STAYING PUT

“I get as far as writing an application letter for another job but never send it,” I moaned to Christine over coffee yesterday.

When I quit journalism it wasn’t a big deal. Not really. It came naturally and I, apart from the odd pang of regret, was at peace with it.

However I just can’t seem to drag myself away from this job. I spend my days giggling with my co-workers, bitching about the conditions and chatting with customers about the weather.

It’s really easy, to me, and as such sometimes it feels as though I’m merely keeping the job because it’s easy money. It’s largely pointless busy-work to keep me out of trouble.

“Maybe you’re just afraid of failing,” Christine gurgles over coffee. “Maybe you don’t want to risk taking a new job in case it doesn’t work out.”

“Maybe,” I sulked. Her answer seems so simplistic.

The prospect of moving to another job and then finding I hate it is enough doubt to stop my search in its track.

I really do love this job. I love its little complexities and legalities. I love helping the newbies. I love the personalities in this office and how they interplay. I love that when the day is over my job is done and nothing is waiting for me in the morning. I love not having an in tray.

Come to think of it, there’s not that much I hate about it.

The money sucks – not completely but just enough to be noticeable. There are limited advancement opportunities.

In all honesty, I don’t know what I want to do with “the rest of my life”. I don’t know that I even want to think about it.

“You know, maybe it’s not that deep an issue,” Christine’s blowing a hole through the froth while I’m staring at the girl behind the counter.

She’s happy. I know her job probably doesn’t pay that much but it’s probably enough to sustain her while she’s still at school. There’s plenty of time to think about the future when it arrives.

“I don’t think I’m afraid I’ll fail at a new job, I just think I don’t want to leave.” I’m a little pissed at Christine. Her “observations” of late have been unnecessarily dark. “Maybe, just maybe, I don’t want to leave.”

My tone of voice has caught Christine’s attention and she looks up from her coffee. “Then why are you looking for jobs?”

“Because I feel like I should be doing more. I feel like I should be living up to my full potential.”

“Why aren’t you?”

“Because I don’t know what it is…”

“Well, maybe this is your full potential. Maybe you’re supposed to be happy, not rich and successful.”

Maybe. And that doesn’t sound like too bad way to spend the rest of my life.

TORTURE

Last night I had an 8-year-old girl threatening to live in my car. She just did not want to get out and go back to her mother. For 20 minutes we sat their coaxing her from her seat.

Tears were streaming down her face and she blubbered that she “didn’t want to go in there with her” and that “she’ll just scream and scream at me”.

We stood on the footpath and I hugged her and I told her the only things I could – that we’re sorry. That when her mother’s screaming to “switch off”. That one-day things would be better. I told her to think of us because we’re thinking of her.

And I have to remind myself that these are not my kids. I can’t afford to be making myself miserable over something I can’t control.

Still, when there’s an eight-year-old holding on to you for dear life, you tend to be a little irrational.

There was a dark, cold ball forming in the pit of my stomach that made me want to throw up. I felt it sucking the warmth from my body.

And I wanted to keep them.

For all the trouble of having step-children most of it is because you’re forcing yourself to keep a distance that isn’t natural. When children live in your home and hug you and want to be with you always it’s kind of hard not to become attached.

Tom’s face remains etched in my mind. For all the anguish I’m feeling for two kids that aren’t mine, I am only scratching the surface to his pain. His eyes all watery and red – straining not to cry.

I would have happily taken the kids back home. No child should be forced to live with someone they hate.

If it had been a one-off, if the kids hadn’t been expressing this want every fortnight for the past two years, then I could have shrugged my shoulders and walked away. It would have been so much easier to dismiss this as a stage.

But I know that it’s not. This little girl may be able to manipulate her dad but all the tricks don’t work on me. And this was no trick.

We drove home in absolute silence, neither of us wanting to talk about it in case the conversation tore the wound further.

Why couldn’t Tom have been a widower? Why couldn't they stay?

COMING HOME

Driving home each night is like stepping into a renaissance painting.

We’ve moved to an area that is Sydney’s plains.

The land lies flat and in the distance you can see through the haze to the Blue Mountains. The mountains themselves are largely silhouetted by this time as the sun hangs low on the horizon. It’s not setting though and still has enough strength to show the details of the thick, fluffy bushlands on the mountain slopes.

Looming over these mountains are big, black clouds cracking open only wide enough to allow the slender fingers of God to reach down and touch the earth around my new home.

It’s dangerous, as I drive, to allow myself to linger too long on the scene but it’s beauty is hypnotic.

For some reason when we were shopping for a suburb we hadn’t even considered the one we ended up in. We searched long and hard in the areas we all ready knew – not wanting to stray too far.

Then a chance barbeque at a friends place and we instantly fell in love. Driving home that night Tom just turned to me and said “this is it” and almost immediately we began concentrating our search in the area.

In a rare moment of clarity I realise I don’t regret the purchase in any way. I have never once thought “if only I was closer to work” or “if only it has the same facilities as Parramatta.”

And each night I am torn between wanting to stay on the roads and watch this artwork unfold or rushing home to be with Tom.

Tom always wins out.

FAMILY TREE

There is one branch of the family tree that I simply can’t understand.

It’s a branch that seems to thrive on gossip about themselves to the point where they actively seek to claim every comment as an attack upon them. They are, by all accounts, amazing people but it’s incredibly difficult to get across to them that people aren’t talking about them behind their backs – no matter how much they want them to.

“I’ve got no idea.” I told Tom last night. “Apparently I said something offensive about people that I actually really like. It’s a little frustrating.”

Tom nodded and let me vent for an hour about the fact that I simply couldn’t understand. I spewed forth a rather unflattering interpretation of the situation before pulling myself back into line and back to reality.

I’ve offended them without even talking about them.

He agreed and told me of his much similar history of having every word re-interpreted and turned from a simple flippant comment about not liking the colour blue to actually meaning he hated their home and their blue curtains.

Still, for 24 hours I’ve replayed the past 12 months through my head. I’ve thought about the very few times I’ve actually mentioned these particular relatives and narrowed it down to one of three conversations. One was about wedding seating. One was about hair. One was defending them against an attack from another relative.

It was probably a comment about their hair that did it.

I know I’m obsessive but for some reason I believe in the truth and that it’s an absolute. However, too many people in this world don’t care for the truth – it’s only important to them that they’re right and that they can twist the truth to satisfy their own delusions of self-importance.

It’s the reason I quit journalism. People don’t want the truth.

That being the case I also accept that everyone believes what he or she needs too to get through this life. If this particular branch need to cruicify me to make themselves feel justified then there's nothing I can do but accept the martyrdom they've bestowed upon me.

“Does it really bother you that much?” Tom asked as we walked through the park.

“I guess it bothers me because their version of what I’m supposed to have said isn’t even close to what I actually said. It’s amazing what you can do if you take something out of context.”

We walked for about half-an-hour and by the time we got home I was all angered out. I want them to see my truth. I want them to see that I didn’t say anything that could be construed as offensive and that if I did it wasn’t meant to be.

But if they don’t want to see that then can I really make them? If they’re determined to turn everything they hear as an attack upon them can anything I do or say change their beliefs?

Probably not. It’s wasted energy and I’m just going to let it slide.

There are people in this world who spend their days thinking about what other people are thinking and saying about them. These same people, in the absence of anything validating their need to be gossipped about, will create the insult themselves.

They have nothing better to do.

Me, I’ve got a life.

Middle Of The Hill – Josh Pyke

All of the major upheavals in my life are associated with the smell of wet paint.

1992 I finished high school and waited the painful time to receive my results. I closed my bedroom door with a tin of pain and stripped back the walls until all traces of my childhood were gone. Then, with the radio blaring, I shut myself away from the world until I owned that room and felt secure about the future and who I was in the face of change.

2001 I bought a unit and began my career as a journalist and bought myself a unit. In pride I closed the door and scrubbed away the unit’s history. Then I gave that space a new skin in which I could feel comfortable and secure against the uncertain future.

2006, now, the stress and strain and disorientation of falling in love and getting married has culminated in the purchasing of a home to call our own for the rest of the foreseeable future.

I’ve stared at these walls and couldn’t bring myself to accept them. It was someone else’s mark on my home. Someone else’s lives imprinted upon them. Their hand marks and their smudges of dirt making a clear and obvious claim to ownership.

So, for the past three weekends, I’ve locked myself in the master bedroom. The plan was to remove all traces of the previous tenants. Not only their physical presence but their entire imprint.

Tom helped, when I allowed him, but largely it was a job I greedily dominated. I needed to paint as much as the walls needed to be painted.

It’s just the way I am when things change – when my boundaries are encroached upon. I was Determined to mark my territory in the only way I can - with the sweat from my brow.

Tom, seeing my desperate need for space, sweetly interrupted only for lunch and offers of coffee through my day’s labour. But all in all I had locked myself away from everything.

Painting, for me, is cathartic. I washed away the past the best I could but not before I took due time to acknowledge it existed and that it had brought me to this point. I prepared the surface with long, sure strokes that make my back ache and my wrists and hands throb. Then, I wildly added the colour to the walls until all that was beneath it was completely covered – gone for good.

The adding of colour a commitment that couldn’t be taken back because the nature of paint is that, if you’ve prepared the surface well, it bonds with the walls.

I’ve had many a rental place between. I’ve scampered across Canada and across Australia but none of those places have the same connection as those I’ve painted myself.

They always felt and smelled like someone else’s home.

But a simple coat of paint, four days of solid connection with the walls themselves, and I know this room is Tom’s and mine. It’s history has been stripped away and it’s future seems so much more secure now that we’re in sync.

At least Tom and I can sleep in peace while we work on the rest of the house.

MISERY

A married person is akin to being Mormon. Nobody wants you around unless they’re also married.

Since last April things have been different and I’m trying desperately to contact my friends but to no avail. How many emails do I have to send? How many SMSs before it’s clear there’ll be no response? At what stage do I just give up trying to contact my friends?

Chrissy is unreachable. Mick and Milo won’t respond. Sarah’s always been a bit of a recluse. Trevor has simply disappeared. My work friends are around quite a bit but, while they’re wonderful people, they simply don’t have the comfort factor of the people I have know since I was young and stupid.

“They’re probably just busy,” Tom tries to be positive but I’m not convinced.

“Nope, I know my friends, this is the silence of concealment. Or worse – they’re talking about me. They’ve included me in their round of people to complain about.”

I used to be the complainer - now I’m the complainee. It’s as though I’ve been forcibly pushed to the other side of the tracks. Occasionally I receive a non-committal email or a vague SMS but otherwise I hear nothing of substance and it’s driving me insane.

“Why don’t we just drop around and visit them. They can’t ignore you if you’re on their doorstep.” I know Tom’s being rational but this is a completely irrational situation.

“No. I’ve done everything I’m going to. It’s up to them to come to me now. I mean – I sent a long letter telling them we’d bought a house and that I’d bought a new car and that everything is going great and not one of them could send a congratulations. God, not one of them bothered to ask what our new address was. For all they care I could have slipped off the face of the Earth.”
And then it occurs to me. I’m married. I’m part of the cult my friends and I mocked since high school. Maybe I have fallen off the face of the Earth.

“Well, then stop worrying about it. I know you, I know you’ll go on an on about this until you hear something.” Tom hesitates over the sink. Then, somewhat absent-mindedly adds. “But you know what they say – misery loves company. Maybe you’re too happy.”

Is my generation completely incapable of being happy? It appears as though we go to great lengths to avoid it.

We sabotage relationships, we avoid people who are too perky and we seem to bloom with grief after disasters that have nothing to do with us. Our entire lives seem to be spent chasing a reason to be unhappy.

I’ve been there. I’ve had disastrous relationships and I’ve spent endless nights alone with a tub of ice-cream. I’ve been let down and had my heart broken. And, I must admit, I kind of liked it. Being miserable is easy. Happiness takes some effort.

But because I’m so happy, I’m thoroughly friendless and alone. Being friendless and alone makes me miserable.

I guess that means my friends will be calling sometime soon.

HOME part 3

This story is boring me. It was a long time ago now and I want to get to the point.

That night Tom and I sat down on the back step of our Merryland’s home with a bottle of scotch half drained. By 3am we’d decided to make a bid $20,000 below the asking price.

That Monday I called. Tuesday they came back with an offer 12,000 below the asking price.

We said yes and two months later – many a fight and many tears and stresses behind us - here we are.

For the past two weeks we’ve been sanding, tearing tiles from the wall of our bathroom and painting the bedroom. We’ve been walking the streets of our new neighborhood in a bid to get a feel for where we’ll be living for the, hopefully, next 30 years.

But above all this house has a fourth room so I can close the door and write. Hopefully, once the boxes are put away, I can finally find time that I need to remember who I was before this whirlwind began.

HOME Part 2

When the house hunting began I switched off from the world. I focused on this one thing with an unnatural obsession.

I’d spend hours scanning the different houses and suburbs we had considered. All within our price range. Most with one or two flaws that meant they were culled from the list.

I shut Tom out of the process, taking it onto my own shoulders simply because I felt I should. I thought about the search night and day. I ran comparisons of home loan options and wrote long lists of features each loan had to offer.

At night I would toss and turn trying to formulate a plan to achieve our goal. Leaving Tom with instructions on not being too enthusiastic and to pick the places we were looking at to pieces.

And so our new strategy began. But finding a house is all well and good in theory; you still need the agents to show you inside.

On our second weekend we booked a further six houses to view with one particular agent. We told him, quite bluntly, that we’d already been dicked around and that we wouldn’t stand for it. With so many houses out there if he couldn’t help us that we’d simply look elsewhere.

At 10am he was standing outside of the first house. On time and quite apologetic about the fact we’d only be seeing four houses instead of six because two had guests coming over.

Fine. Still, none of the houses sang to us and Tom and I would park at the local lakes with an esky of food and drink to tide us over. It had become a tradition that we both loved and as we sat there we’d talk and talk about what we’d seen.

I had written up a checklist and Tom was enthusiastic about filling in it.

“Sorry, I meant the next left,” Tom glanced up from the clipboard to see I was heading to a cul-de-sac instead of to the main road.

“Oh, well it’s the lake anyway. It’ll do.” I said, pulling up to the curb.

Tom and I talked. We talked about the fact we had no other plans for the day and wondered what we’d do next. Half-way up the road was a house with a For Sale sign out the front and decided it probably couldn’t hurt to have a look.

We dropped into the agency and was met by a gruff blonde man. He agreed to show us around and we followed him back to the cul-de-sac. Something about the man made me uneasy. He was rude, inflexible and clearly knew nothing about the house.

But something was undeniable. This song not only sang to us – it played an entire musical.

We ran through our checklist and asked the agent all the standard questions and the real estate agent the same questions we’d asked of the past dozen houses we’d seen but they weren’t necessary.

I knew, the second I walked into the door, this was home. My stomach tied in knots and I was already planning the colour scheme.

Tom was playing it cool making me think he was unimpressed with this four bedroomed, two bathroomed mansion just two minutes walk from the lake.

There was no way I was going to force him into buying a property he didn’t love but if this was it I wasn’t going to let it go without a fight.