The mind boggles when I think about how much things have changed. How much I have changed. Heartbreak, depression, redundancy, stumbling across the love of my life, starting a new job, losing friends but making new ones, having a book published, buying my first house, moving out, seeing Paris for the first time, getting my appendix out, getting married.

Seems as though I’ve done just about everything except cure my credit card debt.

I think about kissesandpunches almost every day. And sometimes I wish I had my 2am insomnia episodes again if only to spill my guts and know that someone out there, halfway across the world, is reading. I miss my bursts of inspiration and being able to sit down and regurgitate them in the early hours of the morning.

I think about all the wonderful comments I’ve received on this blog during the past three years, and all the people who have personally written to me expressing how inspired they feel after simply reading what I’ve written. My blog was never intended to be an authoritative or credible voice of experience but I feel so honoured and thrilled that it has been a source of inspiration for many. Thank you for reading, for your kind words, and for lending me your (cyber) shoulder to cry on because, let’s face it, I was on a bit of a rollercoaster for a while.

I can say for certain though that, right now, life’s pretty darn sweet.

Write soon xx

Write about someone trying to convince another person

to do something they both know is wrong.

Her hair is brushed back into a fresh ponytail. The lingering wafts of her shampoo – of macadamia and sweet almond oil – fills the inside of her car in complete raptures.

As she pulls up outside his house, she smoothes out the creases in her khaki linen trousers and straightens her paper-thin thermal. Seductively uncomplicated. Minimalist was seldom her aesthetic but tonight she is making an exception. He always liked her hair worn up. He liked simple.

The passenger door opens and he slides in seamlessly, as he has always done for so long. In the still of the night, awkward smiles are exchanged and niceties are muttered to one another. She wants to tie loose ends. Orchestrate some closure. Latch onto anything that could possibly get her through the first break-up in the history of her saccharine 24 years.

They make the brief drive to a beautifully ostentatious park – a place where it all transpired a mere eight years ago, and now a place that will make it difficult to conjure fond memories for them both ever again. The park is a vision in the twilight. Winding pathways negotiate their way past ponds and lakes; frangipanis and hibiscus blooms litter manicured gardens.

September has an audacity to presume that everything is coming up roses.

But therein lies cruel contrast. The harmonious crooning between ducklings and pelicans punctuate the audible silence in the car. It’s been three weeks since she mustered the strength to walk away from him for the final time. Their minds are weary, and it’s hard to imagine that there are any words left to be spoken. But their hands know not the touch of anybody else’s and their lips have been taught to know only one another’s. And that is the hardest to walk away from.

She looks tenderly into his hopelessly abashed eyes and searches for meaning.

She bargains.

“I see it now. I finally understand you. I wasn’t the best girlfriend, but I have learnt why.”

He buries his head in his hands. She knows what he’s thinking: how ironic that some things can only come to light in the aftermath of a tragedy.

He resurfaces and turns towards her.

“I don’t know what to do.”

She nods in sad congruence. Sometimes, the hardest thing and the right thing are the same. But still, she keeps a tight hold on the torch. For the eight years they took for granted. For the next fifty years they had been planning. For the family they were hoping to build. For the tomorrow they thought they always had.

“I’m waiting for the day I can wake up and just know what I want.”

They look to the moon as it dances across the ebony midnight sky, leaving a luminescent trail upon the dashboard. The uncertainty is debilitating. He is still so madly in love with her. He still contends that she is a perfect rarity; a breed so inconceivable that it hurts.

“I don’t think I’ll ever find anybody else like you.”

Without saying a word, she throws her arms around him and gives him the hug that was meant to happen the night she walked away. There is apology in her grasp; and sadness and despair in the embrace. But they find home in this hug, and for a moment, it is like the way it was. The way it should be.

How did everything become so complicated that love could no longer save the day? Which fool declared that love can conquer all?

They finally break free from their beautiful connection. She pleads with her eyes to have him remember these moments and the promises they made to one another. Most of all, she wants him to forget the hurt she inflicted and the ways she made him feel so unloved.

“I’ve discovered right from wrong. I’ve learnt so much about myself, about you, about us. I only wish I knew this three weeks ago.”

Pleading.

“I am so sorry I hurt you. If you ever give me another chance at this, we could be different…better.”

But it is all in vain. He places his hand on hers.

“I want to be with you. Just not right now.”

“How do I know that giving it one more try is going to make us work.”

“I don’t think I can give you what you want.”

He loves her so madly and so deeply but sadly she will never know how much.

All she knows is that his incisive words speak the brutal truth.

He is right, ever so logical, so effortlessly pragmatic. She is affecting, impassioned and irrational. And now a beautiful stranger he will no longer spend the rest of his life with.

They sit in pensive silence, ambitiously hoping an epiphany would occur any second now so as to quash the heartbreak.

Shadows meander through the darkness outside. The moon overwhelms the twinkling smattering of stars who struggle to know their worth.

As she pulls her hand away from his, she fiercely tries to grasp the remains of this closure.

And this time, she watches him walk out of her life, permanently.

Be thankful when your high school sweetheart says he got over you in a week. Be grateful that he didn’t want you back. To be perfectly honest, he won’t be the first. It’s a cruel world. But you will learn that most of this is comes down to the fact that they simply haven’t got their shit together yet. And why should you wait for him to do so?

Nevertheless, you will be bitter for a long time but trust me, he – and the next guy – did you a big favour. The bottom line is: if you think you deserve better, you do. If you think you could be happier, you can be. Don’t sell yourself short just because you assume that no one else can put up with you the way he does.

Your heart will break in shards more than once but you will quickly realise that this is as inevitable as bad hair days. But you are stronger than you think and bolder than you believe; love isn’t a halfway job and you will learn to do it with so much conviction that what comes will be so much better than what came before. Love rewards the brave.

But you will not know what love is until you turn 25. And even by the time you turn 30, you will only be halfway there. The bad news is, your first boyfriend will not be your last. The good news is, it will only take you a few bad dates to find the love of your life.

Marriage isn’t as frightening as you think. The trick is, not to think about it too much. The whole ball and chain thing, I mean. In fact, when you meet him, it will feel like the most natural thing in the entire world. People will joke that it’s the biggest mistake you’ll ever make, but I secretly think that, deep down, everyone wants to find someone who will put up with their crazies and love them back for the rest of their life. Who would be crazy enough to turn that down?

The best and the worst thing about your 20s will be depression. You will never know how low you can go until you find yourself fantasising about clicking your heels together and cutting your time here short. It will be your darkest hour but as the clock ticks over, you will learn that, like everything else, these storms are temporary, with the help of someone who will equip you to weather them in years to come. It will be another three years before you can finally stand on your own, but you will grow to such an extent that you will barely recognise yourself. This is the day you have waited to wake up to. Some things are worth sticking around for and trust that the best is yet to come.

Your biggest downfall will not be falling prey to guys who write a song about you and strum it on their guitar in the back seat of your car, or not being able to commit yourself to saving up for your first home. Your biggest mistake will be making work your life. You will bust your gut because that’s the only way you know how. You will be so consumed with climbing a ladder that it will hurt like hell when you come tumbling down. You will trust people far too much (much of the same can be said for your personal life), you will believe what everyone says, you will be trampled on until you can no longer stand up straight, and you will tell yourself that just because you went to uni, you are entitled to feeling like you are the bees knees and no one could possible ever convince you otherwise. But sure enough, one day someone will. And not only will it break you in two, but it will teach you to work smarter, not harder.

You will be surprised to find that the people you thought would be in your life for a long time simply won’t be. Right now you may value friendships more than family or romantic relationships but it will take you the next ten years to realise that like boys, friends come and go. Best friends, even. And the older you get, the more this will ring true. By the time you turn 30, your social circle will halve from when you were 18. But don’t be disheartened. Some people were only meant to be in your life for a short while, whilst a small few really will be there for you come rain, hail and shine. You will summon the courage to walk away from those who aren’t worth the investment, but it will leave you with a greater appreciation of the ones who are.

The truth is, the greatest lesson you will learn in your 20s is that your mother wasn’t as clueless as you had believed for the past 25-odd years, and that her maternal ways weren’t as archaic as you had convinced yourself for all of this time. But you will need to move out of home to discover this; and even though it will feel like you’re turning your back on her, know that she will still be there on the sidelines, cheering you on in this game they call Life.

31 January, 2009

“It always fascinated me how people go from loving you madly to nothing at all, nothing.

It hurts so much.

When I feel someone is going to leave me,
I have a tendency to break up first before I get to hear the whole thing.

Here it is.

One more, one less.

Another wasted love story.

I really love this one.

When I think that it’s over,
that I’ll never see him again like this… well yes,

I’ll bump into him,
we’ll meet our new boyfriend and girlfriend,
act as if we had never been together,
then we’ll slowly think of each other less and less until we forget each other completely.

Almost.

Always the same for me.

Break up, break down.

Drunk up, fool around.

Meet one guy, then another, fuck around.

Forget the one and only.

Then after a few months of total emptiness start again to look for true love,
desperately look everywhere and after two years of loneliness meet a new love and swear it is the one,
until that one is gone as well.

There’s a moment in life where you can’t recover any more from another breakup.

And even if this person bugs you sixty percent of the time,
well you still can’t live without him. And even if he wakes you up every day by sneezing right in your face,
well you love his sneezes more than anyone else’s kisses.”

- Marion, 2 Days in Paris (2007)

Five months ago, I had this particular face on. It was despairing and miserable; uninterrupted; and if not fabulously enduring, it became a permanent fixture almost, toppling my smile right off its pedestal.

Last night I saw the same face on someone I have only met briefly prior. Although I don’t know her well, I knew her adequately enough to understand and discern the hurt I saw in her eyes, amongst all the tears that unfailingly sought an escape route over and over again.

So this blog post is for her.

Breakups suck.  And whilst every cut may be deeper than the other, whether the relationship lasted eight years or eight weeks, the lacerations will all seem equally irreparable; bleeding so much hurt and seeping exorbitant amounts of residual love, that it hardly seems possible to have anything left over for next time.

You wish he’d call – any excuse – but a small part of you really hopes he doesn’t if only for the fact that you know you won’t be able to muster the superhuman strength to walk away a second time.

Suddenly the concept of ‘routine’, that continually gets badgered, sounds so appealing. That ‘how was your day’ phone call at 5pm each day; the Friday nights you both dedicate to one another week in, week out; the doing rings around your local park together; the getting ice cream each Sunday; and the imaginary imprint he left in the passenger seat of your car. So routine, but never before have you craved it this much until now.

No one will freely break it to you but it can hurt for a long time. You’ll fall apart. An Armageddon inside your heart will occur. And for all the times you hear the line ‘it gets better in time’, you desperately wish it can collectively make the pain go away, even just for a day. It’s funny how words can only do so much, yet staring into space can impart immeasurable amounts of consolation.

Your tears don’t discriminate. They’ll make a break for it by the bucketload, on the bus, behind your desk, at 4am, or whilst you’re drowning your sorrows at an overcrowded bar during which your state of solace is rudely interrupted by the doof-doof music.

With the help of your well-meaning mates, a handful of inebriated moments will offer you relief for all but one night, whilst the rest of your weekends are punctuated with your BFFs waiting for you on the other side of the bathroom door, offering to hold your hair back whilst you purge everything and anything, tangible or otherwise. This comes after an emotional drunken stint on the valentine swing in someone else’s backyard whereby people you don’t recognise (the tears that profusely trickle down don’t help) offer their own advice like Subject Matter Experts whilst you harp on and on, incoherently for the most part, about how much you want him to be there to make everything better again.

Eurgh, pathetic.

Waking up is hard to do, but doing so becomes totally plausible if only for the fact that it will give you an opportunity to stop dreaming powerlessly about your one and only. The dreams are the worst bit.

Yep, breakups truly suck balls.

But you will get through it and you know you know it. With every day that passes, you’ll start to miss him less and less; and as unfathomable as it may seem, he will no longer inhabit an undeserving chunk of your weary mind. You’ll soon forget what heartbreak feels like; and, as sad as it may seem,  you’ll forget little by little how much you really were in love with him. As someone had said to me: “For a while you’ll feel as if you will never be able to be with anyone else…but one day you’ll wake up and realise you can longer bear the thought of being with him.” It is so true. The hard part is just being patient enough to see it come to fruition.

So milk it for all you can. No one is going to let you be this pathetic forever. Put that angry Alanis Morrisette song on repeat; treat yourself to that $20 UK Vogue that you once considered outrageously priced for a glossy; buy yourself lunch for 30 days’ straight; book a holiday; buy a handbag to fill the void; and cry on as many shoulders as you can whilst you can still get away with it.

For the record…it will get better in time.

It propelled me to dig up a previous post of mine – most appropriately described as a raw and honest account of the lessons I had learnt five months after a break-up. Yes, people break up everyday. And it sucks and it hurts. And it feels like no one can possibly understand what you’re going through. And sometimes you just want to erase the past eight years; because you know he didn’t deserve any part of you at all.

I’ve come to realise that I am as bitter as ever. The ridiculous thing is, the more happy I am in the present; the more resentful I become about the past. The more my current relationship goes from strength to strength, the more insecure I feel about having a seemingly beautiful life taken away from me again.

But 18 months on, I have learnt the most important lesson of them all:

See the past for what it is

But don’t ever look back.

Don’t go back to him.

Don’t believe things will be better this time.

Don’t even go there.

Because it’s already broken.

Because you will be happy again.

Because what feels like the worst thing to happen to you, will eventually be the best thing you’ll ever walk away from.

I asked my husband this question quite randomly over dinner last night and, much to my surprise, he gave me such earnest, pensive answers. I was so inspired by his thoughtful list that I decided to put my own in writing. This is a list I’d  leave if I ever had a daughter.

• It is better to let go of something than hold onto nothing.
• Wear sunscreen and don’t smoke.
• Friends come and go, and learn to be okay with that. Just don’t let go of your biggest supporters.
• Good manners go a long way, as does a good-natured smile first thing in the morning. Say please and thank you – they’re the three most important words in the English language.
• Everyone is afraid of something. Everyone has lost something and everyone misses something. So try to cut people some slack because we are all struggling in one way or another.
• Start reading as soon as you can hold a newspaper.
• Don’t lament growing older – many people don’t get this privilege. P.S. 21 is not ‘old’.
• Don’t think you know everything there is to life at 23, because the worst – and the best – is yet to come.
• Forgiving people is never about letting the other person win; it is only ever about you forgiving yourself.
• Never turn up to a dinner party empty-handed.
• Love wholeheartedly the good bits about your body and learn how to hide the rest!
• If you ever decide to get married and have a wedding, don’t take it personally when you realise that weddings are and never will be just about you and your fiance. The marriage bit will take care of that – and you should invest more time and effort into that, than a one-day event.
• Don’t make work your life and don’t beat yourself up if you don’t absolutely love or are passionate about your job. Take up a hobby or be good at something outside of work so that you will always have a reason to get up in the morning.
• Life is too short to hang out with people who annoy you.
• Don’t be ever afraid to ask for help when you need it.
• Move out of home – learning how to be self-sufficient is the best thing you can do for yourself.
• Find a good hairdresser even if it takes you years of disastrous haircuts. And after that, never, ever stray.
• Keep a diary and try to write in it every day. And most importantly – don’t throw them out! When you pry them open on your 30th birthday, you’ll realise that all the small stuff needn’t be sweated, and that your youth was truly a precious time in your life.
• Be the bigger person. As hard as it is at the time, you will eventually realise how empowering it is.
• Surround yourself with people who genuinely care about you; then ditch the rest.
• Your parents did the best they could – so give them a break every now and then.
• Do one thing that scares you every day.
• Travel. And realise that France and Paris are two entirely different things.
• Have no regrets – all the good stuff probably wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for all the bad.
• If you’re not sure if he’s The One, chances are, you never will be. As ironic as it sounds, you will know without having to even question it. And trust that letting him go just means you’re making room for someone better to walk into your life.
• Trust, mutual respect, intimacy and communication are the hallmarks of a healthy relationship. If you don’t have any of these, wake up and smell the roses; it ain’t gonna get any better. So leave him and DON’T go back. And delete him from your Facebook while you’re at it.
• Break-ups are inevitable and the pain that ensues will paralyse you. Cry your heart out for as long as you need to, but remember that whilst heartbreak is inevitable, suffering is optional.
• Be kind to your mother in-law. If it weren’t for her, you wouldn’t have your husband.
• There is always room for dessert.

I decided to stop seeing my psychologist two months ago. For three years, I sat in her plush, concrete-grey chair, deciphering my troubled childhood and picking apart the way I am living my life now. She never gave me a reason to stop turning up but I always felt like a fraud. I used to think I was my therapist’s cushiest patient; the one who was only depressed because she had lost her job. I wasn’t a crack-addict, I didn’t beat my mother, I wasn’t  a compulsive alcoholic, and although I had entertained thoughts to end my life, I knew deep down I’d be far too chicken shit to follow through with it. So why the hell was I there?

I was ravenous for affirmation; hungry for my parents’ approval and validation; and most of all, I was terrified of failure. I was a product of my upbringing – to be the model child or else I wouldn’t be loved. So I learnt very quickly to adapt and assimilate, just like my parents felt compelled to when they arrived in Australia as asylum seekers some 30 years ago. From the moment I came out of my mother’s womb, I was born into a culture that never admits failure and defeat, work tirelessly to the bone, and to never, ever, bemoan my life, because I’m as lucky as they come.

For those 36 months that I sat cross-legged in that chair, I was able to answer as many questions as I had asked myself. Why am I my own harshest critic? Why is it so easy for me to feel disappointed in myself? Why did I make work my life? And why do I do everything in my power to not let my parents down?

Finding answers to all of these things have finally led me to my lightbulb moment. And it was the most incredible feeling.

For the first time in a long time, I feel like I can stand firmly on my own two feet. And although I have forgotten what it’s like to be depressed, I know that it will always be a part of me. It will never leave, and I will never deny that I had once hit rock-bottom.

But you know what? I have finally, finally broken free from these shackles. I wake up in the morning now and look forward to what’s ahead of me – the places I’ve stuck around for, the people I will meet, the friends I will make, the things I will achieve, and the lessons I will learn. For next time.

As I step out onto the pavement, the nerves threaten to sweep me from underneath my feet.

From below this staircase that I was about to climb, in this dress that I have waited so long to wear, I hear the soft whisper of the crowd through the limestone walls, the deafening murmur of anticipation, the undeniable electricity in the air, and the hum of languid but ethereal melodies that seem to drift gracefully in the cloud-strewn sky.

I am sparkling with excitement and wrought with so much emotion that I could cry. Better yet, I could burst with an indelible amount of energy, or sing at the top of my lungs: all at once, and with all that I have.

I muster a deep breath.

This is it.