When I was much younger, I truly believed that everyone had their perfect half, just like in Plato’s Symposium, which was first introduced to me through an incredible 2001 film called “Hedwig and the angry inch” I must have been around fifteen at the time and Hedwig’s animated punk rock song, of melancholic desperation to find her other half, resonated with me deeply… minus the botched male-to-female sex reassignment surgery that left her with the angry inch, from which the film is titled.
For those unfamiliar with Plato’s symposium, it is a philosophical text, noting the speeches of a group of men during a banquet. In one speech told by Aristophanes, he explains that humans will forever seek their other half, to feel complete. Because there used to be three sexes on earth, the male linked to the sun, the female linked to the earth, and the androgynous, who were both male and female combined, linked to the moon.
The androgynous were round in shape, meaning that they would move in acrobatic motions, they had two faces on either side of their head, with two sets of arms and two sets of legs, they were nothing short of perfection embodied.
When the androgynous tried to scale Mount Olympus to challenge the gods, Zeus grew fearful of these powerful beings, and knowing that he could not destroy them, because the humans were needed to provide offerings and to worship the gods, he decided an appropriate form of action, would be the split them in half. This would not only take away their power, but it benefited the gods, by creating twice as many humans.
Aristophanes explained that this is the reasoning humans feel so lost without their other half, forever searching for the one who will make them whole again. Those who worship the god of love Eros, will be granted the gift of being reunited with their lost half, but those who do not respect the gods, may find themselves split in half again, with only one arm and one leg.
This origin story of love and soul mates, also holds no prejudice, with women finding their other half in another woman, and a man finding his other half in another man, it was not just heterosexual couples being reunited.
I think of those people, who feel that deep longing for connection, and how that ties in with modern courtship … or lack thereof. When I was much younger it felt as though any real emotion or softness was something to be ashamed of, and people seeking genuine love were deemed as “needy” imagine how many have masked their true desires in order to fit into that sterile narrative?
An interview in an old music magazine from my teen years, really stands out to me as I write this piece, it was a musician speaking about his thoughts on Billy Corgan, the front man of Smashing Pumpkins. He said that Billy is always in love, talking about love or wants to be in love… or something to that effect. A teenage me, thought that was very brave indeed, to be so open about one’s desire to feel complete, and that completeness involving the reciprocated love from another.
While that could be interpreted in one way, as wanting love from anywhere he can get it, the over-romanticising of intimate connections, confusion with the excitement that lust brings… or worst of all… the psychologising of love as addiction to toxic bonds… to completely wash it in a sterile saline solution in a white room, before throwing some big words around and handing over a large bill.
Could it be that we are just wired to need that affection and connection? Are we just wanting to find our other half, that Zeus so cruelly cut us off from… literally.
In a throw away culture, that has hit new heights, people are no exception, with the guise of wanting “no stress” relationships, many will never even reach the depth to know themselves, let alone intimately know another.
I have a few thoughts on this… and they have shifted and changed over the years, even going around in complete circles, it definitely has not been a linear journey.
Going back to the start of this story, I started out adamant we all had that perfect half, which led me to baling from many relationships the moment that I felt we were not a perfect fit on all levels. My first being my earliest real love, a deeply mature and adult relationship I had in my early teens, we really thought that we would be together forever… which will be a story for another time.
I had come to realise that I wanted an extraordinary life, I always knew in my bones it was my destiny. That meant ending that relationship, he was incredibly loyal and loved and respected me deeply, we broke up when I would have been sixteen, and I look back now and do not think I have experienced that kind of selfless love since… not like that.
If I had of stayed, I never would have lived the life I have. In a weird twist of fate, the exact name that we chose should we have children together in the future, was the exact name, right down to the middle name, of the man I would date next.
Let’s call him Gabriel.
I say man, because at seventeen, he was five years older than me, and that was my lesson in life that not all men would treat me like my first boyfriend did. I had already been living out of home for about a year, living in the bigger neighbouring town, for more opportunities and so I could study fine arts.
My first boyfriend was now my roommate, we had a huge three level house and rented out rooms. I had made friends with an extremely charismatic musician who had classes with me, he was a guitar player in a band that was gaining traction at the time, winning battle of the bands and opening for groups like Jebediah.
He was this little whirlwind of chaos, always laughing and running amok, I will never forget having my drink spiked at a wild party by the beach, (it was a real eye opener for my teen self, opening one door to walk into a full-blown orgy… I politely declined) with my friends at the time bailing me into the back of a car, arguing over why they couldn’t take me to the hospital, it was awful to be able to see and hear everything that was happening, but not being able to move or speak, and then listening to everyone’s panic set in when I stopped breathing at one point. deciding it was appropriate to just take me home and hope for the best.
My little guitar prodigy friend, who I will call Jimmy, burst into my room the next morning (we had not become roommates yet, and I was still living in my old house) he was jumping on my bed, while I lay there with the most horrendous migraine of my life, his long blonde hair flying in all directions as he hysterically laughed while saying “I think you had your drink spiked mate!”.
He was probably just at my house looking for a guitar to play, as his music gear was forever in hock, while he scrambled to find the cash to get it back.
I later found out through living with him, that he was using heroin, my naive self, did not see it at first, it was only after a week of locking himself away drawing on butcher paper, and finally emerging to ask me to brush his hair for him, that I really saw the struggle he was in.
While brushing his usually beautiful long golden hair, that was just filled with knots, and accidentally knocking the brush against his bare bony back, the reality hit hard, and it was not all fun and games anymore.
I will say though, Jimmy always paid rent on time, had the cheekiest dimples when he made excuses for any bad behaviour, and being a few years my senior, was always looking out for me… he was always on my side, like a big brother.
As a side note, I did find out who spiked my drink, it was a friend who lived around the corner, who felt that we were meant to be… I had been very good friends with him, his sister, and his roommate, we had parties so wild, that we made the local newspaper! Would you like to know why?
On one particular get together, we had all been drinking and decided to go for a wander around the deserted small-town streets, two or three young men around the same age as us, were doing the same thing. This is where it got hairy!
One of my friends loved trouble, I will name him Jack, and he enjoyed a good quarrel, he yelled out something I won’t repeat here, and started a heated back and forth of slurs with this other group. It seemed like it had died down and we all went our own way.
But! Then we heard police sirens blaring around the corner, these little Cretans had got on the old payphone, and called the police, saying that we had guns… yes ok, one of the boys had a plastic water pistol… but as if a group of broke students have guns!
Everyone scattered, and whoever had the water pistol ditched it… the police were extremely heavy handed (no surprises there) and we were face down in the wet grass, hands on our heads, with the police pulling guns on us… this situation escalated way beyond what it needed to!
We were not allowed to get up until this toy gun was produced… I mean Jeez, if the cops wanted it so bad, they could have taken a turn down the main street to Toyworld, and knocked themselves out, with all the water pistol fun, their little hearts desired.
No-one could find this water pistol anywhere, it was pitch black and we were all heavily intoxicated, but the police were relentless, they searched the house of my friends, obviously found no guns… but they did find Jack’s collection… which was bad, really bad.
See, Jack liked to collect street signs, the light up signs on pizza delivery cars… full sets of tables and chairs from restaurants, you know, the usual things people collect.
It was not just one or two either, it was not even 10… it was enough to fill up the entire house, it was quite impressive! He obviously got into some serious trouble for this, and it was sad, because we all had a soft spot for Jack, he was really alone in the world, and had gone through things that our immature teenage minds could not comprehend, he was an Indigenous kid and came from a really broken family background, his father had murdered his mother when he was a child, and had essentially brought himself up.
The police eventually had to abandon their search for this imaginary weapon, and we started looking for those of the group that had managed to get away, I still remember the hilarity of seeing my high school boyfriend/flat mate, who was very tall and slim, slide out from under a car that was right there the whole time! He was so slim, that he managed to hold onto the bottom of the car and pull himself up, flat against it.
He also had a penchant for climbing to the top of those huge highway streetlights… right to the top! … the police also caught us doing that, in retrospect, they were probably really getting sick of our antics.
The best part was my mother calling me about a week later to say, “did you hear about those stupid kids in the local paper?” I did not admit to her, that it was us, until years later.
Sorry mum.
So back to my friend, the one who spiked my drink… I am going to call him Sam, so Sam’s sister let spill that she knew it was him, so I publicly kicked him in the balls… before forgiving him.
He ended up being a saving grace to me in the coming months, it is a testament to how nuanced interactions with others can be.
Sam was also struggling, we really were the lost kids, many of us dealing with some very adult problems. He was a very good-looking guy, with one of those very classical faces, like an ancient Greek statue, with curly blonde hair. Sam was a deep thinker and was perpetually melancholy, an image that will forever be burnt into my mind, is hearing a knock on my door one afternoon, and opening it to see him standing before me, dripping wet, with downturned eyes.
He had attempted to drown himself in the ocean, the same spot we used to sit and talk, and muse over life (it now has been taken over by ugly sterile buildings, something that Australian architecture seems to be really obsessed with and does not work for small towns and cities).
The same place where we sat next to the water, and Sam wanted to give me a gift. with nothing to give me, he pulled out his diary, and ripped out the page for that day, handing it to me and saying, “I can only give you a day from my life”.
I have kept that little worn piece of paper, all these years.
So, let’s talk about Gabriel.
I had met him through Jimmy, Gabriel was the bands bass player, and as a total cliché, I met him out front of the towns only music store. There was an instant spark, and I really liked him, but was also unsure of the decent age gap… when you are only a teenager, five years makes a lot of difference.
He just so happened to be looking for a room to rent, and jimmy wanted him to move in, we had a huge games room in our house, and it would give them the perfect space for band practice, and we did need to fill a room, so Gabriel moved in.
I was never sure if he liked me back, and I never pursued him, or even told anyone I thought he was kind of cute. But during a road trip, way out into a forest retreat, where the band were playing for an event, the course of my life was about to be forever changed and would be the catalyst for running so far away from my past that I ended up becoming a whole different person.
We all drove out to this beautiful forest getaway, and I remember looking out of Gabriel’s old loud, hilux window, with the rain trickling down the glass, as the trees flickered past.
The night of the event progressed on, and I heard my name over the speakers, he had dedicated a song to me “Sweet home Alabama” by Lynyrd Skynyrd… considering most of the band died in a plane crash, during the height of their fame in the seventies, I feel like that may have been a sign for impending doom.
I was making my way out of the glass sliding door where the party was slowing down, and ran into Gabriel, I thought maybe he had not seen me, but then he grabbed my face and kissed me.
I remember waking up the next morning, in those old white metal pipe beds, it was a bunk bed, and we were on the bottom one together, I ran my fingers over his hands, and I still remember thinking how rough they were, and how to me, at only seventeen, it felt like the hands of an old man.
There was clearly a power play from the start.
That relationship most definitely had its high points, one in particular was sitting on the beach in the freezing cold, Gabriel had a gig that afternoon at one of the towns biggest venues at the time, and we were sharing a smoke, while sitting on the sand.
I suggested that we jump into the ocean, it was wild, cold, and windy that day, but we could not resist, we rolled around together in the crashing waves, wearing jeans and long-sleeved shirts.
Gabriel was now running late for his gig, and the lead singer who hated me from day one, would be twitching with anger by this point, but before heading to the venue, we decided to make a pit stop to KFC, walking through the door, in our soaking wet clothes with beach sand trailing behind us.
We did arrive to the venue before the set, Gabriel had to play in his wet clothes, and the lead singer glared at me with pure hate, he came to call me Yoko Ono, for the duration of my relationship with Gabriel.
Our relationship was always exciting, and I loved being allowed into pubs and clubs as an underage teen, because I was “with the band” but everything was about to come tumbling down… hard.
As the age-old story goes, boy refuses to use protection, says it will “be ok” girl gets pregnant, and all of a sudden it is all the girls fault.
Cue extreme shaming, holding deep dark secrets, and years of unresolved trauma, an event that made me extremely vulnerable to abuse for many, many years to come.
I remember painting one morning and feeling unwell, by the end of that day, I was telling Gabriel that I had just found out I was pregnant. His overbearing parents quicky became involved, they were both well known in the community, and Christian school teachers, from the outside, they were the perfect family.
The situation went from Gabriel telling me we would work it out, and he was supportive, to me coming home from study, and walking in on him and his father having a conversation, about me… about me as if I were an object, an inconvenience in their lives.
It came out that his father was not a very nice man, and also forced his mother into having a termination, but given their jobs and religion, this was a deep dark family secret. Not long after this event, Gabriel made an appointment for me with their family doctor for a “check-up” I was told by this doctor, who turned out to be a friend of the family, that if I had this baby I would “ be bitter and not a good mother because I would hate it” and that he could perform a termination himself during the night.
In recent years I made a formal complaint about this to the practice where he worked, incredibly he was still working there. Being as young as I was, I had no idea how wrong this was, in fact, it was downright illegal.
I had endured so much pressure from Gabriel’s parents, even while his mother asked me to help her mark all her stationary for her job as a teacher, she was in my ear. I always felt so betrayed by her, for her role in the abuse that I later endured from her son. After one trip to the city, and being so overwhelmed, scared, and traumatized, I refused to go back into the clinic… Gabriel was so angry with me that he left me as a roadside petrol station… I sat in the pay phone booth and cried.
His parents were also furious, and the pressure on me went from planting ideas, to threats, I did not tell anyone what was happening out of deep shame, in a small town, and in the early 2000’s people were not kind to young women in my situation.
After Gabriel’s failed attempts at making me have a miscarriage, I folded to the pressure of having a termination in the city a few weeks later. I remember being treated really badly at the time, by most of the medical professionals I encountered, with a lot of judgement, from memory only one woman during the interview process, pulled Gabriel up on how she suspected that I was being abused.
I never said anything during these interactions, not to Gabriel’s family doctor who was offering to do illegal terminations for a favour to Gabriel’s parents, and not to the staff at the clinic. I wish I did, but I have had to forgive my younger self, and I am now the woman, that I wish I had in my life at that time, to stand up for me.
That is a gift.
After the termination, Gabriel and his family were happy, as long as I kept my mouth shut, to this day I can not hear Ben Folds Five “Brick” without having heart palpitations, as Gabriel thought it was appropriate to get on his parent’s piano and dedicate that song to me… oh, how life imitates art.
In those times, there was very little advocating for young girls in my situation, and the blame solely lay of the girl’s shoulders. There were many opportunities for authorities to step in, like when one night the police were called to my house by my neighbours, and Gabriel spun that age old story, saying that I was having a mental break.
I was given the choice to ride in the police car, or ambulance… I chose the police car.
Gabriel’s mother was at the hospital waiting, she was in full damage control, and they had concocted a story about why I was there, and given I had just had a termination, hospital staff thought that forcing me to have an ultrasound was the appropriate treatment, while ignoring the blaring evidence of assault and abuse.
Still, I never said anything… not to the nurse who said “ if you don’t drink water for an ultrasound, I will be forcing an IV into you”… again, I have had to forgive myself for not saying anything, I was in full rights to refuse any treatment at all, I had full rights to report the abuse and shoddy doctor… but the words never came out. I just felt defeated.
Many years later, I learnt the term for this is catatonic, and PTSD.
This was the first time that Gabriel’s parents or any medical staff thought that my parents should be called, and before my mother arrived, Gabriel’s mother told me “I will defend my son no matter what” … Looking back, his relationship with his mother was boarding on inappropriate, they had this thing called “pillow talk” where they would lay in bed together and talk.. I mean, sure, bonding is one thing, but I am pretty sure pillow talk means something else.
To the mothers of boys reading this… pull your son’s up on their shit!
Not long after this all went down, I had come home to seeing Gabriel’s band mates moving all his things from the house, he did not even have the guts to tell me himself.
I sat alone in an empty house, and just thought and thought, and tried to process what had happened to me, for a long time. I could not believe that people could be so cruel, it was my first big life lesson in the potential cruelty of the world, and that adults do not always do what is right.
I started running every night, for hours…. I just did not know what to do with myself.
It all got so much for me, that I ended up back at my parents for a time, and I was prescribed temazepam, just to be able to sleep and eat… I lay on the loungeroom floor for days, just broken, and unable to tell anyone what had really happened.
After a time, I went back to my house, and the one friend who was there for me… was Sam.
He would lay on the floor with me for hours at a time, talk me down off ledges, like I had done for him in the past, and when I was ready, we gathered up all of Gabriel’s furniture that he still had not collected, and loaded it all into Sam’s old yellow brumby ute, before driving it through unknown dirt tracks, and to a vast space under the night sky.
We piled all of Gabriel’s things on the ground, furniture, clothes…anything I ever wore when we were together, and poured jerry cans of fuel over it, before lighting the whole lot on fire, and throwing in the jerry cans, watching them explode with eagerness.
The smoke and flames illuminated the night sky in the most cathartic brilliance I think I have ever felt.
Just writing those words… I am right back in that place.
The more I learnt about Sam, the more I understood his melancholy, his parents had separated and his father’s new wife, did not want him in the family home, that is why he lived with his sister. He was a sensitive soul, which as a boy, in that time in a country town, did not work in his favour.
I am so happy things have changed; I am so happy that we have progressed so much.
Sam and I explored that connection more, and as I had always told him, it would never work, I want to make it clear that I was not giving in to Sam, after that spiking incident, he never wronged me again, and was my most trusted ally and confidant. I took many lessons from that encounter, Sam learnt that the fantasy of who you want, may not be the expectation you build in your mind, and I learnt that there are many kinds of love, in many situations.
I started focusing on my artwork very deeply during that regenerative time. I painted, and auditioned for bands and writers as a singer, at one point landing a gig, where I would be flown overseas, at that time manufactured bands, by producers were all the rage. I declined in the end, I did not want to sing someone else’s music and I just wanted to float for a while, without any pressure from anyone or anything.
Through art, I started to find my way again, but it was so hard… and so painful still. I had a new flatmate move in, she was a girl I studied with, but it was not working out, she was leaving piles of dishes under the couch, and was a downright nightmare to live with. I drew the line one night when she started having get togethers at my house, of people that were always causing trouble, I did not want hard drugs and drama in my home.
Her mother arrived, saying that she should be allowed to have whoever she wants at the house, and that said to me “ just because you had an abortion”… that cut me so deep, how were women, so cruel to one another, I felt like I had no one on my side, I was just the slut who got knocked up, no one ever highlighted that I was with a man in his 20’s, and the abuses I endured, it seemed to be the general consensus that I “Should of known better”.
I dealt with my trauma in an unhealthy way, I did channel it in my artwork, on a very vicarious level, it was pretty dark, a series I will be re-creating at a later date, complete with the originals from that chapter in my life. What was unhealthy, was my complete avoidance of any trigger that made me think of what happened, from certain music (I could not listen to crowded house for years!) to certain locations.
I actually spent a lot of time alone, in an abandoned quarry, I would climb the granite rocks nearby, often only for rock climbers, I had one day where I pushed it too far and got stuck, it had started to rain, and the surface was so smooth, with no more pieces of rock sticking out for me to grab. But all this risky behaviour got me through, I pushed myself mentally and physically, I did not stop moving.
That anger and energy had to go somewhere.
A softer memory was picking freesias along the road, on the way to that quarry, still my favourite flower to this day, that flower holds so much significance to me always, every time I smell them, I am me at seventeen.
You may be thinking that this has been a heavy read so far, but don’t feel bad for me, because this was the catalyst for the biggest adventures of my life, had this never happened, I don’t think I would have taken the risks and leaps that I have.
Did I ever confront Gabriel or his family? No, I did not… but, when opportunity came knocking, I was turning eighteen and needed a proof of age card, it needed to be signed by a witness in a position of authority, so I called Gabriel’s mother who was very shocked to hear from me, in fact she almost sounded scared.
I told her she would be meeting me at a local shopping centre, and the least she could do was sign those forms, I mean, wouldn’t they rather I were far away so that their dirty secrets would stay hidden…you better believe she met me there and begrudgingly signed those forms.
That chapter of my life was ending, and it was exciting, it was freeing.
It was a dark coming of age, but knowing me, it could never have gone any other way! I still carry with me something Gabriel’s lead singer said, when being idealistic about his own relationship, that Gabriel aspired to so much, that he constantly held me to that expectation. He said that “you will go through stages of, I like you, I love you, I hate you, I like you, I love you” and he is not wrong, I have lived by this.
I am also gloating when I say, the horrible lead singer and his girlfriend broke up, the band broke up, and Gabriel is now balding and overweight, not exactly the rock god he told everyone he was destined to be.
Isn’t natural revenge a bitch.
Why did I suddenly need this proof of age card? Well, I had discovered Yahoo chat, and the world just expanded… my flatmate had a computer and was the most tech minded of us all that time, he suggested I distract myself with chatting to people, and so I did.
I had been talking to an international student, who lived in the city, he was spontaneous and suggested he drive down to see me, I thought, why not! We were worlds apart, which was very apparent to me, when a few hours into the five hour drive he called me from a fuel station, freaking out because he felt like he was in a horror movie and he was lucky just to have reception, he just assumed that the fuel stations would be 24 hours like in the movies.
To the city slickers reading this, Australian country stores, close at like…5pm.
Luckily, we could fill up a jerry can, and drive over to meet him there, I ended up going with one of the goody two shoes from school, who still to this day likes to say to me “remember that time in high school you did XYZ”. Bless her Sunday school socks!
My friend was so scared to be meeting this stranger that I had found on yahoo chat, and back then meeting people online was the thing of Opera murder specials, but as all my significant connections with people go, it was instant, I am not about the slow burns.
This is why I have always believed that those who enter your life, through instant connections, no matter for how long, are meant to show you something. I have never said no to them.
Enter “Raymond”
He was a breath of fresh air to me, fresh ideas, open minded and well-travelled, he was an international student from Jakarta, and was half Javanese half Norwegian… he had beauty and charisma to spare!
That was a true soul connection, an instant recognition, I left everything I owned and everyone I knew, and moved in with him a week later, all the way to the big smoke.
He was fiercely protective over me, and I was fragile… He used to call me his “Southern girl” after the incubus song of the same title. My life changed overnight and became pure adventure! I had just turned eighteen, and took life by the balls, squeezing those motherfuckers as tight as I could.
That was one of the deepest infatuations I have ever had, even now, all these years later, we discussed regularly how we felt deep in our bones, that we had met in other lives, across time and multiverses, many times over. I would love falling asleep on the floor of our apartment, while he sat up all night editing photos, he was a media student, and we would discuss art for hours.
The one consistent issue though in our relationship was the lack of boundaries, we had to much fun, and got into too much trouble, and the type I cannot publish.
We found ourselves involved in the elite swinger’s scene, and the surreal world we were living in felt like it was always moving further away from any form of “normal”. We partied a few days a week and would attend the adult parties of B grade celebrities, and the city elite every few weeks.
I have a magical memory of spending the night with Raymond at the house of a couple we made friends with, one of them coincidently holding a position of authority in Raymond’s university at the time. It was the early hours of the morning, and the sun was just rising, as we floated on our backs, in the huge swimming pool, with the pink and orange clouds reflecting on the water.
Cracks began to show during our trips to his home in Jakarta, I could never see myself fitting in to his life there, and even though we were engaged by this point, I knew deep down that this connection would eventually run its course.
Raymond’s mum was descended from the Royal family in Solo, and his father was an engineer for huge ships, they lived in a world that I, from my humble upbringing in the bush, just could not fathom. Our last trip together was the final nail in the coffin, we had attended the party of one of his friends, Raymond asked me to try and watch what I said during my time there, which told me right away, that I was not going to like it! People in his circle already felt that Australians were too crass, too rough around the edges, but I was not going to change who I am.
This was really brought to my attention when Raymond and I were having lunch one day with his parents, and his father said “Can’t you do better than her”… that said it all really, I was growing tired of being asked who my family was, or what I was studying at university, by people who made it clear they did not mix with riff raff, and were either very wealthy, celebrities of some kind, or the kids of politicians.
So back to this dinner…
I am not going to sugar coat it; this girl was not my kind of person. I found her entitlement hard to stomach, we walked into her party for her to say that she had made all the food herself, only to find our way to the kitchen and see multiple maids doing everything… including all the cooking. Raymond and I decided we were going to buy cigarettes, and while chatting with the maids, one decided to join us.
When we got back, all hell broke loose, the girl who hosted the party, starting yelling at her maid saying, “how dare you think that you can talk to my friends”. By this stage the ick was strong, and I had enough, this girl ended up moving to Australia and becoming the aid of a certain very unpopular Prime Minister… goes to show why politicians are so out of touch with the average Joe.
Knowing how put off I was by this, Raymond asked me to accompany him to another of his friend’s houses, because she was an artist, and I might feel like I can relate more in that setting. We arrived at her mansion in one of the most expensive areas of Jakarta, and my heat sank a little, I chuckle as I think back to her giving me the struggling artist spiel, in her full loft bedroom in her parents’ house, and offering me a chai tea, only to snap her fingers for her maid to go and prepare it.
While Raymond never cared that I didn’t come from the same background, I could see my future flashing before my eyes, I would end up working admin or some job in his father’s company, and live in Raymond’s artistic shadow, which I will be honest in saying, was built on his position of privilege and connections more than anything else (yes boys and girls, sometimes it is who you know).
I had made up my mind, and it was a rough break-up, he was rightfully really hurt, but I wanted a simpler life, I wanted to be allowed to be me.
Of course, there were incredible times, amazing people I met, but they are all stories for another time, I would have to title it “the Jakarta files”.
He did get over it, met someone new, from the same background as him, and they would call me every now and then to ask me things like “how do I cook a potato” no word of a lie!
Raymond and I stayed in touch for a long time, we still occasionally speak, and we did see each other again about ten years ago. I was in Bali already and he asked me to make the trip over to Jakarta for a few days, I immediately was reminded of why I don’t ever return to that place, and he was gloating hard! He had become somewhat of a celebrity, and was living the life he always wanted, he reminds me so much of Barny from How I met your mother, wearing full three-piece suits, in the suffocating Jakarta heat.
Raymond made it very clear to me on my arrival, that there was no way that I could bring up who he was when he lived in Australia, he had manufactured a whole new life, and the people who did hear about me, thought that his stories could not be true, and when I arrived they wanted to meet me, to prove that I was in fact, a real person. I was happy to see that he had achieved all that he wanted, and while I feel like he wanted me there just to prove a point to me, because it seemed like we had a competitive dance from the start, and I did deeply hurt him all those years earlier.
I mean… we had a wedding date set, and a Ruth Tarvydas wedding dress, hanging in the wardrobe.
He was driving me back to the airport, when he asked me about the book I had been writing for a few years already, but never took seriously… and he said to me “Don’t think I am going to give you a happy ending just for your book” fair dig… I deserved that.
As a twist of fate, a French girl that I had met during my stay, later became his wife, this is relevant for later in this story.
I had been drifting around for a little while after I broke it off with Raymond, we remained friends and I am grateful for that, he was always there for me. I had moved into my own bedsit apartment in the heart of the city, and went on a deep solitary journey, I woke up alone in that tiny apartment, lay in the bath all day reading, and spent my nights working as an exotic dancer.
I really needed that time alone, and to find out who I really was, who I wanted to be, I had been through so much over that few years.
I always found myself in trouble during my time in the city, and especially while working at the club, I met one young man who at first would pay me to ditch work and just hang out with him, he was not much older than me, and had severe anxiety, we would just hang out and talk all night.
I was still very naive at this stage, and it took me a while to realise that some things were a bit off, the main one that stood out to me, was being out one night and a man tried to start talking to me, my friend from the club walked over, and this guy just profusely apologised and almost ran… that was weird I thought.
I was also getting in trouble at the club for being friends with him, and I had no idea why. It was not until I was hanging out with him at his swanky apartment, and noticed fast food bags everywhere, and had a go at him about cleaning up after himself that it started to make more sense. He told me to open one of the bags… and I did… it was not burgers… I will tell you that.
The other girls at the club also told me to stay away from him, but he was always nice to me, and he always told me I didn’t belong there, he had no ulterior motive, and I only ever heard him speak of wanting to look after his mother and younger brother. The last time I saw him I was waiting for a taxi one night, and saw a motorbike stopping and starting, weaving, and jerking. He had just bought it and was a terrible driver, it really was a comical site.
He asked me how I was, and said he had something to help me out, before giving me around eight hundred dollars as a parting gift, he just wanted me to be safe and happy, and that was another kind of love I think, the platonic love of people who want the best for each other and who have been through really hard times.
I went on to hear alleged things he had done, and I have always hoped they are not true.
The club started to go under, which was not surprising, the owner also owned another of the city’s biggest clubs and was either using it as a tax write off, or just had too high expectations, something like spearmint rhino, would never hold up here, it was too expensive.
How I wish I could reveal the people I saw in that club, and the events that went down there, but that is another thing I cannot publish.
I did not know what I wanted to do after I finished up at the club, I tried marble laying for a time, and I was not built for that! So, I ended up renting a room off Raymond, and going back to my roots, I focused on art again, and I lived a much simpler drama free life.
Around this time, a new journey was brewing, and as I said earlier, my connections with people are always like a lightning bolt. I was at one of my sister’s gigs, she is a musician and was known for her wild shindigs. I was still heavily polished, in my sleek black skirt, and black long sleeve top… a far cry from the country girl who lived in rossi boots and flannel shirts.
And there he was, a circus performer, roving amongst the crowed and contact juggling those acrylic balls, like in David Bowie’s Labyrinth. He wore black suit pants and a black suit vest, with thick wild black curly hair.
I am going to call him Pablo for the purpose of this story.
I asked around for his phone number and asked him out. It was another of those situations where things are meant to transpire, and we drank wine and smoked at the park, we cooked a lot, and went to the best, most heartfelt house parties, I could be unkept and wear long bohemian skirts, spending my days sewing and making art, it was a real time of hiding away and finding comfort, finding a way back to nature too.
He had the most unconventional and interesting upbringing, his mother was from Egypt and his father from Sweden, they were both very left of field and had separated when he was still a child. His father was a bit of a local fixture, selling his paintings out the front of his heritage building apartment, and his mother had done a stint in the Sannyasins, and at one point had tried to gather up some local women in my hometown, along with many different animals for a pilgrimage into the desert.
I loved how free my life was at that point in time, we were squatting in an art space with many others at the time, and everyone would go dumpster diving for food and then we would cook together, I will never forget the haul of boxes and boxes of kinder chocolates one day! We were always meeting new people, from other artists to groups running different protests, or advocating for all kinds of social issues. It was a real community.
Pablo and I had a daughter together, and while the relationship did not last, due to many issues he could not overcome and weighed to heavily on me, my beautiful daughter was the clear reason for that connection, it was also the bringing of myself back to my roots, to who I was before trauma and becoming someone I did not know, in a world I did not belong in.
Never one who does things by halves, I then met the man who would become my husband, and again into a completely foreign world… literally.
I was on holiday with my parents in Bali, and they wanted to visit a friend of theirs, a friend whose photo sat on the front of their fridge for years. We gravitated towards each other instantly, which like many of the segments contained in this piece, would need its own story all together.
I moved to Bali for a time, and worked for an Australian company for a while, it was a far cry from the experience I had in Jakarta, and rather than flash houses and hotels, I rented a tiny single room in a block of accommodation, it had bare concrete walls and only had room for a single bed, at one stage we even rented the back store room next to the laundry in a rundown bedsit, and lived there… it was hard, but we made it work.
Times were challenging for us, and we always maintained that we could have nothing, and live on the street as long as we had each other. After great difficulty, and working incredibly hard, he was granted permission to leave his village (being Bali Aga, the indigenous Balinese, leaving the village does not happen often) we got married, and had a son together, I learnt a lot during my marriage and we gave it our best for many years, but we could not make it work, I could not be the reserved wife I was expected to be after marriage, and while the love was there and we gave it many more chances even after the divorce, sometimes love Is not enough to stay together, but you can still have that love and respect for someone you share a child with.
My son is the most empathetic, emotionally intelligent boy, and he was meant to be in this world, just as my girls are.
It would seem that cartwheeling around like the four armed, four-legged, round being with two faces, from Plato’s symposium, was not meant for me. Zeus had not only split me in two but thrown my other half to the bottom of the ocean.
But, by this stage I was alright with that. I had learnt to know myself more than ever, and I spent a period of time in what is known as “The dark night of the soul” something I had not thought about for at least ten years, when I bought a book on the subject to read on a plane, and at eighteen did not really understand it in its deepest sense.
This is where I was faced with connections in a different way.
I was enjoying where I was in life, I had done some serious reflection over the years prior and was focused more than ever on new artistic ventures. I was cooking beautiful food, created a haven in my home, and was content going to bed every night with my dingo kelpie, Sophie, an animal as damaged as I was. She would get into bed every night, under the blankets and all, her head on the pillow, and howl at me until I got in with her.
It was then that I met my current partner, at a party that I had dropped in to by chance with my best friend from high school. There was an instant connection, but nothing like the ones I had ever had prior. This was an instant connection based on bickering.
We did not get along!
I had most likely been giving him some unintentional dirty looks from across the room because he looked like an ex of mine from a distance, and I was ready to leave that party! I realised it wasn’t my ex and headed over to make my apologies and explain myself.
I am going to call him Pierre (I know that will drive him crazy, sorry babe, I love you).
Pierre, looked over his glass of wine and replied “I thought you were giving me dirty looks, I just said to my friend, either I look like this girls ex, or I slept with her and never called her” …I was a little taken back, he just threw it right out there. He then went on to tell me I look like I come from (insert bohemian harbour town here) to which I replied I did…and I said the same to him about one of my least favourite snobby suburbs, to which he replied, “I do come from there”.
Oh no, nope, no thanks.
I could not help but ask if he was Indonesian, his resemblance to my ex was quite uncanny, Pierre then told me he was French with mixed parents. And just the way he looked over his glasses at me with a glare when he told me he was French, I just thought…” this guy is full of himself”.
Eight weeks later we were saying we love each other and were having a baby, that was almost four years ago now.
But here is what happened in between.
I refused to say goodbye to Pierre when I left the party, and he made the biggest scene screaming out “Bye Jess!!!!!, byeeeeeeee!” while waving frantically.
We started talking after that party, and discovered we had a lot in common, he had grown up all over the world, and had lived in Jakarta as a child, going to the same French school as Raymond’s wife! our arguments ramped up in a mix of English and Indonesian now! And we would really give it to each other. Something I liked was that he was never precious about anything, I could say whatever I wanted, and it was water off a duck’s back.
It was a whole new kind of love and connection I had not yet experienced, especially how reliable he is, yes, giving me times down to the minute, of how far away he was for dates… was a bit serial killerish… but he always did what he said he was going to.
I had a serious talk with myself, in the early days of that relationship. That I would be the best version of myself, and I would have to make a conscious decision to put all past traumas aside, to catch myself out for all my distrust, or need to always want “out”. I did not want to make someone else pay for the treatment I had received from others before him.
It has not all been perfect either, and anyone that knows us, knows that we argue like rabid dogs, at times it has been crunchy, crunchy unripe powdery green bananas, difficult. But no matter what has happened, we always come back together, and eventually we will talk it out, when we have both calmed down.
We have both been through deep trauma, me from past abuses, and him from an extremely dysfunctional and toxic family… so we have had to do a sometimes cripplingly exhausting, dance of working around the others hang-ups and sore points. Sometimes just saying “I love you, but I don’t agree or understand what you do, and you are pissing me off” has to be enough.
As one friend said to us in the beginning “I am so glad you guys found each other, because you are both very difficult people” as he walked out the door.
He is not wrong.
Pierre and I have strong personalities and strong views on things, that can be completely opposite, for instance, he thinks that most art is a load of wank, and I think that the gym is full of people that look like sad rats in a wheel.
Does Pierre still come to exhibitions with me? Yes, he does, he even uses his tradesman skills to help me troubleshoot issues that may arise with my metalsmithing journey.
Have I been to the gym?… well technically yes, I take our daughter to the playground sometimes while he there working out, begrudging tipping sand out of my leather shoes, while trying not to spill my fourth coffee, and wearing head to toe velvet or corduroy, in a sea of parents in activewear.
Ever seen that show Dharma and Greg? Well, that is us.
My point is, connections are so incredibly complex, and sometimes we don’t know why they work, because on paper they really shouldn’t. I have come to enjoy our debates over our completely different views, it keeps me on my toes. I like that if I call him or ask him to do something, no matter how inconvenient, he will do it for me.
Including buying me art supplies, from a shop in the middle of the city, on the second floor of a building, situated on the busiest one-way street, that has zero parking.
He doesn’t have to understand my passions, but he does support them.
I used to think that people needed to be mirror images of each other, they needed to be that perfect missing half, but I no longer do. Here is why.
I had met a friend of Pierre, briefly at a party, we only spoke for a short while before we both said, “another Aries!?” not only were we both Aries, but both Aries fire tigers. I did not see him again until maybe a year later and did not give much thought to it.
A few weeks after that last meeting, he messaged Pierre and me, saying that we all need to hang out more. Deep down I knew why, he dressed it up as a connection between himself, his partner and Pierre and I, but I felt the connection and knew where this was going.
I am going to call him Frank, in this story.
Frank came over without his girlfriend, she was also a friend of Pierre, and they had all known each other for a very long time… I was not surprised that she had no part of this. Of course, frank and I had a lot in common, from our political and ethical views to music and art. He was a musician and artist himself, with a particular interest in philosophy, the occult, and the ancient world. On paper… my other half…the other side of that round supernatural being cartwheeling up the stairs to Olympus to challenge the gods.
We grew very close, I would have said that he was one of my dearest friends, and we knew each other better than anyone else. We would go to the beach at six in the morning to talk philosophy, spend nights drinking in the park and debating politics and picking each other’s entire psychology apart.
A friend of mine even commented that we looked alike in some ways, we both have the same green eyes and disapproving glare, is my guess.
What about Pierre? He knew all about Frank, I told him what was happening and that I had made this connection and it had become really complicated, Pierre just laughed, and had no issue with it, he liked that I had someone close to me that could entertain the intellectual and emotional needs that did not interest him, and that he knew he could not provide to me.
He also enjoyed watching Frank and I turn ourselves in complicated, highly emotionally charged knots.
There was one significant event that happened during that time, where a very old friend of mine had passed away, and I was called out of the blue, to attend her funeral. It really threw me; I still think about it a great deal. She was another one of the lost kids, from my past and I just couldn’t get it out of my mind. The more I learnt about her struggles and the events of her life, after I moved away, the more down a rabbit hole I seemed to fall.
It was not just my regrets at not trying harder to find her, when I had thought of her so much over the years, but it brought back a lot of traumas from my late teens, things I had not thought about for a long time.
Pierre is not great with emotional situations, and he is open about that, he does not have those tools. He was grateful that I had Frank to turn to, and I spent a lot of time sitting in Franks old ute, drinking with him, and trying to untangle my mind.
I also think Pierre knew that when two children of Mars start playing with fire, they are both going to get burnt.
My relationship with Frank became incredibly strained, not because we would argue, but because of the lack of contrast, it was endless circles, we were just too alike. I may as well of just been having a conversation with myself.
I had never had a connection with anyone as significant as this one, and neither had Frank, which caused him great inner conflict. He had been with his partner for fourteen years, and while he told me he had been honest with her, during the many times I asked about how transparent this was, I later found out that was not the case.
We quickly discovered that we had the power to really hurt each other, and I know for myself, that I was becoming emotionally exhausted by our interactions. We would have fall outs and then gravitate straight back to one another, like a moth to a damn flame, we just could not seem to maintain the distance, and by this time he was my closest friend.
The influence we had on one another started to feel toxic, the constant enabling of one another’s bad habits and traits, was also becoming a problem. There seemed to be no texture in this situation, it was just one big smooth mirror.
Our last conversation was rough, I spoke words that I knew would erase Frank from my life forever, but I couldn’t stop them from leaving my mouth. Frank was a firm believer in meaning what you say, and if I ever said anything hurtful, he would take it hard. I said… “I wish I never met you” at the end of out last conversation.
Deep down I think that was what I really meant, I was never going to leave Pierre and he always knew exactly what was happening, him and Frank still hung out almost as much as Frank and I did. But it was causing issues in my own head, by holding my current relationship to the standard of connection I had with Frank, even though I know a relationship with him would never work.
Frank, wanting to make it work with his partner, was deeply conflicted with the feelings he held for me, because connections like what we had are rare, that was a connection that transcended to another world on a spiritual plane.
What some may call a twin flame, without the toxic connotations that are associated with the label.
Towards the end I asked Frank, why he ever made so much effort to seek me out in the start, and after a long time he finally admitted, “I just felt like I needed to be in your life”.
This was out of character for him, and it was a constant conflict, I know how much it played on his mind, and mine too. It does not have the sexual element you all may be thinking either, that was never part of the motivation and not what this was about.
It was sad when it ended, I won’t lie. But I also felt relief in being able to calm my life and surroundings, I also felt proud of how I handled things, how I made peace with letting go and severing the tie, but I was most hurt by seeing that the person I held in such high regard, was not who I thought he was, not who he said he was and not even to the same standard in which he held me, and my actions.
I say this because of his lack of honesty with his partner, and when she confronted Pierre, I think she was surprised to know that he had always known, we all just assumed that she did too. I was also proud of how Pierre handled the situation, how he defended me, and saw it from all angles.
But most of all it made me really reconstruct how I see connections, love, and relationships. Pierre, knowing he couldn’t meet some of my needs, gave me the freedom to explore them elsewhere, which worked to both our benefit, and he saw this. Maybe one person cannot be everything all the time, but what matters is that you are “home” to that other person, the place where at the end of the day, your loyalties lay.
That you care enough, to make sure your partner’s needs are met, even if you cannot meet them yourself.
I learnt a lot during that interaction with Frank, I learnt that finding your other half is not always the best thing for you, that looking into a mirror, reflecting back at you, all your worst traits and all the same views, does not promote growth.
Maybe your other half, is the one who lets you go, but leaves the door open for you to return, who challenges you to difficult and uncomfortable situations and ideas, the person who makes you find acceptance and understanding, with ideas you do not necessarily resonate with.
The person who can sit back and laugh, at those two children of fire, burning everything to the ground and then lick their wounds in wallowing.
Frank always commented on the not-so-great points in my relationship with Pierre, but in the end, I learnt that Frank and his partner had been the ones to separate, while Pierre and I continue to work on our relationship and our own connection.
Do we still fight like rabid dogs? … It may have upgraded to rabid cats now, but we always skulk back to one another, make some lame sarcastic joke, until one of us breaks the ice and backs down, which speaking of cats, is just like those videos you see, where one cat bites the other, antagonising for a response, to then holding it in a headlock and tenderly licking its face.
Connections are complicated, multi-faceted, and heavily nuanced with no firm rules.
If it works it works, and that is enough.
We can have connections with many people over our life, with each of them teaching us lessons, connections with people that do not need to be an everlasting presence in our world. Maybe for some of us, it is not just half a body that we are searching for, with two sets of arms and two sets of legs that we need to reassemble, but a body that is a jumble of many arms tangled together, and many legs that move in all directions.
