Hang in there, Little Tomato!

This has pretty much been my mantra lately. There has been so much happen since my last blog that I don't know where to begin, so I'll just start with the stuff that's up front in my head.


I'm getting a haircut. This has been such an unnerving thing to think about lately, I'm surprised it feels like such a natural decision now. I'm getting it cut even shorter. Yes, shorter. My hair is a release point for me. Whenever I'm stressed or anxious, I cut my hair. I did a bit of hacking away a week or two ago when I found out Louise was moving her practice, but it's still chin-length. I feel like I need to drop a load of dead weight our of my life, and a haircut always gives me a lighter, weight-off-my-shoulders feeling, like I'm getting rid of all the anxieties and hang-ups that have been building up inside me. I need that to be able to get on with the rest of my shit.


 Also, it turns out my little gender-shift wasn't as temporary as I assumed it would be. I've been searching the fringes of the interwebs and reading up on the subject. Ever since I can remember, I've been discouraged from thinking outside the box. The general rules seemed to be "Don't step out of line, do as you're told, don't let your personality imprint on anything outside of your mind." I have no idea where that last one came from, I have no memory of any life lesson or lecture, but it's been a huge roadblock in my life for... ever. Since I was about 12, I've been slowly uncovering the real person underneath all the stuff I've been told I'm supposed to be. I guess this is just another fun fact I've learned about myself. I've been becoming more and more comfortable with the term "genderqueer," even more so with "androgynous." Because of this, I've been reconsidering what I'll change my name to. I've been Tabitha for the past few years, at least to the people I like. I think it would be smart to chose a unisex name. Small problem, though, a lot of the unisex names I've come across so far are so plain. I never thought I'd want to start making lists of potential names again, but I find my self feeling more optimistic this time around. I've been hanging around on Genderfork, taking note of the kind of names and stuff. I feel good about this.



Before school started, my younger brother Jerome and I went to stay with our Aunt Kym and Uncle Greg for a week. This was a big week. I found out that most of my family know about the problems we've got going on, but were not aware of how much Mum's drinking was affecting us, or how much and often she drinks. There was a family meeting, where we got it all out and I got into a fight with my giant of a grandfather where we both had to be restrained. A few days before that I would have just broken down in tears even before the argument, but I felt so different after staying with Kym and Greg. There was a lot of time-wasting when everyone tried to convince my brother and I that it was our job to take care of Mum. What the fuck does it look like we've been trying to do? She's supposed to be the mother in this relationship. I figured that out a few years ago and backed off, and stopped thinking of myself as the one in charge of everything. One of the few intelligent adults to ever speak to me honestly said that if I acted like a kid, Mum would become the mother I needed. Bullshit. She's just not mother material. Good intentions don't equal good parenting. It's taken me a while to admit that. I've been feeling guilty for saying Mum's not the greatest, well, mum, but now I understand: she's not a dead-beat, she's just genuinely incapable. She's still a child herself. She had kids because it was what married couples were supposed to do. 


It's also taken me a while to admit I'm not okay, and asking for help is definitely not something I've had a lot of practice at. After  they got the message with a little help from Kym, who just listens like you wouldn't believe, we discussed alternative living arrangements. I'd already asked some of the aunts and uncles for help, and they just kind of blew me off while trying to stifle large quantities of guilt. The problem with my family is that they do want to help, they just don't fully understand, which was the point of the family meeting. My aunt Karen was trying to get an apartment with a friend, so I could move in with them and operate like an adult, but I'm so not ready for that it's not even funny. I've tried to operate like an adult for a long time, I can't do it. I admit I need parental figures in my life. (There's a lot of admitting going on) Kym understands that, and we've been working on finding a way for me to live with her. I had hoped to have the majority of these issues resolved before I started school, but it hasn't happened that way. I've been holding up okay, though, but it's starting to take it's toll. Thus the need for ejecting dead weight.


School is awesome. Simply awesome. I love my teachers, my classes, the stuff I'm learning, I've met loads of cool, interesting people. A few weeks ago, we went on an excursion for art to the APT6 exhibit at the Brisbane Gallery of Modern Art. It rocked, bigtime. I look forward to seeing it again without herds of raucous eight-year-olds running around. I totally aced my Art exam the other day, too (I think). Apart from feeling a little over whelmed (okay, a lot) the last few days, things have been very, very, good.


This post is getting ridiculously long, so I'll just leave it here.

xx Remarkable

New Year's Fucking Eve

It's 9:00, and I'm in exactly the situation I promised myself I wouldn't be in on NYE. The fireworks have just started going off, and I can't see them from my house. It seems a good metaphore, as once again, I'm missing out.

Not any more.

Pretty soon my life will be in my own capable hands, and I'll be far away from here, this place, this situation, this state of mind. There are going to be some big goddamn changes in my life, or else. I'm not going to be a coward any longer.

The fireworks and the smell of jasmine in our front garden are messing with my head. At my grandparents' old house our NYE tradition was to climb onto the roof to see the fireworks at Robina Town Center, and Nana's garden always had the incredible smell of jasmine.

This year is going to be different. New decade, new life. There are so many people in my life that just drag me down, and I've put up with it because the people I asked begged for help made excuses and invalidated my fears. There are people who ignored me when they could see I needed help. There are the people that enable my Mum's drinking, even with me crying in the corner. These people will be purged, so I can  finally get on with my life.

There are good people, who want to help, who can help. There are people who have the common sense necessary to be a functional human being. There's a home out there that I haven't found, family that needs to be reminded that they cannot ignore me.

There are changes to be made, and a new era is dawning. The anger I feel has been builing for years, and I am simply incapable of bottling it up any longer. Like the release of the cork from my (imaginary) champagne bottle, everything I've been hiding will be set free.

My New Year's Resolution is this: to be honest. Totally, completely, 100% honest, to everyone. No more little white lies, no more bending the truth to keep secrets, no more making pathetic excuses.

My life up till now has been constricted and controlled so much, by my family, my own anxiety and depression, as well as my cowardice, that it barely counts as a life at all. I will not be that person any more.

I'm off to burn an effigy of my former self.

Happy New Year's, all!

Fear Itself

"There is nothing to fear but fear itself." I really hope this is true. The plans I have been clinging to for dear life the last few years are starting to unravel due to my procrastination. I lost another 3 years. Sometimes I wonder what the hell I'm doing. I understand now that I took the wrong fork in the road, and now I'm teetering on the edge of a cliff, with the ground shaking beneath me, it threatening to crumble out from under me. Normally in such a situation I would take comfort in the fact that I could start again when I hit the bottom of the chasm, but I know there's no bottom. I will just keep falling. And falling. And falling. I know I can prevent this from happening, I can save myself if I can bring myself to ask for help. I'm afraid of that too. The only person I've ever reached out to, who promised to help, flaked on me, not once, but twice. She knew I needed her help. I begged her to help, literally. "I can't really help you, sweetheart, I don't really have the room for another person. Maybe next year." A year later, we actually made plans. But nothing happened. Nada. This is what family is supposed to be for, isn't it? What's the point? I'm not going to let it end this way. I will not end up one of those sad, soulless people on the street. Is it possible to rewrite the past? Can I pretty please have a do-over?

Remarkable Prettybones: Mime-Stalker Extrodinaire

Yesterday I went to the Ekka, and since my journal is full and I'm waiting on a new one, I guess I'll write this here. I found a mime on stilts near the showbag pavillion in the afternoon. He was wearing a black, dusty-looking tailcoat suit. He was bald, with a large hooked nose and a walking stick that looked like an old fashioned lamp post with a candle in it. He had on lots of make-up, fake spiders and snakes all over him, and contact lenses that were white with black Xs over his pupils. He had a rubber rat that he posed with. He was very creepy looking, but moved so daintily, and he always had his pinkys up. When I first saw him I was with Jerome, and I told him to give him some of his fairy floss. When he took a bit, the whole lot came with it. He made a funny surprised face and raised his hand to his cheek before Jerome pulled most of the floss back. He shook my hand, too. After racing back to the dairy cow pavillion to get Mum, I followed him around for the whole afternoon. One man stole his rat, so he took his wife by the arm and started to lead her away, until the man gave the rat back. He was incredible to watch. With every step he took, he gathered more people. He made them laugh, surprised them and scared them silly, as well as giving them a wonderful memory to keep, all without uttering a sound. I've always wanted to be a performer, but I've never known where to start. Seeing this guy brought up a whole new perspective on this kind of performance. I followed him around until it started to get dark, then he went behind a screen that had a sign on it that said "No Entry, Authourised Personnel Only". I figured that was where teh dressing rooms were, so I waited outside for about 2 hours. (It gets very cold quickly in winter, I've never realized just how quickly.) The whole time I was supposed to be meeting up with Mum, and it was by sheer luck that I found her, as there was a smoking area (kind of like a small pen for people) across from the dressing rooms. We both waited until came out, because I wanted to find out about his character, and how he got into this line of work. When he emerge, clean-faced and dressed in jeans an a polo shirt, he was wheeling a bicycle. he introduced himself as Frans, and I asked him about his character. It's called "The Gentleman" and is based on a character on an episode of Buffy. He answered all my questions gladly, even though he was obviously as cold as I was, and his wife was waiting in a No Parking Zone to pick him up. He's from Holland,where he's studied all sorts of performance arts with people like Marcel Marceau! He's also dyslexic, which is part of the reason why he loves mime so much. He gave me all sorts of useful information, telling me about circus training programs in Brisbane and on the Gold Coast. His wife is part of the Volcana Womens' Circus, and he encouraged me to get as much practical experiance as possible, and to start young. Mum told him about the character I made up for my self while I was watching him, which embarrassed me a lot, especially when she asked me to explain it to him. We exchanged emails and he gave me the name of his website. I'm so glad I didn't chiken out. I almost didn't even think about it. I'm going to remember this as a prime example of the good things that can happen when I ignore my shyness. Now I'm off to research the Circus University, another of Frans' recommendations. It's the only circus uni in the world, and it has campuses in Melbourne and Sydney! Love, Remarkable