Now as some of you may be new here, I thought I should do a bit of a round-up of some of my best and dumbest mappings to celebrate one year of silly thoughts.
My first column was maybe a bit deep, but I just wanted to set a tone of sad and reflective so that it could only go up from there.
Saying goodbye to my teen era excerpt
They were supposed to be the best years of my life, according to every adult, but they weren’t.
In fact, it feels like just when I was entering my late teens, life was put on pause.
Now I’m 20 years old.
Then I had a boring column before diving back into my deepest thoughts. I thought about my teenage self again and what I would do differently.
Discrediting the youth excerpt
I wish I could go back to my teenage years; being treated the way I do now but without having to go to a nine-to-five, paying for my car and being stressed about the future.
I’m sorry to my younger self and wish I could tell her that being a teenage girl isn’t a bad thing and to enjoy it while she can.
I think my teenage self has had enough screen time now, she wasn’t that great anyway.
I turned my attention to a much younger self, going back to single digits and saying some words to my childhood best friend and the goodest dog in the whole world, Suzy Kaboozie.
A letter to my childhood dog excerpt
Hey Suzy Kaboozy.
I miss you. It’s been a while.
You were my first fur-riend and the reason I love animals as much as I do.
You were always so gentle with me, despite being scared all the time.
You had a tough life, but I hope becoming a member of the Archibald family made it a bit easier.
More recently I discussed news avoidance and how sometimes it can feel hard to turn away from world events because you feel guilty.
News avoidance is real, I’ve experienced it excerpt
People should be able to turn off. People shouldn’t feel guilty for not using social media exclusively for social justice.
I think every person felt the need for news avoidance during the COVID-19 pandemic, yearning for a place where we could pretend everything was normal.
A sort of self-defence delusion, just for an hour.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that if you feel overwhelmed by the outside world, it’s okay to turn off.
By doing this column, I’ve been able to experience new things such as a local café and a Melbourne hotel, and I had a student dye my hair for the first time.
I spoke about my very real experiences of sexism in video games, in real life and how I feel about tokenistic displays of support.
I spoke about my family a lot because I love them so much. I talked about my partner also because I love him so much.
To readers, I fear my columns may be unrelatable or not of particular interest, but let’s be honest, I write this for me and I will continue to.
But thanks for coming along with me on the journey so far.
Same time next year?
15°C