PART 40: BILLIE
May 2021, Regional NSW
So it's 8:30 at night and I have been lying in bed for hours already with my dog and my electric blanket. I didn't go to my night class. I'm so tired. I had a microwavable meal, which was actually really yummy. Lots of chocolate. I did some sexting with a guy from Tinder. Now I'm just laying down. I'm just retired for the night. I'm so tired from this move. It was so intense and so awful. I hope to god I never have to move again.
I'm really privileged that I have a job that I could take time off and that I'm financially secure enough to move because it costs so much money. Like to get everything like transferred and bond like it….costs. This move was ridiculous. But it's done. I handed my keys in today which is a great feeling. So I can say goodbye to that house. I'm just processing a lot of feelings I had over the weekend about it. And it was kind of difficult having a lack of help.
I have so much stuff and you know a lot of my furniture is like beautiful vintage wooden furniture or beautiful pallet furniture that my partner has made. It was really hard to get people to help, so, it's been quite a big endeavor. But this one was the biggest. Usually, lots of people flock to help me because I'm offering to pay them really well. I say to people, like, “I'll pay you to mow my lawn”, “I'll pay you to do the cleaning”, but this time, I just wanted to really try and call upon the community to help me because, you know, we are a community. I'm not making that much money anymore.
Some people did come to help. My partner, who had so much fucking stuff in the house, did a great job of getting their stuff out. Their housemate helped with the lifting and stuff, which was great. But my best friend Millie did this really amazing thing, there was one day that she spent like, six, seven hours with me nonstop, like, absolutely incredible. But she was doing a really cool thing where she was checking in, and making sure I was eating and, you know, staying hydrated and resting. She would bring me food, because they were like stints of like, you know, eight hour periods where I was just working on the house and not eating. Like that's really incredible.
My friend Ed did a really beautiful thing where he came over at like nine o'clock one night to help me set up my bed base. So I didn't have to sleep on the lounge again. So the people who pulled through really meant a lot to me. But I was just so disappointed with feelings of not having help when I'm not offering money. It sucked. That's something for me to work on. It's something for me to process. You know, I have mixed feelings about it. You know, I'm not everyone's priority, and other people have much more important things going on. Like some of my friends were with their children, and their kids were in hospital and some of my friends were recording their album over the weekend. There were lots of things going on. And I think it's important for me to remember…that I need to be able to handle shit on my own a little bit better. Maybe, I don't know, maybe there's not a lesson to be learned from this in any way.
I'm just so excited to get back into work. It's a really slow time of year where it's really hard to make money at the at the broth. I'm going to work from Friday morning until Sunday morning this weekend, like obviously with some sleep in between. But Friday day, Friday night, Saturday day, Saturday night. I really would love to make some money. I really want to buy a couple of things for my house. I need to pay bills. Moving house is ridiculous. Fuck begging a 23-year-old woman who wants to live on her own. I'm so lucky and I'm privileged to be able to live on my own, but bearing the full brunt of the financial responsibility sometimes… Oh my God, listen to me whining, Jesus. It’s just a lot. It's a lot when all these things happen at once. I need to remind myself that I do appreciate living on my own, and that it's valuable. And I need to accept it and accept that the financial shitty parts of it, is just a shitty part of it. Anyway, I'm excited to get back into work. I am missing it. I'm missing the feeling that I get from it. So yeah.