Ok. So, I guess the start of this blog coincides with new beginnings in my life. In one week I will no longer reside in the insular (and sometimes somewhat incestuous) haven that is Dunedin - and I will be a bona fide JAFA* - or at least well on my way to becoming one.
Leaving my university town, a place I have called home for the past 6 years, is kind of a big deal. Being totally surrounded by second-hand cardboard boxes and scrunched-up newspaper, as I pack away all the useless and mostly sentimental crap I've accumulated during those lazy, crazy years, I have an epiphany. I realise that life really does come in very distinct chapters. News flash, I know.
It's blatantly not a concept nouveau, but it's as though that metaphorical penny has finally dropped: I totally get it. The profundity of understanding is, um, profound. Does that mean I am actually now... an adult?
As far as I'm concerned, I'm entering what I call STAGE 3 of life and according to my emotional and psychological (confusion?) reaction to this Stage 3, it's the biggest adjustment I've had to make in my life to date. But let's do this chronologically.
Stage 1: Those magical childhood years, carefree and seemingly never-ending. Christmas is aaaaaages away and finding where Mum's hidden "Father Christmas's" pressies is a high priority.
Topping the list of kiddy concerns is: Who is my best friend this week? Lisa, Ashleigh or Kate? Well, Ashleigh and I both have the new 'Skip-it' - in pink - so I think we will be BFFs.
School is boring, but pretty sweet seeing as we get morning tea AND lunch breaks. At lunch time we play bull rush on the "far field", even though it's been banned because Robin the kid with the glass eye lost it when Jessica tackled him too hard. And then I'd go to Ashleigh's house after school. Which finishes at 3pm.
Mum makes a yum dinner almost every night - except when it's fish pie - and my favourite is spaghetti bolognese. I can see my mother rolling her eyes now, the poor woman. For someone of such culinary expertise she must have died a little bit every time we requested spag bol.
Responsibility as we know it is, in so many words, a joke.
Stage 2: Now this is where the line gets a bit blurred. Some may say that Stage 2 begins when you head to Uni, but I say that for me there was a definite step up from Form 2 to being a puny 3rd Former.
Concepts that had never crossed my juvenile mind came at me thick and fast: shaving legs, dying hair, wearing make up, unobtainable 'labels' and looking cool. Then came the notion that boys can be more than friends.
Even moving to a new city to go to university, for me, felt like a continuation of secondary school - just with way more freedom. Like no one getting your back up for not going to class. And student discounts. And the acceptability of boozing any night of the week.
Stage 3: But now Uni is done and dusted. I have graduated - finally (after spending 6 years studying instead of the planned three) - and the dream is over. I have to find an effing job. This is something I feel vehemently opposed to, and I can't really say why. Perhaps it's the general impending doom that is RESPONSIBILITY, or the terrifying prospect that you can no longer get away with inappropriate student antics only to blame it on being a quasi-adult-child. Or maybe it's just the fear of the great unknown.
For whatever reason, Stage 3 feels as though this is the beginning of my life. What the friggidy-dig do I do now?
*Just Another F**king Aucklander
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