The Ordinary Life of Josh Miller

As a kid and a teenager I never was very social. I had a few friends in primary school, but by the time I had gotten to high school, I had lost touch with most of them. By the time this story begins, there would only be two people that I would consider truly my friends. I did have some other mates from school, but none that I knew I could truly call friend.

My story here starts with me turning eighteen. I had not long started my second term of year 12 of high school (the equivalent of Senior year in the USA). Eighteen is a very significant age here in Australia, as it is the age in which the government now views you as an adult. You can legally drink, you are legally obliged to vote, you can get down and dirty with others, without being scrutinised. For many this feels like a step into freedom, but for me this was a daunting step and one I didn't think I was prepared to take.

As I mentioned, I didn't have many friends, so when it came to planning something for my Eighteenth, I didn't want to got all out like many of my peers would have. I wanted something more intimate (not like that), I guess you could say something more emotionally significant.

As neither of my friends nor many of my mates were yet to be Eighteen, I made the responsible decision not to have one of those typical drunken ragers, like everyone else.

I chose to go Go-Karting.

You're probably thinking 'that sounds fun, I bet he had a really good time, with all his mates', well I can tell you, I did not.

I had invited my two good friends James and Nathan as well as a few other mates from high school. James is the friend that I was talking about earlier, the one who I had managed to retain from childhood. Nathan was the friend I had made in my second year of high school, when we worked as crew on the school Musical, Anything Goes.

After inviting everybody, there were going to be a total of twelve teenagers/young adults that should be there, including my younger brother Cameron. My parents and a couple of their friends were going to be there for a short time, before going out to dinner together.

When the time came to have the 'party', my family drove to the track, picking up James who lived only a few blocks from where I do. We arrived early and milled around waiting for others to show up. My parents friends eventually arrived and started to to chat, leaving James, Cameron and I alone, to wait. After playing a couple games of air hockey, that the track had in there waiting room, my other good mate, Nathan walked in. The look on his was not one that I had expected though, it was one of a little sadness but mostly anger.

"Hey Nathan, you ready to race?" I asked trying to gauge his reaction.

The half-hearted response I got from him made me start to worry. What had happened. Had something happened to him, did something happen to his parents.

"Is everything alright?" I asked trying to get another response from him.

"None of them are coming" was the response I got.

I was a little confused.

"What do you mean none of them are coming?"

"Everyone else you invited. They all got a better offer to go to a party that Oliver was putting on. I tried messaging them all to convince them to come here, but they all said that they'd rather go to Oliver's as he had beer and there was also going to be some girls going"

Ah the two things that I could not provide. The alcohol, as most of them were under-age and would be illegal to serve to a minor, plus the fact that they would've been driving mini death machines. As well as my very non-existent list of girls that I happen to know well enough to invite. It didn't help that I went to an all boys school.

I sat down contemplating what to do. I felt betrayed by them, but also like a huge weight had been lifted. They weren't the greatest of mates, so going forward without them in my life wouldn't be that much of a burden.

Nathan sat next to me and patted me on the bank.

"At least you know now who your true friends are" he said pointing to James and back at himself.

"You can always make new friends anyway, so what if they sometimes turn out to be jerks, you can always replace them"

With that he stood and convinced us to go and race for the next few hours.

That night as I lay in bed I thought about that day and how much my 'so called' mates had betrayed me. Although I really did have a great time with Nathan, James and Cameron, I still felt that I needed to change, make more friends and be more confident. I figured that there would had to have been a reason that they would have abandoned me and I convinced myself that it was because I wasn't that interesting. Well that was about to change.

***

Although I had met Nathan working on the musicals in my high school, it wasn't the extra-curricular that he was most fond of. I had fallen in love with theatre and it had become my passion, but for Nathan it was just something else he did. For him his passion was to go camping and hiking.

As a part of my private school education, for one year all students were to be apart of the Australian Army Corp Cadet program. Our school had its own regiment, which was run by some teachers who had previously worked in the military or just really loved to match around a field yelling at kids. The program was generally split into two parts, the first half of the year was designated towards drills and marching, 'teaching young men discipline', whilst the second half was reserved for bushcraft, survival tactics and learning how to camp.

As apart of this second part of the program, students were sent on two camps, both a week long. These camps were rough, as you were sent to a military base in the middle of the Australian bush, in groups of eight and were told to do some things that I am surprised that you were even allowed to get away with at an educational institution in the twenty first century. Every day you would have to pack down your camp, which was compromised of nothing more than a hoochie (a thin tarp-like piece of cloth, with some eyelets in each corner), some rope and a sleeping bag. You would the have to hike to a destination only your Senior leader (someone from an older year who continued on with cadets) would know of, have lunch and then hike again until the sun set, only to set up camp and do it all again tomorrow.

As you can probably tell from my brief description that I wasn't a fan of the camps, but Nathan absolutely loved it. I also had the privilege of being forced into the Cadet marching band, due to me playing an instrument, which I think was the final nail in the coffin of my enjoyment for cadets.

Anyway, due to the fact that there were only two camps a year, as a part of the Cadet program, Nathan decided to look for something extra he could do on top of. It didn't take him long to find Scouts.

Basically a much less intense version of cadets, that would meet once a week and go on a camp every few weeks, it was perfect for him. You probably all know what scouts are, as pretty much every country around the world has at least one contingent.

Nathan would always arrive at school on Mondays and talk about how much fun he had on last weekends scout trip and how he met so many new people, that when my mission to start to reinvent myself came along, I didn't have to look very far.

***

The first morning back at school after my failed party, felt very awkward for me. I overheard quite a few people who were talking about Oliver's party and how great it was. I saw a few of the mates who ditched me for the other party and i tried to ignore them as I walked past. One of them did manage to stop and tried to apologise, stating that they forgot my party was this weekend and that they had agreed to go to Oliver's already when Nathan messaged them. This just confirmed my thoughts of being insignificant to them and wasn't interesting enough for them to remember me.

Bolstering my determination to change who I was and become more interesting, I tried to find Nathan as quickly as possible, to ask him about joining his scout group.

"Are you sure, i never really thought you were the type to like camping and hiking."

"I just think that it would be a great place to meet new people and to retry camping. It's been a little while since I've done it and the scouts version doesn't sound anywhere near as intense" I responded.

Nathan gave me all of the details about where and when the next meeting would be. It seemed that every Wednesday they would meet at the local scout hall and would do some activities or plan for the next trip or event. He also explained to me that i wasn't going to actually be a scout, but rather a Rover. Scouting Australia has a few levels to its scouting program, starting off with Joeys, which is for very young students. Cubs, which is for kids in early to primary school. Scouts for the late primary school to early high school teens. Venturers for the rest of the teenage years, finally ending with Rovers, which lasts from the age of eighteen to the age of twenty-five.

Thanking him for all of the information I was adamant about going this week. We talked for the next couple of days about what to expect, but when the time came I was still very nervous. Trying new things wasn't something I did very often. The last time I tried something new, I fell in love with theatre, so I thought to myself maybe I could fall in love with this as well.

That Wednesday night, I arrived at the scout hall a few minutes before 6pm, the starting time of the meet. I waited outside and messaged Nathan, telling him that I had just arrived and was waiting outside. He responded by messaging me to come in, walk through the main hall door and to take the stairs down to the basement.

It turns out the building was split level and the basement was a massive storage room with all of the camping gear one could ever need.

I made my way through the room to a door that led to a walled off section of the storage room. I could hear a few voices coming from the other side of the door. I knocked and waited. I didn't think the people on the other side could hear me as it sounded like they were listening to some music and occasionally cheering. After knocking a few times more and receiving no answer, I decided to head on in.

I was greeted by a group of probably six people, four guys and two girls. One of them being Nathan. He turned and realised I had just walked in, so he started to introduce me to everybody. The two girls were introduced as Liv and Holly, both seeming to be around my age. An older guy, who was probably early to mid twenties, was introduced as Oscar. There was Sean who seemed a little older than me and the last guy was Zack, someone I had happened to already kind of know.

Zack was the son of some of my parents' good friends, who so happened to be the people they went to dinner with on the night of my Eighteenth.

After being introduced to everybody, I seemed to relax a bit more. I had walked into the middle of a game of pool between Holly and Oscar, so as I took in my surroundings, they resumed their play.

This room was very cool, it seemed like it had a man-cave/hideout/basement sort of vibe with one part of the room being taken up by the pool table. Another part of the room had a big old dining table with an eclectic mix of chairs around it. Along the back wall of the room rested some cabinets, as well as a kitchenette. The last section of the room, which probably took up about half of the space, was a massive lounge area with a giant projector screen on one wall.

I stood around for a bit chatting with Nathan and watching the pool game, when eventually Holly won. Nathan was apparently next to play, as he was dragged over to the table and handed a cue, leaving me all alone. I guess there was no better time than now to start talking to these potential new friends. I readied myself to go over and talk to Zack and Sean, when from out of nowhere Liv appeared next to me.

Now before I continue I need to point out that in my past I had zero romantic prospects. In primary school I had a couple of friends that were girls when I was really young, but by the time i was in year six, we had all gone through that phase of girls and boys can't be friends and you'll get cooties if you even so touch a girl. But then going from that to an all boys school and then not being one of the popular fit guys, who always was invited to parties that had girls attending, I had pretty much never really interacted with a girl that much. We did have some that were from other schools as a part of the cast of our musicals and plays, but being a crew member, they didn't give me the time.

I bring all this up because things were about to change. When I first took in the sight of Liv I didn't give her a second thought, as this was the way I had always done things, but now that she had come over to talk to me I looked at her and really started to take her in. She was decently tall, probably mid to high range of five foot. A little bit chunkier but only in the places that accentuated her body perfectly. Tonight she was wearing some form-fitting jeans and a graphic shirt, which did well to both show off her body and to hide it. Her very dark brown, almost black hair was done up in a bun on the back of her head and the brow of her nose sat a cute pair of black glasses.

As I said, I never had any previous romantic prospects, but gazing upon Liv as she tried to talk to me, made me feel warm inside. It was the start of what I later realised was my first ever crush.

"So Josh, what brings you here?" she asked me with a warm smile.

"Oh ah" I stammered trying to think of the right words to say. "I have heard about scouts a bit from Nathan, and I decided that sounds fun, why not come and try it out"

"Cool, I bet you are really going to enjoy it"

I thought to myself that was an odd reply but didn't think much of it.

"Are you going to come to the camp this weekend? it'll be the perfect introduction to Rovers."

Nathan never mentioned that there was a camp coming up, but i'll forgive him though as I realised that he probably hadn't told me as it would've freaked me out and made me not want to come this week. And the longer I put off coming to my first meet, it probably would've increased the chance of me never actually coming.

Responding to Liv, "Nathan never mentioned anything about a camp this weekend, but from the stories I've heard, it could be fun."

I also thought to myself that going on the camp meant more time I would get to spend with this girl that seemed to make me all warm and fuzzy inside.

Liv and I chatted for a bit more and watched Nathan get dominated by Holly at pool. After the end of their game, Oscar gathered all of us around the big dining table and announced that we should start to plan what we needed for the upcoming trip. After about an hour of discussing what we were going to have as meals, what camping gear we would need to grab, and the transportation to and from the camp, Sean suggested that we play some MarioKart before we headed off for the night.

We all stood and headed over to the couches that surrounded the projector screen. Zack turned on the projector and we got to racing. It turns out that they were all pretty good, we took turns rotating, almost forming groups of two, I seemed to keep switching with Liv, which kept bringing butterflies to my stomach whenever I had to hand the controller over, or vice versa.

When the night ended, everyone kind of milled around outside as we waited for Oscar to finish locking up the building. Rovers didn't really have leaders like the rest of the scouting tiers. The idea was that they wanted everyone to try and take a bit of control and responsibility, but some things just really need someone in charge. So as it turns out Oscar kind of became that defacto person.

Eventually, everyone started to head off home, ultimately just leaving me and Nathan standing in front of the building, chatting.

"So, what did you think? Are you going to come again?"

"It was fun I replied, getting to meet all of them was great. It was kind of nice to feel like you are a part of something and that everyone wants you there." I replied.

"I definitely know one person who liked meeting you" he smirked. "And you definitely seemed to like meeting her. I could see the way you were looking at and chatting with her, especially when we were MarioKarting,"

I didn't realise I was being that obvious. I started to blush in embarrassment.

"Oh don't worry, I don't think anyone else noticed. I just know you and have never seen you act like that, so I just assumed."

"Well I don't know what I am feeling, this is all very new to me" I said, trying to move the conversation along.

Noticing I wanted to change the subject he started to talk about the trip this weekend and how great it was going to be. We chatted for a bit longer before we decided it was time to head off.

Over the next few days at school, I was nervous and excited about the trip. On one hand, I hadn't done anything like this since my Cadet experiences, and they weren't that great, but on the other, I would be spending some time with Liv and getting to know her.

***

When Friday night rolled around, I was very fidgety. My mind had been spiralling the last couple of hours especially about what I was going to talk to Liv all about. I didn't think she was going to be into any of the things I liked, which was sci-fi and geeky sort of stuff. So not talking about those things did limit what I had to say. Luckily there were other people going on this trip that I could interact with and get to know, making new friends, the whole purpose I was even trying out scouting.

It was planned that we would all meet at the scout hall at 6pm friday night and make our way to the campsite from there in only two vehicles. Nathan was going to take his big 4wd with a small trailer attached and Oscar would take his Suzuki Jimny.

Upon arriving at the hall, we all loaded our gear into the trailer and boots of the cars. Making sure that we had everything we'd need for the weekend, we split up and began our journey to Ku-Ring-Gai National Park in Sydney's north. I was in the front passenger seat of Nathan's car, with both Zack and Sean in the back seat. Unfortunately, Liv went in the other car with Holly and Oscar, so I wouldn't get to speak to her for the next hour and a bit.

The campsite wasn't that far from the scout hall, or even from the suburbs of Sydney, but when we got there you would think you were in the middle of rural Australia. When we got there, it was the beginning of dusk, so we all quickly got our tents erected. I was sharing with Nathan, whilst Sean and Zack shared a tent. Both Holly and Liv were sharing a tent as it was the rule that girls and boys split. Oscar wasn't in a tent though, he brought something called a swag, which was basically a really heavy, canvas sleeping bag that you could zip yourself completely into, like a cocoon.

The site was really nice. It was a small grassy field that had enough room for all of our tents, a small kitchen/sitting area and a firepit. There was a toilet block only a couple minutes walk from the site.

After setting up camp, some of us were tasked with cooking whilst others were tasked with getting a fire started. The evening turned out great as we all sat around the fire chatting. Both Zack and Sean were great guys and I was happy to get to know them. Oscar was a bit harder to connect with due to the age gap and by the sounds of it, he was going to age out of Rovers in the next year or so. Holly was nice, but I didn't really have anything in common with her, so found it hard to talk to her. Liv, on the other hand. She was great to talk to.

It was a bit awkward at first but eventually we were off and just couldn't stop talking. I found out that although she wasn't into the Sci-Fi stuff I liked, she was very much into the fantasy side of things. She seemed like she especially liked to read, which I did occasionally, but wasn't religious about it. One thing I did find that we had in common was our love for theatre. I found out that she worked on many of the productions her school had put on in the last few years, as a crew member. When i found out this great bit of information, I knew I was sold on her.