"Take me back to the days of the foreign telegrams
And the all-night rock and rollin'
Hey 'Chelle, we was wild then."
- Michelle Shocked, Anchorage, 1988
"And the longer I stand here the more that I know
That the oncoming night cannot hurt me."
- Mick Thomas, Halfway Up The Hill, 2006
My, how we're all growing up.
All my friends are just about adults now. It seems like only yesterday we were tooling around in endless tertiary education, working to travel, taking dead end jobs that seemed like fun, and definitely not putting anything away for the future.
So what happened? Somewhere along the way, we've all got older, and in some cases wiser. In the past few weeks, different friends have achieved the following different grown-up milestones:
* bought a fridge - NEW! not second hand. (This whitegood joins a new washing machine and a new laptop, also acquired brand spankers);
* put a deposit on a house and shouldered a mortgage;
* used the phrase "Young people today..." in conversation while drinking a glass of expensive red wine;
* had a baby (there's been a few of these in the past 2 weeks... New Year babies?)
* received a parent's cancer diagnosis and is making hurried plans to return to Australia;
* separated from a spouse.
This last one made me very sad. I realised I have come to watch my friends with a species of joyous envy as they make their way over life's little hurdles and move ever forward - if they get there, then there's hope yet. I enjoyed that wedding immensely. How sad I feel for my friend, who has made the best decision she can and is doing her best to keep her chin up.
Surrounded by such high life-achievers, I'm not sure how it is that I'm so far, well, behind. I started looking at my own achievements of the past 12 months, and with some shame I share them with you:
Yet another ex-boyfriend; living in a shoebox with rising rent; I've started learning to play the guitar; and I'm having my teeth straightened. Last weekend, I sat around in my loungeroom with 2 visitors and we played music until 3.30am. I mean, really. What the hell did I do in my teens and 20s??? (although in fairness, this last was the same eveing the phrase "Young people today..." was uttered over the very nice wine. Though not by me. But maybe it'll rub off.)
In fact, I am so socially underdeveloped I can hardly balance two forms of digital communication at once. I apologise about the recently static Chronicles; my infatuation with the evil Facebook has cooled and I'm back now.
What a strange phenomenon that Facebook is. There we were, all rubbishing MySpace, and suddenly we're all worshipping at the Facebook shrine: poking each other, competing to sign up friends and buying each other fish. You'll be pleased to know I have at least one friend who considers himself too old for Facebook, and he's in his 40s. Now that's grown-up.
Facebook reminds me a bit of the B&S circuit, a lovely social set I learned about when living in the country. On the B&S circuit, kids in utes drive thousands of kilometres every weekend to dress up and get pissed with exactly the same kids they got pissed with last weekend a thousand kilometres away. In cyberspace, the same people who email and blog now Facebook each other (when we're not SMSing, or something else). Weird, huh.
Maybe some of us - the best of us - still have some growing up to do.
5 comments:
Growing up (at least the popular version where you bury yourself in debt you have no hope of repaying for the purchase of crap you don't need or is obscenely overpriced (i.e property at the moment), have kids, "the great Australian dream" etc etc bullshit bullshit) is for chumps. Vive la différence!
P.S Facebook? Good Lord woman, hang your head in shame!
Yeah, I've stopped updating my Facebook status so people will think I'm no longer using it. But in reality I just can't stop.
All the best with growing up. Take notes for me :)
Ash, since when have you rejected an opportunity to do something nerdy? Succumb to Facebook, it'll delay your adulthood!
Mark, happy to take notes... if I don't skip the tute and end up at the pub...
My girlfriend sugested, while we were in Croatia, that I should stop dressing like a backpacker, continually berates me for Blundstone/Blundstone-style boots and flanno shirts, and is annoyed that I do after work drinks at the boozer with younger work people (more the numberof times I do this than the actuality of it). And I am sure she is right.
Since when has growing up involved getting rid of your Blundstones and flannels, Kempy? Not only do I still wear mine on weekends, I recall the visiting Kirb was dressed in his when he said "young people today..." (while drinking red wine, before playing Green Day at 3.30am) so there's a couple of votes in your favour.
As for the boozer stuff - if you find older people to booze with, would it help? Or, tell her you're just 'preserving your youthful outlook'!
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