Stupid Things

Are you broken? Good. Now fall apart completely. You will realize that what has fallen apart is not you. It’s just a thin external coating that hides your pure, eternal and ever-shining being.” ― Shunya

It has been difficult to write recently.

It isn’t a shortage of ideas or thoughts that I’ve been facing. It is too many. Too much.

Each morning, the news brings another shocking reality. From wars to the impending summer of bushfires and extreme temperatures, I find myself mentally slamming between excessively deep thoughts about the wonders of the modern age — represented, for reasons I cannot entirely explain, by the Robot Olympics — and the social and environmental horror show that we all now live with.

Is it any wonder that I feel exhausted after hearing this morning about “Lake America”?

Can’t people just have the generosity of spirit, or the common decency, that our grandparents valued? Could this collective madness explain why so many women seem to be developing POTS and dropping like soiled tissues all over the place, unable to maintain a job and a home without constant vertigo?

Why does it seem as though the whole world is hastily trying to snatch as much money as possible from everyone else using any means necessary?

It’s all so crass.

Is humanity doomed because we have collectively become unhinged? Why are eighty-year-olds still running the show while my generation is still waiting for our time to shine?

These are the kinds of questions I struggle with every day. I’m looking for answers — actionable solutions that might make life a little more bearable — but no answers come.

You have probably clued in by now that I am fairly morbidly depressed these days.

No. I do not need an antidepressant.

Lexapro does not treat existential crisis.

If only there were a pill that could take away how terrifying reality can be. I am also partly convinced that SSRIs were developed as some sort of plot to keep the masses complacent while society was deconstructed around us.

Only joking.

Seriously. ^^

The life I have chosen for myself demands that I live out in the real world, openly and as my authentic self, and it often has an intensity that leaves me completely exhausted. It has forced me to swerve and leap to avoid disaster countless times as I navigate unfamiliar landscapes, cultures, and ways of thinking.

Occasionally, it all gets to be too much, and my body reacts violently.

In Korea, it began with severe and chronic gastroenteritis that persisted for nearly two years. Eventually, it gave way to IBS and cancer.

Two weeks after arriving in Sydney on an impossibly long flight from Scotland — a journey I never see myself taking again — I passed out while getting a haircut and woke up in an emergency room with a hefty bill to pay, despite having insurance.

Welcome to Australia, one of the hottest places on Earth.

Your welcome gift is POTS, which will cause you to pass out in direct sunlight.

Just… wow.

The designer of this game I exist in has a wicked sense of humour.

Since then, I have been adapting to a life with constant vertigo while trying to make the best of my situation and simultaneously facing unemployment in a highly competitive job market.

I am determined not to let the disabilities I keep accumulating disable me.

So I carry on.

I survive.

And I try to do so with as much kindness and empathy for the people around me as I can manage.

If you are bored right now from reading my words, I’m sorry.

My mother told me more than once how boring it was to talk about my health, even when it was necessary to communicate the truth.

I am using the past tense here even though my mother is still alive, because she has not been a part of my life for many years.

In fact, since my father died — and, if I am being completely honest with myself, even before that — I have not had a family I could count on for any kind of security or support since I was a teenager.

Being completely on my own from such a young age has been a wild ride. I have learned many of life’s most important lessons the hard way.

Despite all that struggling to survive, despite everything I have learned and how radically I have changed, my role in my family never changed.

I remained the outsider.

The stepchild.

The unworthy one.

The person supposedly responsible for everything that was wrong.

Therefore, I can never go home.

But would I even want to?

Probably not.

In 2016, something changed in the way Americans were perceived abroad. Since then, meeting new people has sometimes felt like an interview process. They hear my accent and seem to need a few minutes to determine whether I am actually sane before deciding whether it is safe to be nice to me.

It is as though they expect me to be criminally insane and dangerous simply because I sound like a cowgirl.

It didn’t used to be that way.

And I don’t believe the person I am now could be happy in a place that causes the rest of the world to view its citizens with suspicion.

Luckily, I have landed in Australia, among what I have experienced as a population of straight shooters with a strong moral core and a genuine commitment to inclusion and equality.

Sometimes I feel uniquely blessed to have landed here, in what I hope will be my final home country.

The landscape takes some time to acclimatise to.

It is otherworldly beautiful to the same extent as Scotland, but with an eerie undertone.

Victoria is both dark and moist, with copious insect activity. Cockatoos shriek and call to one another from rooftops. Seagulls and magpies dive at passersby on Melbourne’s city streets while trams rumble through the crowds, carrying a teeming mixture of tourists and locals through the vibrant mosaic that is Melbourne.

In summer, the sun shines brightly over cream-coloured beaches dotted with surfers who occasionally look like Thor.

Now, you may be wondering how I can possibly be so pessimistic in such a halcyon environment.

Well, let me tell you.

Bad shite still happens in paradise.

Two weeks ago, I fell for an online phishing scam.

My bank account was hacked.

I was robbed.

My bank did absolutely nothing to stop it or trace the stolen funds from my account. I was left with a nearly drained account and no recourse.

Other people may have some kind of support system in situations like this.

Sadly, my husband and I are on our own out here in the world, fighting tough battles without backup.

So here I sit, with hideous vertigo, wondering how in the world I am going to come back from this.

I feel terrible for my husband because he has childhood trauma related to money. I kept the whole thing to myself until last night, when I finally told him what had happened.

I couldn’t even tell him how much had been taken.

I still can’t.

I didn’t want to give him a panic attack, and I haven’t been able to bring myself to let the amount I have lost sink in yet.

It is too raw.

I feel violated.

And stupid.

Worst of all, I can hear my mother’s voice in my head telling me that it is all my fault because I am bad.

I am waiting for the cybercrime unit in Victoria to contact me.

In the meantime, I am left trying to make sense of what happened and figure out how to feel safe again.

It has been a painfully difficult lesson in the dangers of relying on biometric identification on a device that is also my sole source of banking and payment.

I haven’t recovered yet.

I imagine it is going to take a very long time to feel secure again.

But I am still here.

Still writing.

Still thinking.

Still trying to make sense of this ridiculous, terrifying, beautiful world.

Maybe that is the only actionable solution I have found so far:

Keep going.

Even when the world is unhinged.

Even when paradise goes to shite.

Keep going anyway.