New Year, Old Patterns in Experiences

Leading up to NYE if you had of told me I’d be getting high with my parents I would have thought you were insane....

Since we moved down the coast a bit over 5 years ago, we don’t see mum and dad as much anymore. We are still close enough to head up at last minutes notice or make a surprise visit, but it’s mostly just special occassions. So the last few years we’ve gone to their place for Christmas then they come down to our place and spend the night on NYE to watch the local fireworks. I enjoy having them around, but it just feels strained, like there’s not really much to talk about or relate on, and they seem to be ready to go as soon as they get the chance the next day. It’s a different story with both my sisters, my youngest is at their place nearly every day and they babysit my niece a few times a week. My other sister used to socialise with them more, going out for dinner or going away for the weekend or having them over for dinner, that sort of thing. Now that she has kids too it’s more my parents helping out around the house or babysitting. Still, it feels like we have to book babysitting months ahead and most of the time it doesn’t feel worth it, but that’s a whole other story!

So this year for NYE we have been housesitting a friends place on a rural property about half an hour from where we live in a great little country town called Berry. We’ve looked after the property a few times for them in the last year since they got it, we come and feed the cat, the dogs and the chickens. I like the ‘work’ aspect of it, preparing the chicken feed, listening to the wildlife. There are peacocks and all sorts of birds I wouldn’t know. There is a wombat on the property somewhere and we saw an echidna a few days ago. You can walk around the property that has it’s own ponds and waterfall and plenty of bushwalking and never see another person. It’s like living in a national park. Being a city kid I love that! At the same time, you have this nature connection, this rural country feel, yet the house is HUGE and they have a big flat screen tv in the bedroom and loungeroom, cable tv, all the modern luxuries (given we got rid of our TV a few months ago it’s a nice luxury for a few days!).

We organised for mum and dad to come down here and spend it with us for NYE, we were going to watch the fireworks on the TV (the 9 o’clock ones with the kids then put them to bed and watch the midnight ones), have a few drinks and just have a pretty low key night. I was actually looking forward to this sort of night in honesty, I think K was a bit disappointed though, she wanted a more ‘fun’ night (which she got!) This stay at the property there has been a backpacker couple staying in one of the treehouses at the back of the property and doing work around the property taking down trees, fixing gardens, cleaning up etc. Mum and dad arrived and we were sitting outside having a drink and some snacks and the backpacking couple wondered up showing one of their parents who were visiting some of the work they’d done around the place. We waved and carried on, then my parents suggested we invite them for a drink. They had walked away by now but K went to find them and ask them. So they came, had a couple of drinks then left to see the parents off and asked if it was ok to come back up later and notioned to having a ‘smoke’, I said just let us get the kids to bed first, secretly hoping they wouldn’t come back! We watched the 9pm fireworks, got the kids to bed and as we were I heard them arrive back. Mum and dad said they would have a drink with them while we sorted the kids. I stayed in the bedroom for a while longer hoping they would get bored and leave, but it wasn’t so! They had a few drinks, played a couple of songs on the guitar then next thing they were passing round a joint. Now I’ve had some bad experiences smoking weed, some real paranoia kicking in. Which, really, is a shame because I think it is probably a much cleaner and safer way to escape reality than alcohol, I mean it’s a plant that grows in the dirt, not something that’s brewed in a commercial environment, but anyway…

So the joint is being passed around and I conveniently ‘disappear’ to finish making some pizzas. Next thing K comes inside looking for an apple, they’ve decided to make an apple bong! The most surprising thing is that my parents were taking hits of both. Now, my mum I’m not that surprised by, she has said that she smoked weed ‘a few times’ whenn she was younger, but my dad has been very anti-smoking and anti-drug, so I was very surprised to hear he had smoked the joint and to see him have a hit from the apple. These are the same parents that gave me a ‘talk’ because I had smoked weed at their house as a teenager LOL. Anyway, the apple was being passed around and under the pressure of the moment (there’s peer pressure, but then there’s peer pressure INCLUDING your parents do it and your mother encouraging you to have a hit!) I had a hit. The whole experience was so surreal..... The apple kept being passed around and I just ‘disappeared’ when it came around or stayed strong on my decision to not have anymore despite everyone encouraging me to. I had decided earlier in the day that In would have a quiet night, just 3 or 4 drinks all night. I just don’t have the same tolerance or desire for getting drunk or high like I used to. I mean my kids were upstairs asleep, what if they woke up? I don’t know why or how but I have taken it upon myself to be the ‘responsible’ parent. I think it came about from when, in hindsight, K was probably suffering from some post natal depression and drinking heavily at social gatherings, I just thought she wanted to experience ‘freedom’. 10-15 years ago I was drunk more days in a week than not, but I’m just not interested anymore, if it wasn’t for the social aspect I would probably never have a drop again, and I still hope to one day get to that place.

Anyway, so here I am watching as everyone arounds me get’s more and more incoherent and thinking, what am I doing here? I just felt completely alien, a complete ‘outsider’. Is it really so bad to just want to watch the fireworks on the TV and have the most ‘wild’ part of the night be playing the cards against humanity game dad got for Christmas, as opposed to watching everyone pass around an apple bong?! I would quietly fill my glass with soft drink as they kept filling with alcohol, questioning more and more, why do we drink? Why do we waste our money (and it’s really not cheap, is it!) on something that will bring a couple of hours of uninhabited freedom and fun followed by a completely wasted day of recovery? Watching as otherwise intelligent people start rambling incoherent sentences and stumble at every standing moment. Why do we do it to ourselves? Why is it such an ‘abomination’ to be an Australian man who does not drink, why are you treated with such disdain and disgust? The whole thing makes no sense to me, it really doesn’t.

Among these thoughts, I also started thinking ‘what is new year’? Is it really a new beginning or is it just another hour of another day? I can see both sides of the coin. It was interesting to watch at the approach of midnight, mum asking if it was time for the countdown yet repeatedly, and the backpackers mockingly embrace the ‘turning of the clock’ knowing nothing would change. Such a different view, something I had to question in myself aswell. I still don’t really have an answer. I would like to take any opportunity/excuse as a motivation for change, but I am also very much of the belief that nothing has changed.

A couple of days later and I’m left contemplating, how ones life can be so different. Here are these backpackers, the same age as me and K give or take a year or 2 traveling around the world with no cares, no real responsibility or care other than sleeping, eating and working. No one else to look after. I can’t help but envy that lifestyle. How I would embrace it given the chance, or would I? Would I instead be anxious and fearful of the unknown, the lack of stability? I have always had a stable (nee monotonous!) life, hardly embracing change. It’s an almost jealousy feeling to see people living that way!

Needless to say, NYE was a night that not one of the 6 people sitting around that table would have expected, but it leaves me wondering how many more do I need to have before I say enough is enough?