Saturday 2 June 2018

Thoughts: It's been a while, but let's talk about the past

Last night I said I was a passive agreer.  I was just telling some anecdotal story I'd told a million times that day, about how some guy took a second cookie and the girl next to me was like "oh my gosh, he took a second cookie?  How rude." and I was like "Yeah, gosh, how rude." - you know, passively agreeing.  And then like 20 seconds later I took a second cookie and this girl looked at me like "what the fuck."  Anyway, so I had said I was a passive agreer, and then this girl who had just walked into my room said, "to be honest, I think you're passive everything."  She was so right.

So, the last time I posted was September last year, apparently.  Back then I hadn't experienced anything.  But skip forward a few months and we reach December 31st: the last time I wrote.  Typing those letters b l o g g e r into google for the first time in ages, I stumbled across a little draft I never knew I never finished:

I'm at a brown coffee table painting my nails silver for the new year, probably running late for work, wondering why I'm writing on the blog I haven't set eyes on in 3 months.  I thought I'd said an unplanned goodbye already, but the new year has always been the most thoughtful time of year for me, and for the last three new years, I've done my reflecting here.  Perhaps this blog is in the cards for 2018 after all.

Looking back on 2017, it was a lot.  In all my medicine interviews I kept getting asked the question "What are you most proud of from the last two years?" and while I gave them all some lame answer about how I was proud of my academic achievements, which they so did not want to hear, in reality, I think my answer is "the person I have become".  Having finished school, being so comfortable with the network of people I've built around me, being confident, feeling pretty, knowing what I want, feeling ready for so much more... that's how I'm ending 2017.

And tonight I will not be getting drunk, or making out with strangers on the street at midnight.  Instead I will be in a pretty white restaurant with family and friends, and we'll eat, maybe go outside and dance with the strangers on the street, and at exactly midnight we will watch the fireworks.  I love that exact moment -- what you were doing at midnight.  Although, now that I'm writing this, I'm not sure why it's so significant.  Perhaps it's supposed to be that changeover moment where you transition into that person you want to be, who from that moment on will not be eating chocolate and will instead go to the gym.  Or perhaps it's a moment of celebration, saying goodbye and thank you to the year that has just passed.  I like the former, personally.

And now we're here: 2018.  It's a Saturday night and for some reason, the moment I closed my embryology notes, the people yelling outside my dorm window decided to shut up.  Oh well.  Too late.  I'm here now.  I'm here and I'm thinking about home -- not Sydney home (and Sydney is now home), but my other home.

The other home is a figment of my imagination now.  It's still there, standing, with my mum and my dad and my sister.  The snapchat maps still show me who's at the mall, and who's at home, and who's at the gym.  But, there's one tiny difference this weekend.  On that map is a boy from my classes, visiting those malls and a 10 minute drive away from my friends.  It's wrong.  It's weird.  It's a reminder that things are not the same and never will be.  Seeing him there, out of place, makes me homesick.  I think about what it would be like if I were there.  Well, I wouldn't be running late for work, and I don't even know where my nail polish is kept now.  My friends are now all doing different things.  I can't even picture their lives, even when they tell me all about it.  That home doesn't exist anymore.

Today, for the first time since I was simultaneously hungover and in the middle of a fever, I spent the whole day in my room.  The plan was to study, like old times, at my desk, in my room, alone.  This time though, I felt irrationally lonely.  It's all these small things that used to be so normal for me, that take me back to the night before I left, when I cried and cried and I didn't know why, because I should've been so excited for the big future I'd always dreamed of only a day away.  And it really is like living a dream, but sometimes I need to sit here and mourn what I don't have anymore.

I'm low-key in love with my sadness.
Love,
M




3 comments:

  1. I think I'm in love with my sadness too, and growing up sucks.

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  2. Wow. That was. Just keep writing on this blog ok?

    Nabila | Hot Town Cool Girl

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  3. You should be so proud of yourself! Realizing that you are the wonderful things you have described is an achievement. It's been the same story with my friends and I, they are around but I have no idea what they are up to anymore. We'll get through it together.

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