Welcome to a series I am calling “Another Important Piece of Writing” a monthly newsletter/life update/writing exercise/rant/potenially the next most important piece of literature from the 21st century but probably not.
I am moving, AGAIN. I emphasise again because this is my 5th move in 4 years, and my 3rd in under 2. Whenever I tell people this they often express their shock, surprise and most often than not, their understanding. That’s just how the fuck it is in this climate (although I have personally moved the most out of anybody else ever in the history of the world).
Most people I’ve told I’m moving have said, “You know, moving is the most stressful thing a person can do!” before spacing out and staring into the middle distance without offering any kind of help, or simply dropping everything to take over the reigns to find me moving boxes, book my mover, sell my wardrobe, unpack my shit and set me down with a nice tea and a pat on the head.
I KNOW it’s the most stressful thing a person can do. You’ve not shocked me with this life altering news or put ANY of this into perspective. You’ve just reminded me how I can’t think about anything else until all of this is over, and why there isn’t just some sort of nationalised moving box pay it forward scheme?
I don’t think it’s healthy to come face to face with every single one of your belongings on such a frequent basis. I don’t even have that much stuff anymore after being given the Guiness World Record for Having Moved Ones Crap From One Shitty Rental To Another; but I have yet again had to face the building amount of craft supplies I own, and all of the half completed projects I have lying around.
My most recent foray was trying collage but only having access to Woman’s Day and interior decorating magazines from the 1960-1980’s that my Mum couldn’t sell on eBay. Although undoubtedly a cool asset to any collage piece, collage famously requires multiple styles of print materials that I just didn’t have the energy, and most importantly money to track down.
I recently read a quote from some dude that was something along the lines of “Rent is killing the artist”. I thought, “So true, bestie!” Could you imagine how many Simpsons cross stitches I could finally complete, and how many gential shaped clay incense holders I could make if I wasn’t bogged down by the stress of having to keep this damn room over my head!?
I’m excited to finally be living alone, even if it means living in the smallest studio apartment in existence. It’s basically a bedroom with a bathroom attached, but it’s MY bedroom with a bathroom attached. To be fair, I’d live in a shoe box if it meant not having to clean up after another adult human being, or scrub somebody else’s shit off of a toilet bowl.
If you’re shocked that something like COVID could happen to us as a society, then you’ve never had to scrub somebody else’s week old explosive diarrhoea 8 inches away from your face.
You could buy into the COVID being starting by a pangolin fucking a bat, or you could give my working theory a go that it was actually born from the mold of aging Thai takeout whose bacteria is so developed they’ve started to unionise, or from breathing in the fumes of an untrained rescues greyhound’s piss from your living room rug. (I’m convinced those dogs were trained to do two things well, race fast and piss strong – I don’t think we’ll ever get that smell out).
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I have once again assumed all my problems will go away if I’m skinnier. Every few months I get this feeling of relief wash over me, like I’ve finally got life all figured out. All I have to do (and in my mind it’s always quite an easy feat) is drop 5 kilos and all of my problems will magically disappear!
The rationale is always that I’ll immediately feel better about myself, my fuckability will skyrocket, and opportunities will naturally gravitate towards me – as if the tiny pudge on my tummy is working as some sort of gravitation force repelling all of these things away from me.
It’s always something though. If it’s not looking like a bangin’ bitch it’s fixing my gut health, or it’s doing trauma release exercises, or letting a woman on TikTok perform reiki on me – there’s always something I think will be a miracle fix to what is just realistically me needing to be ok with just existing on a day to day basis.
I’m constantly trying to come to terms with the fact that life is hard and for that I need to give myself a break. Right now I’m trying to become ok with the fact that I am simply somebody who needs to treat myself on a daily basis. Sue me, ok! It does however, absolutely need to be less sugar based treats.
I don’t have an eating disorder, but I do have disordered eating that I assume stems from growing up in the 2000’s mentality of needing to be cocaine addict thin asking, “does my ass look big in this?” to the now half appropriation, half assimilation of black and brown bodies where a fat ass is ok but a skinny waist is still paramount.
Why can’t I simply just be released from this flesh prison and be an ethereal and weightless, slutty little mist?
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