Cushioned into Adulthood
// October 12th, 2008 // New Zealand
I’ve not blogged in a while. In fact I think I’ve not blogged for the longest period since I started this blog way back in August ‘06. August ‘06, has it been that long? How time has flown. So many new people, countries and experiences have whizzed passed and left their mark on little impressionable me. The zig still retains its purpose of keeping just close family and friends up to date, there are still no links pointing here, very few people reading and it still feels like a little sanctuary, my very own shrink’s couch.
I’ve been quiet because I went through one of my “I’m bored with the Internet” phases, they happen once a year or so when I’ve been overdosing. Usually they correlate with me being employed, and as I seem to be an Internet Marketer now, at least thats what people offer me jobs in, so I guess that’s what I am, I have plenty of Internet already in the day time. So I’m not always motivated to update the affiliate sites, or the t-shirt sites, or the personal ones in the evening.
I’ve also not been felt much like writing lately. My life is more routined now then it has been in years, possibly since school. I don’t think that’s a recipe for creativity. I’m settled now, working full-time again, working in an office, living in an English speaking country, living with Annett for the first time, in short, being quite adult which probably shouldn’t be news, as I am 25 now, but still.
It’s quite a scary experience being an adult. I don’t plan to stay one. I’m treating it like a spell, a temporary curse inflicted upon my person by home furnishings manufacturers, to make me excited about buying cushions, and towels. I do actually get excited now about decorating our beautiful new home. It’s quite in contrast with the old me, I’m not sure I’d have brought a bed the whole year in Leipzig if Mone hadn’t whisked me off to Ikea and built the damn thing for me. I had a 27sqm room, about 24sqm of which were empty most of the time.
The problem started a few months back when we became bored of renting the furnished shoe box apartment in the city center. Perfectly located as it was, it was only 63sqm and being fully furnished there was nothing we could do to it to stamp our personality on the place, obviously apart from trashing it, we did almost immediately. The summer, bringing with it the sun was looming on the horizon. So a tiny flat, with no outdoor space, in the middle of the city wasn’t appealing too much.
So we set forth to find some dilapidated shack we could inflict our own unique style upon. What we actually found wasn’t a shack, instead it was an incredibly nice house, with ocean views and large garden, and an outside deck area to die for. It came with only whiteware, so we had a whole house worth of furnishings to buy. We got pretty much everything off Trademe, which is the key version of eBay, so we’ve probably only spent $2k which is about £700 (880eur) and we’ve everything now.
The act of furnishing my first every house has caused a transformation in scruffy little pikey me. Now I say things like “perhaps we should get a circular dining table, I think that would better compliment the shape of the kitchen”, and “wow! Look theres a 20% off sale on cushions!, wow that one is really nice, that would go great on the sundeck next to the cream cushion we brought last week.”
In short, I’m become a little bitch…
You can see some photos of the new place on flickr
I’m a big believer in contrasts, in fact were I to write a book on my world-view that would be the main topic. I’ve been to 20 countries in the last three years, from watching incredibly poor people farming for a $ a day in Cambodia, to the wealth of the rich Americans in Boston it seemed amazing to me just how adaptable humans are. There never seemed to be much difference in the overall happiness of those people, despite the completely different opportunities and lives they led. We all adapt so well to our surroundings and situation that we very quickly desensitize ourselves from the good and bad. So we make the best of the bad, in a rush to make it normal in case we can’t escape from it, and the great will very quickly become just the good, then the norm. So what’s left? Contrasts.
I think in my case anyway, the best way to disrupt this inbuilt happiness default is to throw myself from one end to the other. Before I had nothing but a backpack, now my living room contains 94% of all the southern hemisphere’s cushions. Before I scratched out a meager income from affiliate sites, now I have a great 9-5 job that pays me well, and more importantly, reliably. Before I spent two years in countries I couldn’t speak the language in. Now I basically live back in the UK, just a nicer, prettier, more isolated version. But cultural almost identical. In Leipzig I lived alone, did whatever I wanted, eat out weeks in a row, and partied like it was going out of fashion. Now I’m co-habiting, thinking about how my actions and whims will affect Annett and trying to be a courteous and where possible, down right adorable boyfriend. I’m enjoying the swing towards adulthood even more, because I know at some point I’ll throw my hands up in the air and run screaming away from it towards its contrast. A little of something is never enough, a lot of something is too much, so I’ll take a lot, but restrict myself to just a little time to enjoy it so when it’s over, I’ll still want more.
To force me back into Blogging, I’m going to start a 30 days, 30 blog posts challenge. This was day one. It’ll be split across all my blogs, so I can cheat a little bit and do some posts for Tee-Junction if I’m very busy (I have Squash on Mondays, date night with Annett on Tuesdays with a strict no laptops rule, football Wednesdays and Thursdays, work drinks on Fridays and we’re away the next two weekends so I’m looking forward to the challenge and hoping it will get me writing again).
Possibly related, hopefully entertaining other posts:
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Annett
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mum
