Post-uni Blog 1: What Happened Outside of Uni

Hello again. This is the first in a little series of blogs that are going to wrap up the last few months in their entirety – I hadn’t been able to update too often because of the sheer amount of work I ended up having to do for uni. I’m going to do a couple of parts here, in the interest of it not turning into a novel, so I thought I’d just deal with what’s been the hardest part to keep up with first – it wasn’t the uni, as I had suspected, but the rest of life, that gave me the most curry. It was a rough time, and that served to exacerbate the feelings of stress and anxiety that I had in relation to uni, I feel. It all began with phone call…
My roommate at the time had been out of work for a while, which was okay because so had I. I don’t think he’d been as desperate as I was to land a job, but he was still looking around. We thought we were doing it tough, though the household was rock solid. Clean, quiet, and with as much free time as we possibly could have had. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten so well for such a sustained time as the first half of this year. We were going okay – I was running out of money, but I had hope, and at least I had time to grieve out what I’d lost in moving here and get my head back on straight for the first time in what probably amounted to ten years or so. Rocky had been a traumatic experience for me, but I had finally come to a place where I didn’t have to get too frustrated over small things, and the drama was at a minimum. I needed that.
Mid year hit, and with it three things happened all at once – my current roommate decided he’d head back home for certain employment to save money for an overseas trip, a new roommate appeared on the scene in the form of an old friend who was in a bad situation, and I was accepted into university for the second time. I was sorry to see my old roommate go, as he was a pretty cool guy, and he only ever did right by me. Any annoyance that we had with each other could be worked out, and he did me a couple of favours and gave me the space I needed to heal after what had been a prolonged period of mental and spiritual wounding. The new roommate, on the other hand…
Things were okay for a couple of months, but we never really got off to a great start – we went through a period of about three days where my brothers’ partner had to be accommodated because he was in hospital here (which didn’t help my stress levels), and my old roommate had a couple of friends come to stay the night and help him move his stuff. To top it off, the new roommate had been in a bad situation, so decided that my offer of a room was good, and rolled up with stuff to move in. It had been me and my old roommate for six months, then suddenly we had six people in the house at once
It’s difficult to explain my feelings on how we kicked off our living arrangement – she didn’t really impose, because I’d made the offer, but circumstances for her having a nice smooth transition really didn’t work out, through no ones’ fault, really. She would probably blame the guy who lived there before her for not getting out sooner, but he’d blame her for rolling up before he’d left. To me, I just guess I feel she could have been more accepting of the fact that we were in a bit of a bind as far as everyone rolling up at once, and dealt with it better than she did. She was unsafe at the place she’d been staying at – unsafe enough to come to me for help. She was safe staying with us, but basically decided to get shitty over not being able to have her own room on account of the fact that the room needed carpet in it and we had people staying in it already. I had that sorted out for her the afternoon she told me she was feeling like she was just an inconvenience, which was nice – but it seemed to set the tone for how things would be.
After everyone else had left and it was then just she and I, uni hit hard and we really fell into our own separate ways on that. We still talked, but time was at a premium, and we never actually hung out as mates. There were a couple of other stressors, namely that the girl over the road (who is the sister of my former roommate) had stuff stored here, which my new roommate wanted gone. I understood this at the time, but now I’ve got a feeling it was a glimpse of worse things to come. The bills also had to be changed over into my name, which admittedly I was tardy about. The tone of how things would be that I mentioned earlier came to the fore here – the internet was cut one morning, and automatically it fell to me to reconnect it. I can understand that, me being the tie back to the former account holder, but the way she still wanted full input and say so on who we went with and how much we paid galled me on some level, when it wasn’t even suggested we both go as account holders or she sort it out herself. It felt like I was a taxi driver, charged with safe transport, but I got told how to get to the destination, what speed to travel, and then had to foot half of the bill at the end. I came away with a few suspicions that she was manipulative – more than once, her ‘need for privacy and space’ came up, especially during the room debacle at the start of her stay here. I understood it then, because I’d said she could move in, but the method of trotting out her ‘needs’ got old as time went on – it turned out that having the girl over the road move her stuff out was just a glimpse of a territorial streak that would end up killing the house for us.
Three weeks without internet wore me out – I spent less than six whole days at home during that three weeks, and the rest of it was spent at the university library, desperately trying to keep up with that. I wasn’t in the mood for much of anything after we got that back on, except to kick back and chill with a mate or two. The roommate and I had an argument over who had a right to the lounge room after I had a friend over – she’d laid claim to it for a day on the TV, but then decided to leave to go for a jog. She returned and cooked a meal, ate it, and took a phone call. My friend and I decided to watch the movie that had been sitting on pause for over an hour at this point. This, apparently, was unacceptable, as she’d had plans to use that space in the house. I took an issue with that, and after a bust up that reduced her to tears, we resolved it over a four hour conversation the next day, where I ended up having to admit I have an aggression problem (I didn’t react well at all to her telling me that she wasn’t okay with us using the loungeroom), and having to ‘include her in my decision making process (I told her instead of asked to use the television)’. There was a lot of things that came out of that conversation for me – it got to a point where I had to sit down, calm my tone of voice, and not use certain words or phrases to communicate with her. Afterwards, I didn’t feel that anything had been solved at all – I’d just had to capitulate to her ‘needs’ and accept that I was an aggressive prick. This altered our relationship in that I no longer felt any desire to The final straw came less than a week after that, when I told her my girlfriend was coming to stay.
In the interest of expediting this whole messy scenario, her issues with my girlfriend coming to stay just established a pattern for me – she didn’t like other people coming into her house if she didn’t know them. This annoyed the shit out of me, as she had visitors over at least once or twice a week. There were other issues with it that annoyed me, but that was the main one. I also felt that no matter who was coming into the house, it was the act itself that was the problem – there was always going to be an issue, no matter who I bought or how I went about it. I ended up asking her to leave because I wanted to have my girlfriend move in with me after she was fired (on my birthday, no less). The roommates’ intentions were good, and I have no doubt she was only trying to reclaim a bit of her own ground back after her own traumatic experiences – but if that meant making life difficult for me when I wanted to do small things like enjoy an afternoon with a mate, and spend time with my partner, then I don’t feel I’m in a position to have to deal with that. She was gone a week after I asked her to move out, which I did on the day I finished uni for the term.
It’s pretty easy to see that it was a hell of a few months – starting with a roommate change, and then ending with getting the house all to myself. As it stands, I have to pay rent until I work out what I’m able to do about getting the girlfriend down here – it’s just not financially viable at the moment. This isn’t possible on my government supported financial position, but I’m hoping I’ll find a roommate or a job in the near enough future to make my continued residence in this house possible. I like it here – and I’ve made it my own in the ten or so months I’ve been here. It’s quiet, clean, and I’ve had a few experiences that I can relate back to the place. I just hope I don’t have to give it up.
As far as my mindset has gone, it’s been a bit up and down. From a steady position at the start of the uni term, it went up and down depending on how I was feeling about uni, and towards the end I was so frayed that I blocked things out – like the situation with my roommate – until they could be addressed. I felt that my plate was too full – uni filled it up, and the other stuff that happened just had to fall where it did. I suffered a few very anxious moments there during the end of term. Only now – about three weeks after handing my last assessment in – do I feel like I’m beginning to reclaim some of that stability. I have an interview in two days, and thought it’s for a job that has nothing to do with my desired field, it’s one I feel will be a step up from this dismal financial situation I’m in.
Final special note on something that wasn’t so shit – I met the aforementioned girlfriend about halfway through the term at a music festival I decided I’d go to on a shoestring budget because I was already feeling the pressure. I’m glad I went, because this girl has been great for helping me get back on my feet and making me feel like I matter. I’ve clicked with her like no one else, and I can’t remember the last time I felt this at ease with intimacy. The combination of relocating to Brisbane and meeting someone whose values and experiences match my own so closely has really brought me back to what I’ve come to think of as ‘before time Bodie’, where I didn’t have these nagging mental issues and my concerns were a lot more simple and manageable. When it gets down to it, I want to do nothing but make her feel safe and happy – I’d be okay with these things. It’s been an indicator of how much she means to me that I’ve been so at ease with incorporating her into my long term plans, at least to me. I have no idea if it seems like I’m just happy I have a girlfriend, but I really do care for this girl, and it’s been a while since that’s happened. I feel this girl will get my best, and I will give it freely, because I want to. That’s something else that hasn’t happened in a while. I just can’t say enough how positive I feel about this relationship – so I guess I’ll stop this train here.
That’s what’s transpired over the last few months in relation to life outside of uni. Next entry will probably concern my overall feelings about uni so far, and what’s to come.