hug goodbye. The last time you hear them on the phone. The last time they tell you goodbye.

At this current moment, there is nowhere I would rather be than in a hospital room in Manchester, surrounded by my relatives we watch over the woman who is responsible for beginning our family. My Grandmother Lydia is a woman who should not have survived. Born into one of the most poverty stricken countries in the world, she watched her father and siblings die slowly of malnutrition, and was separated from the rest of her family when she fled the Nazi invasion of the Ukraine. Grandma Lydia was barely a teenager when she last saw her mother and sisters, and she always told me that all she wanted to do was go home, hug her mother and give her a glass of water. I find it so oddly painful that right now, I want the same thing; to go to my grandmother, smooth her hair back from her forehead and give her a glass of water. I've been calling her on and off these last couple of days to let her know that I love her, and I miss her so much... but without being able to touch her, I feel like I can't say goodbye properly. And while there's the slimmest, most minuscule chance she could still fight her way through this, I don't dare to hope. I don't dare to hold off on my goodbyes.

I went back to the UK a few months ago for the first time in ten years, which was when I last saw my Grandmother. I remember thinking about how small she looked- small, and old, but still so strong and sharp. My family has always told me that I inherited my stubborn nature from her, and it's something I'm proud of, because it means that I am a fighter, just like her. This woman suffered so much in her lifetime- never once getting a chance to have a break, a brief respite from all the hurt that plagued her. Where most people would have given up, she traveled to a foreign country and started a family in a place where she couldn't even speak the language. She lost her own mother, but then became one to four children; four children that love her so dearly, and know that despite growing up poor, she gave them so much.

My Grandmother used to work three jobs to support her family. This often meant she couldn't always be there, but she kept her children fed and clothed, and they never doubted for a moment how much she loved them. She was often sick- years of malnutrition does that to a person- and there were times where she was so ill that her children were placed into care. Even then, it took so much to separate my grandmother from her family. She never wanted to leave them. Even now, as she's lying in hospital hooked up to an oxygen machine, she's telling us she doesn't want to go. And God, we don't want her to go.

Her one want was for all her family to stay with her as she goes. And although my Mum and I can't be there, we've been told that we're in her dreams. Sometimes, she tells them that we visited only a few hours ago. I remember when I saw her for the first time in a decade, she thought for a moment that it was my mother, back at age 18. I know that she's just hallucinating from her pain medication, but it feels comforting to know that she thinks we're there. I've managed to skype her at one of her more lucid moments and while she couldn't really talk back, she tried to smile at me, even though she could see how hard it was for me not to cry.

Grandma Lydia has always tried to keep the family together; and she continues to do that, even when she's so close to leaving us. My mother and her sister spoke the other day for the first time since before I was born, and finally apologised for all the hurt they caused one another. When I last went to England, I met my Uncle Tony for the first time, and now have another whole element to my family I didn't know existed. I only wish all this could have happened sooner, at a time when my grandmother was still well. I only wish I could have had more time, because I love this woman so much and all I ever wanted was for her to be happy.

I know I have a fair few issues with people. I expect disappointment. I expect hurt and misunderstandings. But my Grandma Lydia is someone who has never let me down. In my eyes, she is the perfect human being; a person who does not complicate things with hate and grudges. All she ever did was love me unconditionally. I doubt there's anything I could do to make her pride in me diminish. She always provides me with wisdom; every time we talked on the phone, she would remind me to "be good to your Mum and Dad, because they're the only ones you've got". She reminded me not to be bitter. And every time I had something happen in my life, something that would knock me back for a fair while... she would remind me of what she had been though, and that I have the strength to survive anything.

There is still a part of me that is hoping someone will call in the next day and tell me that's she's getting better. There's been a few of those calls already, but they are slowly tapering off, and I fear the next one I get will be the one that lets me know she's gone. And I know that if that happens, I'm going to say it's not fair that I didn't get more time. It's not fair that I couldn't say goodbye. It's not fair that a person I love so much is not going to be here any more. But there was never any illusion that life could be fair. We can only recognize this and do our best to live and love regardless. If Grandma Lydia has taught me anything, it's the importance of allowing yourself to love, regardless of what has happened to you. You may become bitter. You may be afraid of being hurt. But to love one another is infinitely more important, as at the end of the day, all we have is each other. 

Living Out of Home (It's Pretty Damn Great)

Hello everyone. Nice to see you all. Yes, I realise it's been awhile. We do have so much to catch up on but obviously not right now because we aren't actually having a conversation, I'm just using a specific writing technique to appeal to you on a personal level so your interest levels will rise and you'll be more likely to finish reading this sentence- hey! Did you just open another tab while I was talking to you? Is that- wait, are you ignoring me to watch videos of small baby animals? Okay, granted, watching puppies roll over is a credible way to spend your time, but come on, don't you at least want to maybe finish this paragraph before you click away from my page? Aren't you the least bit curious as to why I've been completely absent from the internet for the better part of the month?

And you're looking at hardcore pornography. Very well. If you ever get sick of watching a dwarf climb in and out of an adult man's anus, I'll be here, waiting.

About a month ago, I was complaining a lot because a fuckton of not-so-amazing things decided it'd be fun to forecibly enter my life all at once, like a pornstar with ten dildos shoved in their ass (I was up late watching porn, shut up). This is just how life goes-when the shit hits the fan, it rarely sprays in one direction. It splatters everywhere, leaving you standing there, wiping the faecal matter away from your eyes as you try to conjure up fond memories of an easy, shit-free existence. Life fucks with us, but rarely do we remember that it's never one-on-one, consensually, in the missionary position. Life is a kinky bastard that calls up his friends and organises surprise sexual attacks from all directions, armed with stainless steel dildos, spiked buttplugs and sounding rods. Extended rape metaphor aside, the simple truth is, my personal life was in absolute shambles. Ultimately, this doesn't matter, as everything ended up turning out okay. Although I was kicked out of home and wrote off my car within the same month, I quickly found a place to rent conviniently located close to my uni, shops and public transport. At the moment, I am safe, secure and pretty content with how my life is progressing thus far.

However, there's a few things I should comment upon regarding moving out that genuinely surprised me. Especially in regards to sharing with friends. Honestly, at the moment, the biggest suprise is how much time I spend cleaning up. If I'm not picking something up and putting it back where it belongs, I'm sweeping the floor, wiping down counters, washing dishes, stacking dishes, drying dishes, scrubbing couches, mopping the bathroom floor, wiping down the shower, emptying out the leftovers we never ate from the fridge etc. Sometimes I feel like shoving a brush up my ass so I can just sweep as I go. Although I've done chores most of my life, the amount of time I need to put in to make sure I don't end up rotting in my own filth is astounding. I'd estimate that I spend an hour a day cleaning up at the very least, and if I don't, the house quickly starts to resemble the giant space trashball from Futurama. I'm not sure how three people can make a place so filthy, but I already have so much repect for dilligent mothers everywhere for managing to keep on top of everything a hell of a lot better than I do.

The other thing you have to watch out for when you gain independence is how you regulate your time. I'll admit it, because at the moment I have no real responsibilities, my routine is now getting up around 10AM and spending a few hours on reddit. BOOM, half the day is gone and bye bye productivity. The whole day has been sucked up into funny pictures of Nicholas Cage and bad puns. Throw in the nights I spend either out or too tired to function from being out the previous nights, and I am wasting a lot of potential for improvement. Could I probably have written a decent amount of short stories by now? Yes. Did I? No, because I was either drunk, tired or wasting time on the internet. The same goes for my room mates. I can't think of the last time any of us did something that actually contributed to society. Of course, I don't care what they do, as long as they help me clean. Fuck this house and how often it needs cleaning.

Getting the balance right in regards to household responsibilities is also difficult. I live in a house frequented by 18 year olds and while we're usually pretty good with this stuff, there's something about being around other teenagers that makes a person inherently lazy. Maybe it's the lack of parental pressure, maybe it's just the simple fact that no one likes touching plastic bags full of food scraps and used condoms, but whatever it is, it means certain stuff doesn't get done as soon as it should. This can sometimes create tensions. I'll admit, I can get a bit passive aggressive over whose turn it is to do the dishes. This is yet to result in an all-out war, but if anyone hears gunshots in St Lucia, don't panic, we're just trying to figure out who's supposed to be washing and drying tonight.

Having said all that, there's something pretty great about achieving your own independence. Turns out a lot of the stress in my life comes from parental pressure- remove the parents and it's no longer an issue. Without going into details, life suddenly become a lot more enjoyable when there isn't a constant source of tension present in the place you live. I know that personally, in the last three weeks, I haven't had one moment where I've felt like crap because of the people I've been forced to be around. Sure, sometimes I get frustrated over household duties and who's not doing them. That's a given. But when I get to come home to people who will have a fancy dinner with me on Valentines Day because we all live too far away from our SOs to do anything, or who will get drunk and watch musicals with me any night of the week, or who will even take care of me when I'm sick and hungover I can't get off the couch... it's very worth it.

In closing, although this whole journey began with a clusterfuck of badly timed stressful events, it has ended on a rather positive note and I can only see things getting better from here. My first lecture is tomorrow and I am excited to continue this pathway towards achieving true independence. I still have a fuckload to learn, like how to get dried weetbix off bowls and how to drink in the shower without severely diluting my alcohol. But this will all come in time... and what a great time it is going to be.