life: I think I'm over it
So the whole "Must see/live in Australia before I die" faze has apparently passed. I guess I should change out my LJ banner again. It only took, what, 8 years, and countless heartbreaking, breath-holding moments and much fruitless finagling and hoop jumping. I just sorta realized this morning that... I don't really care. Not in a bad way, not saying AU can suddenly drop off the planet, not at all. Nononononoooo.
Just that I already live somewhere that's got a lot of pretty things to see in terms of nature and lots of areas in it that I've never seen before.
It may not have the mystery of Australia, but I guess the names of places are just as funny to say sometimes. We may not have the cool accent, but I guess at least I don't have to think so hard to decipher what is said. (Unless talking to hicks or druggies... they have their own language.)
Sure, the people around here all assholes, but it's not like I'd find anything different in any other part of the world. (I still find it funny that the nicest people I've ever met were down in Georgia... no offense to anywhere else, I just mean that it's like the south is this ironic dichotomy where as hateful and prejudicial the mobs are is as nice the individuals can be, when they want to be. But I digress... )
Anyway, so I guess the dreaded Reality finally caught up. As it is. I'm here at home and finally getting over the social stigma of still living at home. So I'm adhering to a custom that belongs fifty years in the past. So what? Lots of other people do it, for one thing, despite the stigma. There's safety in numbers, for another. My family may piss me off more often than not, but at least they're around to do it and I might as well enjoy that fact while I can. (Like, for instance, my sister is hyper and in that mode, usually insists on reading fic she's perusing, out loud, even tho I don't even know the fandom so without the context, the stuff she finds hilarious just confuses me and succeeds in interrupting my thought process... but, hey, the brat's hyper. Do you KNOW how rare that is?)
And aside from all that, the rest of my social-upbringing has been largely influenced by the customs of my parents and my grandma, more so than my friends, so I do have all these rather old-fashioned expectations of life. I might as well get over that particular oddity; it's just me. It's always confused the fuck out of my RL friends that I *choose* to do things the way I was taught, not because I'm afraid of getting 'busted' or something by my folks - who really don't care anymore - but because it's what I'm used to and comfortable with. I have a narrow comfort zone that serves me well enough.
I'm not a kill-joy, I just do things differently, and always ended up with RL friends who didn't get that. That'd be why I don't have many friends. That, and I always ended up with friends who were manipulative, egotistical, not-quite-sane in the BAD way, and image-driven instead of *real* people. I have no idea how or why, aside from the 'fly-paper for freaks' theory. So guess what! I'm 26 years old now! I can choose my friends a little more wisely from now on. Lessons learned. Set the bar higher, or just be happy with the small group I've got. It's okay. I can give myself permission to do that.
Wow. Cool.
Huh.
So yeah. I don't have to go to another country looking for something I don't really bother looking for around here, you know? I can't bury myself in another culture because maybe that's just not me. I do my own thing, I research things, I find stuff fascinating just sitting behind my computer screen. When I go out there and talk to people, half the time I end up frustrated because I'm not as successful communicating my ideas verbally as I am in writing. Being in the thick of things tends to exhaust me emotionally anyway. That kinda stuff... wouldn't win me any friends *anywhere,* let alone in a country already rather predisposed to hate lazy Americans. Hell, half the time *I* hate American arrogance. Why do I gotta go to another country to be one of them? I can just stay here and be my own country of me.
Just that I already live somewhere that's got a lot of pretty things to see in terms of nature and lots of areas in it that I've never seen before.
It may not have the mystery of Australia, but I guess the names of places are just as funny to say sometimes. We may not have the cool accent, but I guess at least I don't have to think so hard to decipher what is said. (Unless talking to hicks or druggies... they have their own language.)
Sure, the people around here all assholes, but it's not like I'd find anything different in any other part of the world. (I still find it funny that the nicest people I've ever met were down in Georgia... no offense to anywhere else, I just mean that it's like the south is this ironic dichotomy where as hateful and prejudicial the mobs are is as nice the individuals can be, when they want to be. But I digress... )
Anyway, so I guess the dreaded Reality finally caught up. As it is. I'm here at home and finally getting over the social stigma of still living at home. So I'm adhering to a custom that belongs fifty years in the past. So what? Lots of other people do it, for one thing, despite the stigma. There's safety in numbers, for another. My family may piss me off more often than not, but at least they're around to do it and I might as well enjoy that fact while I can. (Like, for instance, my sister is hyper and in that mode, usually insists on reading fic she's perusing, out loud, even tho I don't even know the fandom so without the context, the stuff she finds hilarious just confuses me and succeeds in interrupting my thought process... but, hey, the brat's hyper. Do you KNOW how rare that is?)
And aside from all that, the rest of my social-upbringing has been largely influenced by the customs of my parents and my grandma, more so than my friends, so I do have all these rather old-fashioned expectations of life. I might as well get over that particular oddity; it's just me. It's always confused the fuck out of my RL friends that I *choose* to do things the way I was taught, not because I'm afraid of getting 'busted' or something by my folks - who really don't care anymore - but because it's what I'm used to and comfortable with. I have a narrow comfort zone that serves me well enough.
I'm not a kill-joy, I just do things differently, and always ended up with RL friends who didn't get that. That'd be why I don't have many friends. That, and I always ended up with friends who were manipulative, egotistical, not-quite-sane in the BAD way, and image-driven instead of *real* people. I have no idea how or why, aside from the 'fly-paper for freaks' theory. So guess what! I'm 26 years old now! I can choose my friends a little more wisely from now on. Lessons learned. Set the bar higher, or just be happy with the small group I've got. It's okay. I can give myself permission to do that.
Wow. Cool.
Huh.
So yeah. I don't have to go to another country looking for something I don't really bother looking for around here, you know? I can't bury myself in another culture because maybe that's just not me. I do my own thing, I research things, I find stuff fascinating just sitting behind my computer screen. When I go out there and talk to people, half the time I end up frustrated because I'm not as successful communicating my ideas verbally as I am in writing. Being in the thick of things tends to exhaust me emotionally anyway. That kinda stuff... wouldn't win me any friends *anywhere,* let alone in a country already rather predisposed to hate lazy Americans. Hell, half the time *I* hate American arrogance. Why do I gotta go to another country to be one of them? I can just stay here and be my own country of me.