Its Life Still...But Not As We Know It

Me the summer I left school

This is my eat death t-shirt I
 will also point out that
 I worked at Maccas
as a teenager.

A few weeks ago I had the surreal pleasure of returning to my old high school to teach (I currently work as a relief teacher) which started me off thinking what would 17 year old me think of 32 year old me? What would petticoat as a dress wearing me think of jeans and t-shirt me?

As a teenager my mother would tell you that I was a bit of a handful . Which I guess is fair I was smoking and drinking under age. On my way home from school one day I went and got my nose pierced.  I was loud and opinionated I’d skip classes to go to anti Pauline Hanson rallies, I wore a t-shirt that had a cartoon of Ronald McDonald killing a cow with the words ‘eat death’.  At that point in my life I was fairly sure that I was going to be utterly famous as an avant garde fashion designer or die in tragic yet poetic/romantic suicide self-distractive moment.

Going to my year 12 formal

 

Seventeen year old me liked to say thinks like ‘those who can’t teach’ and sneer at the adults that surrounded me as self out I was defiantly going to escape the shackles of suburbia and never ever be a sell.

But 17 year old me was not anticipating finding herself a 24 single, unemployed student who was expecting her first child. Its probably not remarkable how that is going to change your life. But suddenly I went from only worrying about myself to considering the little person who was in my life.  No longer did I not care if I dropped dead at 27 or was prepared to spend my last dollars of alcohol I wanted to create a safe, stable home to raise my child in and frankly couldn’t care if it was in suburban hell or not. I decided to study to be a teacher with a double method visual art.

I don't know how to explain
my 'look' other than to
say I'm pretty sure I
thought I was dam cool.

The kids and I playing at the park

There are time when I am driving my son to soccer in my European car from our home in Melbourne’s Bible belt while my husband works at the bank. And think  ‘how on earth did I get here?’  Its really not a great mystery I stand by all the big choices I made along the way and 32 year old me is pretty happy with the life that I have created even if 17 year old me would thumb her nose at me and call me a sell out. It may not be the life I had thought I'd have its actually a whole lot better.