I'm a girl. This journal is almost 10 years old, when I started it, I called it Almost 21. Before that, I had a journal called Soap on a domain that no longer exists. Some things have changed since then, some things haven't. I always wanted to be a writer. I live out that dream here.
Boy comes to visit over a weekend. He says that the city is too flat, and that there aren't enough trees, and that there is too much graffiti. But he agrees that the shopping is good. His lips are softer than I remember, and his arms are warm. We shop, we watch movies, we go out drinking, we make love. Then, he goes back and I am okay.
Maybe a little less okay than I was before, but still okay.
People ask me if I will "keep my boyfriend" now that I am over here and he is not. I tell them it is not an issue, and they don't believe me.
"How can it not be an issue, let's get real here."
They don't understand my way of thinking, and I fail to understand theirs. Yes, I miss him. That's exactly it - I miss him. Not having him, or having someone else is not going to make me miss him any less. Nobody else will make me feel the way he does, and I have no desire to be with anybody else. I am content, and satisfied.
He is it.
I ponder these thoughts in my lectures, which I begin to attend more sporadically. I promise myself that the next week I will attend all lectures and tutorials, but it is a promise easily broken.
I find out that Maria's name is really Marta (which I feel is better suited for her), and that Gonz has the same birthday as me. Or so he says. He tells me this over lunch at the Pot Luck Cafe across the road. We talk about his world travels, and he shows me his t-shirt which features a picture of him and his two friends standing in the middle of a lake in Bolivia (where apparently they walked around stark naked because there was nobody around for miles).
At home, I steal my housemates' food. Not much - just a spoonful or two, more out of vengeance, then hunger. Abu and Kavitha cook more than they can eat, and throw it away two days later. I suspect that Kavitha dislikes me - her one act of kindness was giving me cloves to stop me coughing when I was sick, but I think now that it was because my coughing was irritating her. As a couple, both she and Abu will ignore me. By himself Abu is as friendly as any of the other housemates, but she continues to act as though I am not there.
At nights I will hear her from my room, chatting to Ben and Samson, offering them food and wishing them goodnight with a cheery voice I have yet the pleasure of being addressed with. Inside my room, I will fume. Then later, when they are all asleep, I will sneak into the kitchen and steal their food.
Some nights, they argue. Yelling and screaming and slamming doors, then she will come and sit in the living room for ages, sniffling. Nobody says anything - we don't know what to say. Annie tells me they can be much worse, that once she even considered calling the police. It is scary, at the same time exciting in a morbid way, because you have a desperate desire to want to know what is going on. It reminds me much of when I was younger and my parents used to argue. Only I am not under the covers crying. These arguments do not directly affect me.
In the morning, it will be as though nothing has passed. Nothing is said, and eventually it will be forgotten, until the next argument. I wonder how people - couples - can argue so much, and so loudly. I wonder what is so bad that it is worth yelling at each other about. I hope we are never this way.
Some weekends, I hang out with Megan. We go drinking, or watch movies, or laze around doing nothing. We gossip and make plans to go out and have coffee, which we never keep to. We also plan to go to Pilates every Wednesday, but we have yet to make it to one class.
Other weekends, I am by myself. Reading or doing my assignments or grocery shopping or sleeping. I like to walk to the op shop down the road and paw through their things. In there, I feel as though I am in a giant lucky dip, only all the prizes are unwrapped. If there are things I like, I will buy them and feel happy because I can pay for them with coins. Then, I will come and them to my housemates, being sure to conclude with "and it only cost me $2.50!"
During these times, I am mostly alone, but not lonely. It is easier to be lonely when there are people around. I don't wonder, I don't speculate. I only think about the things that are in front of me, within my sight. It was these times, or the speculation of them, that I feared most before moving away. But they're not bad. They're okay.
I'm okay.