As transitions go, it's not striking, but I got a new fridge.
Just before Christmas, I got swept up in the traditional consumer panic about two consecutive days with the shops shut, and over-shopped at the Queen Victoria Market.
There was no chance of fitting it all in my tiny, permanently overstocked bar fridge. So I just left a couple of bags of the hardier looking produce out at room temperature, thinking they'll easily last a couple of days while I worked through what was in the fridge.
Just after Christmas, I thought I should try fitting that overflow produce in the fridge again.
As I took the bags of mouldy slop downstairs to the bins, cursing myself and the fridge in equal measure, it occurred to me that I was a couple of days into a fresh 12-month lease on my poky little flat with it's poky little inadequate landlord-supplied fridge. And that I had another year of trying to eat cheaply and relatively healthily while shopping every day or two, and being unable to freeze anything properly. I don't mind admitting I felt pretty low.
This flat/fridge combo was supposed to do me for my first six months in Melbourne, after which I would find somewhere nicer, and large enough to fit proper appliances and furniture (and a cat or three), further out from the city. But of course at the end of that six months, the effort and expense of moving seemed like all too much. That plus the thought of having to hop on a tram to get to the city instead of just stepping out into the street, means that two years later, here I remain.
If, not so long ago, you had told me that I could live completely without ice cream (not a spoonful!) for two and a half years, I would have blanched in horror at the prospect, and rushed to the freezer for some vanilla and boysenberry to soothe my nerves. So another year of no ice cream, and annoying small grocers by purchasing fruit and veg one or two pieces at a time, just seemed a year too many.
A couple of days later, somebody called Mike posted on the Fediverse that they had a fridge to get rid of ("only a little one", but a damn sight bigger than a hotel bar fridge), free to a good home. I didn't really know Mike, but Mike is a friend of Deb, and endorsements don't come any better than that, so I thought this was a chunk of serendipity worth seizing.
Nobody had yet claimed the fridge, and fortunately I didn't need to arrange transport (frankly I wouldn't know where to start). All I would need do is help wrestle it up the stairs to my flat when Mike next had a free afternoon.
By the end of the week, the estimable Mike was as good as his word, and for the cost of a little bruising on the way up the stairs, I had a new old fridge. The fridge has stickers, which I shall of course be preserving, as stickers are sacred relics which speak cryptically of unknowable provenance. Well, I know it, but the next owner probably won't.
I cannot begin to express how great a difference this makes. I've been leading, by choice, a pretty rudimentary and precarious lifestyle over the last five and a bit years. I recently considered earnestly applying for regular nine-to-five work, but not having done anything of the sort since the 20th century, in the context of a generally incomprehensible work history, no qualifications worth mentioning (until very recently), and being in my mid-fifties and intransigently trans, I don't fancy my chances. In any case, I've far too much to do and too few years to do it all in, so spoiling myself with luxuries like a decent income and plentiful refrigeration has been out of the question.
This was an excellent start to a challenging year. And a couple of weeks later, I've still resisted the temptation to buy ice cream. My body does not need ice cream. Shut up, brain.