Unrelated, but I really miss George Michael

I had no idea what to write for this column, after rather foolishly shoving our regular columnist off her spot for the week, in the misguided belief that I would have an idea in my mind within minutes of doing so, and not feel stressed out trying to write all my content in the night before it is due. Oh, the folly! Oh, the joke of it all! I considered writing something about Scooby-Doo, because it turned 50 years old this month! Isn’t that delightful, doesn’t it make you smile? I know it makes me happy. I love Scooby content. I’ll have to come back to that one, like polio to the Philippines. 

But then a thought popped into my head. Why not just be honest? I had to turn down that early Mariah Carey banger ‘Prisoner’in order to hear myself think. A rarity. I live in fear that I will one day meet her, and she will stare into my soul and say ‘I know you turned down my music, Lachlan.’ I also have a fever dream that Beyoncé will do the same thing, except she will beat me down with a back hand and say ‘Child, I know you’ve been skipping my songs. Pray I don’t catch you doing that with my new shit.’ Judgement B’Day. Terrifying. But anyway, back to honesty, because I keep delaying what I actually want to talk about.

I don’t like leaving my room for much, with its George Michael and Whitney Houston posters and the dozens and dozens of vinyl covers adorning the walls. Britney has a flag in one corner because it looked prettier than the poor printouts available on TradeMe. It’s calming. I keep to myself more than people pick up on. I don’t really care to put forth a lot of my own identity. That’s a big discussion to have with Sniks, that pork crackle goodness, and a joint for my nerves. However, and I swear I’m getting there, the relevance to Pride week is the aforementioned brain fart of ‘Honesty!’ and I think I know what it means. 

‘Maybe Tomorrow’ by Goldenhorse is such a good song. Always brings me a sense of peace, that beautiful NZ goodness that apparently exists out of the cosmic mismanagement that is Auckland. It’s a good song for right now. It makes me think of when I was young, and the distinct otherness I always felt – not just from being a horse-fucked-Michael-Cera ugly fuck, but rather, a distinct otherness in relation to ‘boyhood’. It just never fit, like a sleeping bag that doesn’t quite give you warmth, but you stick with it, because you don’t want to wake anyone up. I felt like that for a long time – I still do, to an extent. When I grew up and embraced Gayness, it felt like a better fit, because sure, I was still associated with Being A Man, but now I could be a little less of one. And it worked for a while! But then it didn’t. Then it really didn’t. Then it was super depressing, especially as my height just didn’t calm the fuck down.

I started going to a special little gender therapist in the same way an A-lister would sneak off to McDonalds – sunglasses and hats, looking down. It didn’t really accomplish much, kinda because I ghosted them 😉 And that was the status quo for a few years. Sure, I was already well versed with all the gender terminology by now and the idea it was okay to feel these things, but it was just easier to ignore the world in my ill-fitting sleeping bag. ‘La Bamba’ is on now. Para bailar la bamba, para bailar la bamba, se necessita una poca de gracia. I did need a different kind of grace, a reprieve, after a while – I didn’t necessarily have to tell anyone, well, I had already gone through it all with my parents years prior, but I decided that I needed to just decide some things for myself. To be honest. To be Lachlan or Adriana or whatever name I clung to more. Well, I knew what name I clung to more and which made me cringe to be addressed by, but I had to let myself be okay with just being more than a boy. I don’t have to like myself, and I still don’t really feel any sort of self-respect there, but I think I’m okay with being more than a boy, and not quite there with girlhood for now. Fluid is fine. Fluids? Not so much. But gender fluidity? I like it. I really do.

Pretty funny that ‘Stronger’ by Britney Spears would come on right now. Perhaps not quite as on the nose as ‘I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman’, but Brit Brit always knows what to say.