i’ve been in naarm for one week (!)
i’ve spent most of it on my own, easing myself into the city, aimlessly walking around, meeting friends of friends and friends of friends of friends, eating pastries, wasting men’s time on grindr, endlessly adding spots i *must* check out on my google maps list, buying australian-grown products, losing against the natural forces of time and jet lag and begrudgingly increasing my screen time.
being so in my thoughts has been … different.
aloneness is something i rarely get to experience in london, where i’m constantly filling my time with ways i can make money or ways i can spend money.
the alone time was meant to be a welcome change. one of my goals moving here was to lead a ~ slower life ~ where i feel less stressed, chaotic and overwhelmed.
realistically, i’m struggling to lean into the slowness –
[the morning after]
i was writing the above on a tram. hectically typing on my phone notes app as if i had a deadline i had to adhere to (that i’d probably already asked for an extension for).
as i was sitting with the words i was writing, i felt guilt taking over.
i realised i was “being productive” instead of enjoying-the-city, so i put my phone in my pocket and forced myself to look outside the window at what is now the city i live in. it was dark already so what was outside the window was kinda underwhelming and as i tram’d my way into brunswick, my brain kept spiralling with a million thoughts and i can’t name you a single thing or person i saw.
the morning after, i proceed with my writing, this time around comfortably sat on my desk.
the fight between forcing-myself-to-enjoy-the-free-time and needing-to-be-productive has been the overarching theme of the week.
the week of aimlessly walking around the city and meeting friends of friends and etc etc has also been the week of moving into my new place, getting a bank account, applying for a tax number, applying for a medicare card, getting a new phone number, going for house viewings, applying for jobs (50, for now), getting a certificate to sell alcohol in venues, signing up to a boxing gym and buying a rice cooker.
i’m desperate to build an existence that doesn’t revolve around productivity and yet i feel like if i’m not being productive i’m not really living. i will be the first to tell my friends ‘your worth doesn’t revolve around being productive’ whilst struggling to apply that to myself.
the truth is, as un-cool as it is to admit this (even controversial i guess in the circles i run in and in the politics i believe in) i enjoy working. i was making excel spreadsheets for my mum’s small business when i was thirteen years old, and haven’t really stopped working since. my dad, a plasterer and aspiring scriptwriter, glorified work above anything else; he believed bees were the perfect society because of their working ethics and wrote a play about it. despite never having known what my ambitions are, i have also always found purpose in doing things.
so, taking time for myself to settle in somewhere new, discovering a new city, being un-productive and alone, has been met with restlessness. whilst one part of my brain is telling me to go out there and *live* and *make-the-most-of-it*, the other is telling me to sort my life out asap.
what i’m realising is that my vision of leading a slower life, where i have a “chill” job and write on the side, might be harder to achieve than i’d anticipated, but also maybe even more needed than i’d anticipated.
being less social, being less busy, being less stressed, has already led to me being able to tap into the creative side of my brain more than i feel i’d been able to do in a really long time. so whilst the restlessness has manifested in abrupt and anxious 5am awakenings and in compulsively checking my inbox, it has also manifested in phone notes full of banal and wonderful thoughts, which i will aim to share on here.
so, restless and uncertain, i persevere.
i’m going to end my posts with a photo i took since the last post and some random thoughts behind it.
saw this sign yesterday on my walk and turns out it’s literally just a restaurant. did some digging and it’s run by a husband and wife and inside there’s a sign that says “there’s a ladyboy in all of us” which made me cackle. could argue for the fact it’s problematic and objectifying and weird but i’m looking for a job so today i choose to laugh instead.
maybe one day i’ll open a fish and chip shop in laos and call it transexual.
Yes to the banal phone note era! <3