I tidied off the bookshelf in the kitchen today. Took down the folders on the top of it, got covered in dust. You know what's good for cleaning dust off things? Baby wipes. The folders had all our primary school achievements in them. Awards, merit cards, report cards, participation certificates. For me and Bek. Emma had one too, but there wasn't much in it. In Emma's folder she'd drawn a big "I (heart) David Trasey," didn't even spell his name right. That guy is so tangled up in my past. I remember when Emma and I were 12 or 11, must have been 2000, Mel and the kids came up, there's photos of us all together in the back yard. I remember Emma and her crush. Sometimes I feel like no matter what happens, I will never escape him. I have literally known him my whole life. Our parents were best friends in high school. Maybe we could have been perfect together if he didn't turn out to be such a dick. If ever I had a fairy tale ending, that would have been it. Friends since birth, growing up together, lost virginity, move to a new city, travel overseas. Right up until the point where he left me because I was too depressed and he hated that I was poly. Or maybe it wasn't the poly, maybe it was just the sexuality. He always used to say that I was his one, the one he knew he'd end up with, that we'd get together. Well buddy, that worked out great didn't it. I just want to forget him, but he'll always be there in child hood memories and old photos. I can delete him on facebook, which I am going to do, but he's always going to be more than just someone I dated for two years in my 20s. If it had been anybody else it'd be over with, but it's not. There will always be some remaining memory. Remember when you went to the country music concert? Remember when they came down and he took your virginity on your bed right after our parents had left? Remember how we stayed up all night talking our first night in his place after you'd gotten up at 4am and you had a cold? Remember climbing the leaning tower of Pisa, or strolling through Amsterdam at 8am when it was still dark? Remember the house in Haberfield when you were younger and the back yard just seemed so big? Heaps of childhood photos. It's two and a half decades of memories, photographs.
I get nostalgic when I clean things out. I found a shoe box of old photos, from 1999. Mine, Bek's, Emma's birthdays. A "family" holiday. Ricky when he was just a baby. This house, when we moved in. The other half of the family helping us renovate it. Back when all the rooms where empty, when Bek and I had separate, clean rooms, when Emma and Ty slept downstairs, where you could actually get in to the downstairs room from both doors. Back when there weren't mattresses on the lounge room floor. Back when the curtains were new, the ones that still hang now. Back when there was a house that we lived in, not a house that is just so oppressing in its mess. Back when nothing was broken. I decided to do a mini photography project, comparing the same areas, but then my camera battery died, so tomorrow.
Mum eventually wants to take that book case. But I don't care. I took all of the stuff off the shelves, and there was so much crap. About ten wedding brochures. Gary used to keep proposing and she kept saying no. I don't know what I make of that. She didn't want to marry him, but she never left him either. There were old road maps, travel and holiday and hotel guides from back in the early 2000s. A whole heap of those collectible magazines and stuff from newspapers about animals and space and all that. A set of encyclopedias that has got to be 20 years old. Nothing on that book shelf compares with the vintage nude playing cards I found in the pantry the other day. The bottom shelf has old reader's digest information books. They're lovely books, but probably hugely outdated, and in bad condition. I read one called The Body Book when I was maybe 12 or 13. I also read a four book set of medical encyclopedias, and a big information book on babies that covered pretty much everything. And a book called Marvels and Mysteries of the World Around Us. If there was a time in my life when my nerdiness could be traced to, it was before then.
I'm going to put my collection of cooking magazines there. I have tonnes. And I'm making a list of all the recipes in them I want to try, as well as recipes for all kinds of treats and themed treats and seasonal desserts. By accident I found all of the Christmas magazines I was looking for last Christmas. They were on the shelf below the other magazines, hiding under my huge collection of stockings. I rarely cook, and I have so many magazines, so the plan is to cook at least one magazine meal per week. Hopefully.
Cleaning through stuff puts me in a weird mood. I get all nostalgic and kind of down but not depressed. I don't know how to explain it. I think I just face a lot of things that I forget, because I've just learned to deal in this house. It's no where near normal, but it's been my normal, for quite some time now. No matter what I go through, I get confronted with so many aspects of my past, of things that are so much different now. It's just weird to think back to a time when things were much more normal. And to think, if things went differently from that point, who would I be now? If Gary wasn't such a dick. If this house never got in to the state it is today. If we'd become a happy family. I don't think much would change though, we were still poor, living in a terrible area of town. And my birthday photos show me with a crowd of friends, but I didn't really have many friends back then either. So maybe everything would be the same. To change everything, I'd have to go back further.
I get nostalgic when I clean things out. I found a shoe box of old photos, from 1999. Mine, Bek's, Emma's birthdays. A "family" holiday. Ricky when he was just a baby. This house, when we moved in. The other half of the family helping us renovate it. Back when all the rooms where empty, when Bek and I had separate, clean rooms, when Emma and Ty slept downstairs, where you could actually get in to the downstairs room from both doors. Back when there weren't mattresses on the lounge room floor. Back when the curtains were new, the ones that still hang now. Back when there was a house that we lived in, not a house that is just so oppressing in its mess. Back when nothing was broken. I decided to do a mini photography project, comparing the same areas, but then my camera battery died, so tomorrow.
Mum eventually wants to take that book case. But I don't care. I took all of the stuff off the shelves, and there was so much crap. About ten wedding brochures. Gary used to keep proposing and she kept saying no. I don't know what I make of that. She didn't want to marry him, but she never left him either. There were old road maps, travel and holiday and hotel guides from back in the early 2000s. A whole heap of those collectible magazines and stuff from newspapers about animals and space and all that. A set of encyclopedias that has got to be 20 years old. Nothing on that book shelf compares with the vintage nude playing cards I found in the pantry the other day. The bottom shelf has old reader's digest information books. They're lovely books, but probably hugely outdated, and in bad condition. I read one called The Body Book when I was maybe 12 or 13. I also read a four book set of medical encyclopedias, and a big information book on babies that covered pretty much everything. And a book called Marvels and Mysteries of the World Around Us. If there was a time in my life when my nerdiness could be traced to, it was before then.
I'm going to put my collection of cooking magazines there. I have tonnes. And I'm making a list of all the recipes in them I want to try, as well as recipes for all kinds of treats and themed treats and seasonal desserts. By accident I found all of the Christmas magazines I was looking for last Christmas. They were on the shelf below the other magazines, hiding under my huge collection of stockings. I rarely cook, and I have so many magazines, so the plan is to cook at least one magazine meal per week. Hopefully.
Cleaning through stuff puts me in a weird mood. I get all nostalgic and kind of down but not depressed. I don't know how to explain it. I think I just face a lot of things that I forget, because I've just learned to deal in this house. It's no where near normal, but it's been my normal, for quite some time now. No matter what I go through, I get confronted with so many aspects of my past, of things that are so much different now. It's just weird to think back to a time when things were much more normal. And to think, if things went differently from that point, who would I be now? If Gary wasn't such a dick. If this house never got in to the state it is today. If we'd become a happy family. I don't think much would change though, we were still poor, living in a terrible area of town. And my birthday photos show me with a crowd of friends, but I didn't really have many friends back then either. So maybe everything would be the same. To change everything, I'd have to go back further.
19:56
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