a very abstract ache.

I'm watching two TV shows where the average hookup rate is about 4 per minute per person, and I'm gonna be honest with you, it's not sitting well with me.

I'm twenty, I live in a shoebox, and I'm alone. Not the fun adventure times drunk yolo single of my undergrad, but like...'sometimes I don't see another human being for days on end' kind of alone. So I'm alone, with memories, and nostalgia, and a very abstract ache.

Canberra is a city of lost souls; almost everyone here is from somewhere else. There are three kinds of people - the moths that are drawn to the fire of the country's politics, or ANU, and the people who are running away (usually from Sydney, who is Canberra's older, sassier, vastly more interesting, but sort of druggie cousin). Canberra is the capital in the same way that Washington DC is America's capital; it serves a purpose, but people are at the end of the day gonna go to New York. So as much as I feel like a provincial hopeful lighting out for the big city, Canberra is not a big city; it's a small, quiet place with lots of space for reflection, which often means endless existential crises.

By far the most useless exercise that I must constantly refrain from is 'what if'. What if I had stayed at home. What if I had been happy being there with my parents like they wish I was. What would my life been like if I'd become a Perth mum instead of a Canberra nobody. It's not a healthy train of thought, because the ram has touched the wall, all the bridges have been burned to the ground and Caesar has properly crossed the Rubicon. But still, I wonder. Because I am afraid.