People say as you get older that you’ll feel like a grownup. That soon enough you will start craving those things that appear on the checklist of adulthood. I didn’t believe them. I never thought I would get to a point where I would want to call myself a grown up. Couldn’t imagine a life that I would lead that would be all about that mortgage rather than all about that bass. While Meghan Trainer can happily sing about her, let’s be honest, not that significant rear end, the wannabe grownups of the world are at the gym thinking about house porn.
And there it is. The crux of the matter. Or should I say crutch. I know I’ve ventured into the world of grown ups when the porn I lust after no longer comes on websites that are not fit for my dead grandmother’s eyes. The porn I seem to be concentrating on comes from http://www.realestate.com.au. Gone are the days of googling shirtless pictures of Channing Tatum, Jake Gyllenhall and whoever else I’ve seen lots of but never met, I am typing suburbs into realestate.com searches just to see what’s out there.
I have refrained from making a pinterest board of home ideas only because the constant searching of home decorating ideas will only depress me. I am typing in suburbs with median house prices that may be affordable in my looming future, ones with dog friendly yards and multiple bedrooms. I am building an imaginary future for a life I don’t have. Me and my dog, having outrageously fun dinner parties with friends I haven’t met yet and backyard BBQs where my current friends lie next to my landscaped pool that’s maintained by a shirtless Jorge with a giant pool scoop. I can picture this life. I can almost taste my Pimms’ cup and hear my OTT laughter at an inappropriate entendre from Jorge but in that life I am hardly recognisable.
I am slightly thinner, still with an arm wobble, but thinner nonetheless, a face of perfect eyeliner and defined lipgloss and a flowing pool dress that’s been ironed and not by me. It’s a dream. I think of the outdoor furniture with the ornamental pineapple on the table and mismatched chairs with a well groomed pomeranian lying by the table legs. In real life I sit around under a $50 striped outdoor umbrella I bought at Freedom in the mid year sales on an outdoor setting I bought second hand with a plastic flamingo that doubles as a solar light; sweating while condensation drips down the outside of a sugar free cordial cup because my arse can’t afford the alcohol. There’s no pomeranian, designer homewares or well groomed outfit. Just me in denim, shorts and a singlet I bought at Kmart, swearing about the heat and lack of a shirtless man slave with a palm frond.
This is the reality. I stare at realestate.com and hunt for the three bedroom, two bathroom starter that blends the desires of a heritage Queenslander with low maintenance materials. I pick a wall in the kitchen where my jelly moulds will go and I think if I could just live there, if I could just put a hook in that wall, the pomeranian will waltz in my door and my dress will magically iron itself and it will be done. I will wake up that woman who stands on the outdoor deck in her cottage in Paddington.
It’s a thought. That’s all. Just a vision. One that makes me laugh the moment I remember who I am. I am a woman who would put her jelly moulds on any wall – and uses a baked beans can in order to put the hooks in the wall. A woman that says fuck when she inevitably drops the can from the bench top or the head falls off the hammer she stole from the workshop at school. Not the kind of woman who lives on a terrace and entertains. When you come to mine, you pour your own drink, and then, I’ll double it.
I think about it and I remember my savings account, or the lack of, and the plan for Africa. I remember the new tattoo that I want, the new camera lens and the new adventure I don’t even know I want yet. One day I want an ironed dress and even a teacup pomeranian but the life I dream of while trawling house porn isn’t for me. It’s for the silly girl inside me who still thinks that those people’s lives are easier. And the moment I think it could be, I’ll remind myself to check the empty shelves in the fridge, the plastic pink flamingo on the table and my passport in the top drawer.
By choosing the Paddington deck over everything else I limit my world to just that the deck. My mortgage repayments will that be that huge that I won’t be able to feed myself let alone the designer dog. House porn is just that. Porn. A fantasy. And like it’s namesake, it’s all very exciting on the screen but in reality we know it’s messy, often awkward and sometimes leaves us wanting. So until I get a boob job and a extensive liposuction to become Eckleston’s new wife I will continue to fight the lure of false adulthood and sit on my second hand chairs and splash vodka into my cordial glass and wait for bank account to make me a millionaire. I know it’s going to be a long wait and by the time it gets here I’ll be too pickled to enjoy it. But it will have been one hell of a ride.
life in big frilly knickers 