The Mother Of All Eff-Ups.

Well, it's been four years since I last posted, and I'm thinking I'll change the name of this blog to M.J. Moore: Walking Disaster. I say that like I'm trying to be funny but my situation is actually anything but. I turned forty-five six days ago, and as you read this I'm putting supermarket bags full of crap onto the front porch of the unit that, until three days ago, I was renting.

Two days after my birthday, I sat in a courtroom and listened as a judge approved an order of possession for this place, due to months worth of unpaid rent. Our local emergency housing office found a place for my son and I at a boarding house, so we're not going to be sleeping in the street, which is a plus, kind of. My son is an introvert with Asperger Syndrome and depression so for him, being forced to share a bathroom with complete strangers is going to be like living Inside a sitcom from Hell. There's fifty votes for suckiest mother of the year.

An even bigger kick to the cahones for the poor kid is that we can't taske the dog with us, so he's going to have to say goodbye today to his best friend of ten years. I was lucky enough to have had my Facebook plea for someone to take care of Pepe answered by a friend of mine, who lives near a beach and has a yard where he can harrass seagulls all day, so I slept a little better last night knowing he was going to a loving home, but that's no consolation to a devastated young man.

There's five hundred votes.

I bet you'd like to know how I got us into this fucked-up mess, wouldn't you? Stop me if you've heard this: an idiot lets her mother buy a phone for her and her son, then proceeds to rack up thousands of dollars in bills, AFTER quitting the reasonably well paying job that was keeping a roof over her little family's heads with the expectation of walking into another job only to find that wasn't going to happen. Way to set an example for your newly adult son, Mel.

Five thousand votes.

Oh, I almost forgot! Another casualty of the train wreck that is the Mel Express is my mother. She lived through a situation like this with my father, the class A fuck-up whom everybody (including her) predicted I would turn out like, and is currently curled up in a ball on her couch awaiting delivery of the aforementioned crap on the pirch over which I have granted her custody for the next fuck knows how long. She also wins the bonus prize of a truck load of misplaced guilt for not being allowed to put us up for awhile (she lives in government housing, and everybody knows what happens when you fuck over the government).

My son has taken the biggest hit by far here, though, being forced to deal with the fallout of my shit on top of his own problems has left him wanting to do nothing but sleep, and just describing the sight of a six foot tall eighteen year old curled up under a quilt with his beanie wedged precariously on his skull doesn't begin to accurately paint what a soul-crushing picture that is.

Five million votes. It's a fucking landslide. Wave your poop-brown banners high, folks. Yay me.

Validation

My early twenties, years twenty-two to twenty-four, are for the most part a Sambuca and Bourbon-induced blur.  I had a blast, and sometimes I really miss that time of my life, but then I remember some of the mornings after, when I'd shuffle into the bathroom to survey the damage in the mirror, only to meet the gaze of a woman who looked as though she slapped on clown makeup shortly before face planting into a quarry.  I remember going in to work the Friday after Thursday night drinks at the pub, arriving half an hour early so as to have a coffee and get my story straight before I had to face my workmates and their knowing looks.  I remember waking up in a park at 2 .a.m. with a Tequila bottle and a minor league baseball player laying next to me.  I remember going home with guys just because they told me I was cute, and having to beg them for cab fare home afterwards.  Your twenties are supposed to be a roller coaster ride.  They're the time when you're given a free pass to go wild and make as many stupid mistakes as you possibly can, and learn from them.  I was the girl who ditched the safety bar altogether and stood up at the top of the dip; the girl who was that dangerous mix of eagerness and naivete, who craved more attention than anyone could ever give her, and went looking for it in dark corners and lonely alleyways.  I've always looked back on those days with a strong sense of regret, until now.

Had I not made so many horrendous judgement errors and social faux pa's, I would never have learnt the difference between attention and validation.  Attention was what I got when I drank men under the table on a dare and snogged the loser.  Validation was what I got from my friend Dennis, who saw me struggling to stand up and put me to bed on his couch for the night, rather than risk me going home alone on one of Melbourne's worst train routes.  I still find myself craving attention every now and then, and contemplating doing silly things to get it, but that's when I remind myself that sixteen years is a long time between drinks, (metaphorically speaking; I do still enjoy an alcoholic beverage or three), and that I'd sooner stick my hand in a blender than try to relive my 'glory days' by getting hammered and trying to pick up at pubs.  I wanted love back then, but I didn't have the slightest idea what it was, how to get it, or where to find it.  I know now that when I do find it, it will stand out like a beacon in a fog.  I won't have to earn it.  I won't have to beg for it.  It will be given freely by someone who validates me with something as simple as an attentive ear and an open mind.  Someone who knows my faults, but doesn't exploit them or measure me by them.  Someone who validates my checkered past whenever I look at them by reminding me that the damaged road it lead me down was also the road that lead me to them.