volume one hundred and fifty-one
this used to be that
📍Written from Gadigal Country, in the glow of my laptop as the sun was still in bed.
🎤 Upcoming Shows: ✨HIBERNATION PERIOD IS OVER AS OF JULY! ✨
Funny Coast Comedy at Solbar, Maroochydore - July 2nd, 7:00pm
My breathing is deep. Heavy. There is a familiar weight to it I have not long enough forgotten. I realise I have taken the wrong exit off the tram line. Too distracted. I look both ways and cross back over the lines then make my way up the tall staircase. The child being held by their grandmother in front of me sobs and points at my face — clearly not impressed with it.
I call him. Like I said I would when I got here. So he can come and meet me. I look at the time his call came in. It’s been fifty minutes. He said he needed an hour. I said I’d be forty minutes. Here we are meeting in the middle.
I am hoping he will say he has gone home. That he decided not to stick it out. That he wasn’t feeling up to it. He answers and my heart sinks. My voice is cheery because he will match my energy. “Yeah, I am still here,” he says.
“Where is here? I have no idea where you are.” I want to be angry.
“I’m around the area. I’ve just been killing time until you got here. Where are you? I will come to you.”
But I’m not angry. I am sad. But I am not sad for me.
Three minutes later, there he is. I recognise his jacket first. I love that jacket. It makes me feel safe. He gets closer and I see he is wearing the shirt I gave him. I soften a little. My annoyance less. My compassion more.
He reaches his arms out to hug me and I return the arms but turn my head. He knows and he says “I know, I am so sick so I won’t…” and his head turns away from me.
“I really think you should go home if you’re that sick. You said it’s the sickest you’ve ever felt.”
“No, I want to see you,” he says. Multiple times. As he looks at me. But I am not sure what he sees because I am not sure he sees me. “Come on! Let’s go in! I’ll be alright!” he pulls at my arm like an excited child.
“Well, we cannot go in yet. They do not open the doors for another half an hour. Are you sure you just don’t want to go home? We can see each other through the week. You said this is the worst you have ever felt. I think it would be better if you went home to rest. Sleep it off.”
I am testing him. His words don’t match his eyes and his story doesn’t match his mood.
“No. It’s an hour. I can make it through an hour.”
“It’s two, actually. We have to get through security, store our bags, and go over everything before the show starts.”
“So let’s go in!”
“We can’t yet, the doors aren’t…”
“I’m alright.”
You can’t bullshit a bullshitter.
“How about we go for a walk then, to fill the time?” He isn’t going home and we aren’t getting into a locked building. “Maybe the fresh air will help you feel better. Do you need anything?”
“No. I just want to leave it to do its thing.”
We walk up the block and it occurs to us that this is a street we took together hundreds of times in another lifetime when we’d leave work together, or he’d come to pick me up from my other job, or we would head out for a bite or a drink. We don’t say that though. We say things like,
I don’t even recognise this place anymore.
What is this new building?
This used to be that.
Remember when we saw that celebrity in that shop?
This intersection has been extended.
It feels bigger.
We walk another block further. Then another.
“Woah!” he laughs, as we approach the place where we spent many nights and stayed until many mornings. There is a live band and a cowgirl belts out a familiar tune that makes the traffic and conversation on the street disappear. There are a lot of happy people laughing, singing, dancing, stumbling. For a second, a very brief second, I miss it.
Then I see how many of them are a certain kind of customer.
“Remember this place?” he asks me excitedly and for a moment I think he is going to ask me if I want to go in. For a moment I do think he intends to ask me, then changes his mind, remembering.
I want to remind him of the text he sent me in 2018. When he went there after almost a decade and the bouncer asked where I was. Well, that’s not what he asked. He asked where was his beautiful girl and he told me that could only mean me. He told me how much he misses me at times like this.
Instead — “Let’s cross one more street, I want to look over the side of the bridge at the harbour. Then we can turn around and walk back. Be back in time for the doors to open.”
He is looking a little more energised. He is talking a little more like himself.
We pause at the bridge with our arms crossed in front of us and let the railing take both of our weight. I talk to him like I want to. I tell him stories I know he will forget and yet I want him to know anyway because he’s the one I want to tell. I want to share them with him. We laugh. I check the time. We leave and head back.
“I am feeling better,” he says. I know it's only temporary. But I am glad I stuck it out.
It’s much darker out than when we first met. I’m grateful to hide in the low light. I ask about his work. I ask if that is why he might be feeling unwell. I know it’s not. He tells me things that tell his same old story.
“You think you’re invincible, then? Is that it?”
“I feel twenty years old.”
“Yeah,” I reply sarcastically. “So do I!”
He laughs from his belly. Not the mocking laugh. The “I love you” laugh. He wraps his arms around me. I look down where I am walking to make sure neither of us loses our steps.
“The last time we walked on these very stones together,” I say brightly, as I tap them with my toes one by one in a dance of memory after blurred memory, “I actually was twenty years old.”
Sitting in the back row of the show, every few minutes, when there has been a break in his laughter, I steal a glimpse of him, wondering if he is okay. I will never stop worrying about him.
He’s holding it together. For me.
Lovely reader, head into the comments and tell me about a walk.
here are three things i struggled with this week:
✨ Getting what I want and then having to follow through.
🐾 A dog that will not stop very very closely following me around. I should be flattered, instead I am asking him for space like he understands my words.
🥖 I stress-ate too many things I shouldn’t and now I am saying thanks to my body which is fighting very hard to keep me pain-free.
here are three blessings from this week:
🧸 Choosing.
🍰 Market gluten-free, dairy-free lemon and poppyseed cake with thick icing and flower garnish.
☔ Torrential rain and a creative mood.
here are three goals for the coming week:
🌮 Cook my meals and eat what I am supposed to.
🖋️ Meet the exciting deadline.
🐕 Thank the dog for loving me so much.
pics or it didn’t happen:
I love you. Now I am off to visit the people who make me an aunty, and play with them during the school holidays.
When the chapter started I immediately knew what it was going to be about weirdly. I saw it and felt it. Beautifully written friend 😘
All the feels! I loved this 💜