Plans Happening Sooner
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| I'm coming home! |
Let's start with the bad. Yesterday, my town received their quarterly electricity bills. People who know me personally or are familiar with Mackay may remember that earlier this year, we experienced a cyclone (or a hurricane, if you're across the pond. Not a tornado).
I wasn't actually that affected. I went to my parents' house; they lost power and one of their coconut trees, but other than that the worst that happened was that the internet went out and I was bored. We ran the generator most of the time so we had at least minimal appliances, but it was mostly just boring for us. This was not a universal experience; some people lost entire houses, particularly close to water or on slopes. The day after the cyclone hit, I went home and realised I was one of the blitheringly small amount of homes that still had power. Good for me! Bad for everybody else.
Fast forward to yesterday, when I got a power bill for $1000. My last bill was in credit. My summer bills were huge, so I decided to pay extra on my account and got it into credit. The bill that I received was $128 in credit, and since it's winter and I get an $80 rebate I thought I had at least a $210 buffer against the next bill.
Enter Ergon Energy's fuck-shit-up department.
That $1000 already has the credit taken out of it. All in all, my bill was about $1200. That's a winter bill, in North Queensland. This is a place where you don't need to use a heater all winter. I called them and found out that I was actually paying two quarters worth because the cyclone had prevented them from reading metres in Mackay. They estimated my last bill, but even then, what the actual fuck? Even if you divide it by two, that's still more expensive than my 24/7 air-con summer bill!
And this happened to the whole town. There's a thread on Facebook complaining about it, and there's close to two hundred comments that follow saying the same thing has happened to them, and that electricity in Queensland is high in general. In 2016 it was reported that our rates are 40% higher than in other places, and they've gone up since then. The State Government has been telling people to "shop around", but there's only one provider in Mackay! You get to choose Ergon; that is the limit of your choice.
But there's a silver lining to this cloud; my plans to move to Sydney will be happening sooner.
It's going to be a rough month. I'm going to sell all my stuff, barring laptop, xbox and espresso machine, and then fly down to Sydney. I'll be staying with a friend until I can get myself into crisis housing, and I have a few options for that. I'll put my name on the public housing list, and (hopefully) I'll get fast tracked because of my illnesses, and the fact that I'm in crisis housing.
It's not a perfect plan, but since public housing won't give me a place in the city that I was born in because I live in a different state, I have no other option. If I stay here, Ergon is going to drain my finances away until I can't even afford the ticket. I'm so terrified of being trapped in this forsaken town that I'm willing to risk homelessness to get out.
I need to come home to Sydney or I'm going to end up suiciding. I need to start my transition, or I'm going to end up suiciding. I'm not saying that because I want to alarm people, but because I've been hurting myself when I dissociate, and all it'll take is a bad episode of dissociation for me to do something that I can't reverse.
To quote Chelsea Manning, "not getting medical attention for trans people is fatal." I need to transition and I am not safe doing it here where my family are.
It might be rough, but this is happening. I think I'm strong enough, though. Maybe I'm wrong.
