On growing up
I know I've grown in these past three months not by the lately developed stubble on my face, but because more and more I find myself dwelling somewhere in the past. Tequila, cigarettes, and regret on Hindley. Buying a converse jumper that would later be stolen from me at DFO. The first time I got high and felt I could die. Endless trips up the Northern Expressway with Riptide on repeat. Your hand, in mine. The steering wheel beneath dimly lit street lights. The heartbreak. My endless mistakes. The struggles. I know i’ve grown up because people from school are distant strangers now. I see their Snapchat stories, blurry nights of binge drinking that will no doubt be deleted first thing in the morning. Here I am, pinot in hand, hunched over (somewhat awkwardly), writing an essay on journalistic objectivity. Soon I’ll crawl into bed, back to work, and back to bed again. Growing up is fucked up, fun, and scary. More and more responsibility. It would be easy to give up - to listen to the parts of me that tell me I’ll never belong - but maybe then all of this would’ve been for nothing. Afterall, you don’t know how memorable something is until it’s over. And I’m fucking far from over.
The toilet gurgles an ungodly tune. It’s high maintenance, but it deals with shit and I appreciate it. I can tell it’s friday night not by the fact that I have kept up with the date, but because my neighbours are excessively loud and happy. I don’t really mind, they play classic tunes like American Pie and scream at the top of their lungs. Their drunken whaling makes me nostalgic for all the house parties we’ve had in our yard, Mum and Dad half a bottle of Jacks deep; my sister trying to pole dance on square poles. She’s not the most graceful being, ‘specially while drunk. I’m eight or nine (or twelve) espresso martinis in, and I’m trying to have fun but parts of me still feel like they don’t belong. My being always doubts itself, but on nights like these its most bearable. Being around my family reminds me that I am me, at least I hope. Maybe my emotions are just dampened by the alcohol. Anyway, Crocodile Rock comes on and everyone strips - because that’s what you do when you’re young and drunk and carefree. (Not me though, I’d never be so vulnerable). I know my parents are older. Not because they look or feel older in my mind, but only because I’m almost twenty. Mum and Dad will be immortalised in my memory as infinitely youthful and caring. I know my parents are older. Because someday soon I’ll need to grow up. Because each the joy of each Birthday seems to fade a bit more. I miss nights like those. You never know something is so memorable until it is over. Three months later, I’ve grown up some more. My (favourite) sister is across the world in Ottawa, somewhere so foreign to me that I can only begin to imagine it. It’s a patchwork of pictures that I’ve seen in books from Flightcentre, and Ballarat deep in July. I like to imagine everyone in Ottawa is kind, and that there’s an abundance of rare winter sunshine.