‘hi, i am Matt and we are here to pack your life’, he said. well, it was not exactly like that. but it sounded like that.
it was 7am. three hours later my kitchen and my leaving room were gone.
surrounded of boxes and bags of trash, i questioned my life with the help of my brain and my heart deciding to do a once-in-a-lifetime collab.
i was not ready to confront them, so i decided to silence them.
i met F. in Fitzroy North for a gig. ‘how are you doing?, she asked.
‘i dont know. i am happy with the opportunity they are giving me. but i am also sad of leaving this life’, i said. ‘i think i am back of just being a bunch of unprocessed emotions’.
‘it’s normal’, she said. ‘moving is one of the most stressful events, with divorce and death. and you just got six weeks notice to process it. so you are probably still digesting it’.
‘where did you hear this thing about moving being one of the most stressful things?, i asked her.
‘everybody knows it. death, moving and divorcing are the worst moments we all face’, she said. ‘and i went through all of them in the same year. the death of my father, my divorce and moving to Melbourne afterwards’, she concluded.
that’s a lot, i thought.
on my way home after the gig, i was thinking about how many times could i start a new life.
sometimes looks like i appear, exist, and leave. like a pop-up store.
how can i ground myself if i keep moving all the time?
how can i build something if i don’t stop. if i don’t press pause.
i took a look at the boxes. they were all having a sticker. ‘from Melbourne. to Paris. by sea’. and a bar code.
looks like this is all the info they need about me.
some boxes were having an additional sticker saying ‘handle with care’.
and made me think if i could get one of these for myself.
handle me with care, please.
melbs has been like a toxic boyfriend.
my personal life has been the best i ever had. they handled me with care.
it was the fun, the depth, the nights, the beach days, the weekends away, the barbecues, the house raves.
it was about making the most of life every single day.
the pro one has been the worst i ever had. careless all the way. ‘not fragile, hit that as much as you want’
i experienced what extreme politeness totalitarianism could look like.
it’s very manipulative. because if you dare to challenge, to change, to suggest, the system will see you as impolite, disruptive and aggressive.
extreme politeness was a tool of social control.
it was also about uniformity. uniformity creates obedience. like in jails.
so somehow i found myself in a modern Orwell version of 1984.
people will report everything. if you are in a meeting. if you are not in a meeting. if you challenged being late in a deadline. if you missed the deadline. if you were too charming in the open space. if you were charmless the other day.
there’s no way to get it right because the whole point is to set you aside.
‘i can’t with this’, i told C. once, aussie born and raised. ‘it’s what we call the tall poppy syndrome‘, she said. ‘people will cut down the tall poppy because their growth is higher and faster than the others’.
i guess my problem was that i draw a line. i can adapt, but not against who i am.
‘what’s going to happen with the people you have frozen?’, P. asked me.
it’s true, i thought. i forgot that sometimes i freeze people.
‘i don’t know. destiny will take care of them. but if you think about it, it already worked out. they won’t bother me anymore’, i said.
freezing people turned out in an act of handling myself with care. freezing their bad vibes.
six weeks before Matt came and told me he was here to pack my life, i decided to just make the most of every single day i was having left in melbs.
and i realised i was not a pop up. or a tourist of my own life.
in this aussie chapter, i had the best fun of my adult life.
i discovered and reconnected with parts of myself that were completely put aside. i met sensational people that were aligned with my values and my lifestyle.
i cried, i laughed, i suffered, i worked, i created, i loved, i hated.
i had people who handled me with care.
i felt, so i guess i was.
in 2023 i wrote ‘in between co-star, cheese, wine and hormones. starting a new life, i write the random thoughts that cross my mind’.
still valid. i guess we have random thoughts for a while.