There's No-One Like Me....Or Is There?

I feel very out of place where I live. I bought a house here because my husband and I were just starting out and it was very cheap. The plan was to buy this house, fix it up then move on. Eighteen months later we were divorced and I was stuck with a house that I am unable to renovate because when I agreed to fix up the house I really expected that he would do the work and I would stand around holding things. With the way house prices have gone up in the last 7 years and with the way things around here have deteriorated (pool collapsed, rumpus room burnt down etc) I am now stuck here with a dodgy hammer and some You Tube vids trying not to kill myself while dangling from a ladder with a chainsaw (that actually happened...I'm not even kidding).

But I digress...

While those are all stories in themselves (quite a few actually), I actually wanted to talk about why I feel out of place here.

I haved lived here (or in areas surrounding here) for 14 years now and I am still yet to meet anyone who is even vaguely like me. For starters there are an awful lot of elderly people. There seems to be a new old age home being built every day. All the women want to do is talk about their medical ailments and put their pensions into the pokie (slot) machines. All the elderly men spend their day in the pub, drinking beer and putting their pensions into the pokies. I don't drink or gamble and I like to keep my medical problems to myself so score 0 for having anything in common with them.

Then we have the bogans whose uniform is tight black jeans, flannelette shirt and of course, your standard goatee. While flannelette shirts are comfy in bed at night, I can't grow enough facial hair for a small moustache let alone a full blown goatee. I also don't like car parts on my lawn or sitting on a ratty old sofa on my front porch making lewd comments to everyone who walks past wearing a skirt. I also have all of my own teeth. So score 0 on the compatibility scale.

Then we have the young mums. Now of course not all young mums are the same. I'm sure plenty work or go to school and they look after their children just fine. I just haven't seen any around here. Now we do have kids in common. Unfortunately I'm not too fond of dropping my kids off to anyone who will take them while I dress like a whore and go clubbing and cracking onto other people's boyfriends. Its just not me. Compatibility score : 0

We also have a lot of single mums around here. I am a single mum. You would think this would be the perfect category for me. And believe me I have tried to get along with this crowd. But all they want to do is talk about their kids and smoke. 'So read any good books lately?' 'No but little Johnny read his first book the other day. The Little Engine That Could. Isn't that just precious?' ** Puff puff ** How about movies? 'No but we were approached by a talent scout the other day that said Little Johnny was just born to be in the movies. He gets his looks from me. Isn't he adorable?' ** Puff puff ** Any prospect of anything exciting happening to you at all in the foreseeable future? 'No, its all about Little Johnny and what Little Johnny wants. I have absolutely no bloody identity of my own!!!!' ** Puff puff ** Grrrr.... I love my kids like crazy but I also like when they are at school and I have hobbies and other interests to fill up my life. And I don't want to bore other people with the little things that my kids do that are too adorable to me but aren't really of any interest to other people. And I don't smoke so there's another zero.

Lastly, we have the mothers of my kids friends. My kids go to private school in the next suburb over and most of the mothers live there. For some reason they think their suburb is Beverly Hills and my suburb is Beirut. The houses there are only around $50,000 more than mine but they don't have any back yards. They are all squished in there on top of each other. I like my big backyard even though I am often too busy to mow the lawn. My kids like the big backyard too. They earn about the same as me but I don't spend my money on big flashy things. I don't have a credit card, I don't hire purchase anything. I like to go to sleep at night feeling good that I am not in debt. They are in it up to their eyeballs with the house and the school and the new cars and their kids walking around with the latest mobile phones. It's all a big charade...I know it, they know it. One of them loses their job and they lose the lot. But they look down their nose at me because my car isn't as new as theirs or I didn't go as far away on my last holiday. One of these woman (that I know of, there are probably more) has her 9 and 10 year old daughters walk home by themselves everyday to an empty house. How do I know this? Because they make it known to everyone within earshot. One actually rang me yesterday and asked if she could come to my house after school because she was going to be alone in the house and was scared. She did this on a mobile phone in front of the school with untold amounts of people walking past her. I only hope that a paedophile doesn't walk within earshot and follow her home one day. I might not have a fancy car or a house in their suburb but I pick my kids up from school everyday and I'm able to answer the phone without screening for debt collectors. So obviously I have nothing in common with them either.

I used to think that there was no-one like me. Until I started reading blogs. I no longer feel alone. There are several blogs that I read that make me think 'why are you writing about my life/the way I feel/what happened to me/what I think and believe?' I hope that I can meet some of them in person one day so I'll finally get to know what it feels like to understand someone and have them understand me. I just hope that if I do meet them, I don't end up disliking them because they're too much like me. What would that say about me????