I like to be in America - West Side Story

Dearest World of the Internets,

I have a date next week - that's right, living up to Malcolm's expectations of people from Perth. That we all must settle down, else we're doing something wrong. 

It is true, here in little old Perth we are frowned upon when it is discovered that one is still single. 

It is like any small town I guess.

Being the middle child of my little family, it is expected that I will be the one who never leaves, and stay with my Mummsie and the pets till I grow old and die... yet ironically it is also expected that I will be the one to carry on the family genes, and raise the next lot of musical geniuses.
Thanks to being from a legacy family. I feel like I should be part of a sorority house. 

So, like always I'm torn. 

Many people believe that I do don't make decisions well. That is is difficult for me or that I don't really know what I want; and to a small part I guess they are a tiny bit right.

But they are also mainly wrong. 

I have this weird ability, I am able to think things through at a speed any Olympian would be aiming to beat - except maybe the walkers, but that is not a real sport, so I'm ok with that. 

I can already think of four different outcomes while others are still trying to analyse the question, what ever it may be. 

I'm also quite easy going. So what either seems like nonchalance or like I'm giving in, is me picking one of the options. 

As to why I am telling you this, I promise there is a reason. 

My ability was made quite evident, when recently I was asked to be a director for a cast devised pantomime of Snow White. 

I could fix problems, choreograph a dance routine to Single Ladies and fill in for missing cast members all within the same moment. I have the same ability when chatting to friends or answering what I want for lunch - if all options seem equally agreeable to me, well then - why not give the choosing of this decision to someone who cares more about it than I do. 

However, and here lies the rub. I need to go to New York. 

I don't have five different thoughts about that. It is one singular thought. 

What I do have a million thoughts about is leaving home, more so leaving my mum. Leaving the life I have here.

When I told people I was moving to Sydney I was told I was being brave, to leave everything behind. I wasn't brave at all. More so I was selfish. I was doing something for myself, and as a middle child, that hardly ever happens. 

As an actor, that happens all the time - told you torn.

But moving to New York. It is not so much as being brave, as much as letting go and being strong. 

Strong in what you believe in; yourself, your friends, family, your life. 

I pray that my mum will be ok when I leave.

Because I will leave. I will leave this small town, this country which asks its people the same questions every day, yet its never happy with the results. 

Mal left this country and all the best to him for being able to do it. But it is not the end. 

Without it ever really being talked about Mal and I knew that moving to New York was our dream. Together we have known the other wants it just as bad. 

So please, see this blog as a promise, possibly to each other, and to everyone that reads it.
That we will make it, New York is waiting for us.

And it better be ready when we finally arrive.

Baboons,
Meegz

Missing my home brewed coffee (pron; KAW-FEE)

Malkie to Megan (aka Morwenna),

Dad wrote me a letter last night, which he emailed to me.  Titled- “I miss you son.”

Sweet and sincere yes… Massive guilt trip… HELL YES!

He inadvertently wrote how he wants me to come home around January get a job at a school in Perth and never leave again.   It’s hard because I love my family and this whole move has been emotionally draining on them and me. 

I question this everyday, when should I go home…?  There are days when I’m so homesick I could just jump on a plane and run home and crawl in my bedroom under the covers.  Then I breathe and think what then would the whole point of me leaving be?  What would I have accomplished?  Where would I then go?

Cannot believe I’ve been away for almost 3 months now.  It’s weird though, only recently I began feeling nostalgic and having those vivid dreams about friends and family at home.  Which probably has some underlying cosmically relevant information… too bad I don’t keep a dream diary huh.

I know, wholeheartedly, that Perth is not for me when it comes to any ideas of settling down.  I don’t love the city, I think it’s home but there is so much still out there undiscovered, so many people yet to meet.  If I left for home in the next month or two I would have betrayed the ambitions and dreams that enabled me to come to the decision of leaving in the first place.  I believe there is a drive revving behind an individual which allows them to make life altering decisions.  Some people let the drive steer them to new experiences and opportunities where others put on the brakes, get married, have a baby (not necessarily in that order), work a repetitive 9-5pm job, live in the suburbs in their newly built 1 storey property, divorce, remarry a Thai lady boy and there is the Perth vicious cycle.

Here in London, I’ve been on dates with people.  Actually dates where you’re asked out or you ask someone out… it’s amazing!  Back in Perth as soon as you have a date you’re a couple, what the hell…?  The whole idea of dating is the road test.  Perth doesn’t believe in that, cows are bought with excess milk (usually a kid procured at 16 and a past drug addiction.)  Here in London there is no social stigma in being single.  People prefer being single and free and not rushing in to a relationship that is the be all end all.  They’d rather have crazy night with a group of friends/ randoms, or take of for a mates weekend to Paris.

So many times in Perth when I was at a special occasion with my happily “coupled” friends the question would come up “So… Malcolm… anyone special?” or “Still single huh…?”

All I can say now to that is… Yes I am still single, Yes I fucking like being single and have no intention of ever getting in to a serious relationship for sometime.  Kudos to all of my close (though daft) friends who have those serious/ married/ defacto/ degenerative relationships. I have tabs on the ones that will ultimately end in divorce but high hopes for the ones I believe will work out. 

Now I’m not a pariah.  Just some thought I had burning in my head at the moment.  Thanks for dearest Fathers email request for me to come home and settle down.  I miss my friends and my family.  I don’t have those strong connections here and find I am doing more things by myself.  But this newfound independence is my drive.  It’s fierce and competitive, it’s risky and contagious, and it’s enabling me to make new friends that are becoming like family to me.  I live in a rougher neighbourhood and deal with students who probably instigated and the primary culprits of the London riots.

However not all of my pupils are the scummy little chavs, some are quite intelligent and ingenious actually.  Today one of my Year 11’s decided the best way to sneak vodka in to Prom is to funnel it in to a water bra.  Of course some of the other girls met this idea with some scepticism, however once I suggested they pour out the vodka from their bras in to a glass in the bathroom then replenish their depleted bust with water, this seemed to win them over to the idea.  All in one Economics class, even in a class I’m not familiar with I seem to find an outlet to reach my students in.

I feel these experiences are strong building blocks that will shield my soft shiny inner being from the harsh cold realities of the entertainment industry & ultimately New York.  Where I’m certain the true test lies.

I leave you for now with this belated post… sorry I have a life & real issues like rent, work, groceries, lack of red wine… and sometimes too much red wine.

xoxoxox

MALKIE