It is True

(From the archive again, first published 23 Oct 2003) It isn't the same anymore, I know that. They have pulled it all down and they have rebuilt it, but when I walk into the stands on friday afternoon I will know that it is the same place. It is a different game, a different crowd and I am living a different life but I will feel her sitting there. Every sunday with the other wives and girlfriends, she sat there. Sometimes she laughed and cheered and sometimes she ran down the stairs and through the tunnel and rode in the ambulance. He would hold her hand and tell her that she was all that he had. She felt needed. They would patch him up and he would go out and play the stupid game again. Sometimes she wore makeup and sometimes that wasn't enough and she wore sunglasses. He told her that she was all he had, she felt trapped, but she felt needed, I think, but I am not sure. She seems like a stranger, in fact I think I had almost forgotten that she even existed, until my mother called that day in February to tell me the news and at first I wasn't a bit surprised. I think I had been expected a call something like that, all this time. Suddenly there she was. Standing with me wherever I went. I could feel her thoughts and her pain and her anger and frustration. She told me the stories and all the things that happened and she made me cry and she made me remember. I tried to tell her to go away but she wouldn't leave. She told me where the negatives were and I went into the cupboard and sorted through the boxes. I don't know why I had kept them all this time. So I took the small folded paper packet the the 1 hour photos booth. I must have expected the pictures to print out old and worn as if they had been tossed around in the bottom of a box for twenty years because when they gave me the prints, still warm and a little bit tacky, I had to sit down to calm my shaking because she stared back at me with the freshness of yesterday and I was startled by her youth. She barely looked familiar to me at all and had I seen her on the street I would have walked straight past. I looked at her with pity because I knew things she didn't and I knew she wasn't prepared for what was going to happen. Then I looked at her with anger at all the stupid choices that she made and I wanted to tell her she had no right to do the things she did. Then I looked at her with pride because I knew that despite everything she was stronger than she knew and would fight her way out of the pit that she had dug and she would stand here one day looking back. So tomorrow I will walk back into those grounds, that is where I left her. That last time she spoke to him was there, she said goodbye to him, threw the sunglasses into the bin and turned and walked away. I thought that I could forget her but I knew I would not forget him. It is true that I hate him for what he did to her, it is true that I remember that she loved him. It is true that he killed himself in February and it is true that I do not understand why it makes me cry.

Fish and Chips - Three, 3.

I can’t really remember the guy's face, instead I remember someone else’s and I put it there on his shoulders. He is sitting in the back seat, drunk. You are sober, controlled but I feel your anger simmer next to me like a hidden ember. We are driving home after a club night at the pub. He is joking, being crude and I laugh. I can feel a change in the air, resentment building, I am tired of it and continue to laugh. The car stops and you order him out, we drive away leaving him there on the side of the road. I am shocked but I say nothing. Later after we have settled to watch tv in your room, you stand up and announce you will be back later. You drive out and pick your friend up from where he is walking home and quietly deliver him back to his place. You tell me that neither of you spoke and I mustn’t say anything about it again. For the first time I realise there is an angry side of you that I have never seen before. It is so crowded, Joan Armatrading blasts across the room, I scan the room for people I know and see Brett at a table, he waves, I squeeze my way through the crowd, I am always happy to see him, we laugh and chat. I feel a hand around my arm, tight. “We are leaving” you say. I try to say goodbye, I am pulled from the room, I protest, “We just got here”. Outside I am angry, I don’t want to leave. The backhand across my cheek is a total shock, I fall down and try and stumble away, we argue more, I want to go back inside, but pride stops me, I cannot go in with marks on my face and mud on me. I let myself be pushed into the car and we are leaving. I am stunned; I cannot believe this has happened. We argue in the car, you accuse me of being a slut and tell me that you have heard a story about me from a guy who I dated a few times before I met you. The story is partly true but I am so shocked at this guy being such an arsehole and talking about me like that, that I deny it. You know I am lying and you pull over on the side of the road and hit me hard in the face. I get out of the car but when I realise that we are miles from anywhere I hesitate and you grab me and push me back into the car before you drive home in silence. I am in complete shock and am shaking uncontrollably, I try to crouch in the car until we get back to your place where I eventually meekly follow you inside and crawl into bed because it is freezing cold and I think I have no choice. In the morning when I wake up I am reeling with shock, I am horrified ashamed and terrified. I want somebody to tell me everything will be okay and when I finally brave to show my face in the kitchen I see them look at me then look away, they draw away from me as if I have a disease. Nobody speaks to me, finally later, your mother says “But what did you say to him?” I open my mouth to try to explain to her that it wasn’t justified but the accusing look in her eye makes me realise that I will get no support here. I tell you it is over once I have convinced you to drive me back to my flat. You beg my forgiveness and cry and promise me you will never ever lose your temper like that again. I can’t explain now why I believed you or why I wanted to believe you so much. You let me drag you around the shops and choose your jacket and your shoes; you want me to be proud of you. We buy some clothes that are like what I have seen my sister’s boyfriend wearing. You really don't scrub up too badly. I don’t remember how I feel, except that I am touched that you are trying so hard for me. This is my graduation. I drink and laugh and maybe I have a good time and perhaps not, I don’t remember but in the photos we are smiling. I have a clear memory of thinking that I couldn’t imagine life without football; I am all the All Whites ground. I guess when you put on your jersey and ran onto the field you were happiest. You were very good; you would just push yourself so hard and never care how much it hurt. I remember looking at you lying on my bed after a game. You are bruised all over. You are in agony. I just cannot understand how you can do this to yourself. It makes me feel distanced from you, like part of your life I cannot share; at that time we are sharing everything else. I think a lot about ending our relationship but there seem to be so many reasons not to. I look at you as you lay sleeping and you look so much older than me yet so helpless. I give in, in the end, to my need to be needed. I hate the thought of you playing against Brett’s team. I am terrified you will hurt him; you pay him out and tell me he is “a poofter”. I decide to ignore you, when we get back to the flat one afternoon he has just taken Nadia to “our” restaurant. I am shattered. I cannot let you see this, I hate myself for still caring about him when he cut me off the way he did. I don’t understand why he has to torture me by hanging around and looking at me with accusing eyes. I know I will never be good enough for him any more. I still love him and you know it. I deny it because I think I have no choice. I go to Brisbane with you for your sign on meeting. You take me into the clubhouse with you and they treat me like I am your wife, I am 18 years old. They tell us how much we will love it there. That this suburb is like a big country town so we will feel at home. We are really excited! They tell you they will organise a share house for you with some other team members and a job for you as well. It seems to good to be true. You sign for the agreed fee, and today is the first day of the rest of your life. A few weeks later Brett signs with the same club. When you hear about it you look at me with an accusation in your eyes, as if I had planned it all. ................................................................ I cannot understand why I feel the way that I do, after all of this time, surely of all the things I should feel the very first would be relief? Why do I feel as if my heart has been torn from my chest? You were no longer anything to me, or at least you should not have been. The fact you are gone should not make the slightest difference to my life, and yet I just want to cry. So what does this all mean? That I still loved you? That is almost laughable, after all that happened. I am trying so hard to understand this, so I can get past it and feel normal again. The phone just rang. The line was silent. How many times has this happened since I last knew you? I suppose a few, and every time in the back of my mind I have thought that it was you. Well it can’t have been this time, can it? I have to almost laugh at my imagination. Laugh at the conceit of me to even consider that you would have wondered what happened to me; and then cry because I always wondered what happened to you and now I know and I don’t like it.

Happy New Years Resolution!

That's it! My new year's resolution is to be happy! I wish this for anyone who still reads this blog too. Please, be happy and have a fantastic 2008! I have figured out a few things that I need to do to achieve this so I guess these are my new years resolutions: 1. Sit at the computer less. (You may have noticed that I have been doing this already. I now have a handwritten journal that S got me for Christmas. In there I am writing things occasionally and if I ever write anything even marginally reasonable I shall attempt to post it online. I also can draw in my journal which is rather difficult to do on a blog so I am really enjoying that. Actually, so far it is mainly just drawings and very little writing, but I love to draw and it makes me happy, so there you go. One resolution is already working) 2. Get a job. (I have finally come to accept that I am not motivated enough to make a good living running my own business and working by myself all the time. This failure has infact been one of the main reasons I have been feeling so discontent in recent times. Working alone is also dreadfully lonely and although I have my doubts as to whether I am even capable of getting a real job, I really have to give it a go. Please wish me luck and courage. I really need some courage.) 3. Stop giving in to everyone else's demands. (I have started learning to stand up for myself. In the past I have always been such a pacifist that I tend to just do whatever people ask of me even when I don't agree with it, simply to avoid any form of confrontation. I have come to realise that I cannot do that anymore. It simply isn't healthy and it costs too much as well, sometimes in both time and money.) 4. Walk on the beach more, eat smaller meals at night and drink less. (i.e: get fit) 5. Be a better friend. (I am not so good at being a friend. I don't have many, only a few who are extremely important. I don't really think people want to hear from me anyway so I tend to keep to myself. I'd like to have more confidence.) 6. Extend my vege garden. (Ok, that's enough sitting at the keyboard. I am off to dig in the garden....) PS. It would have been M's 48th birthday today, instead, it is about 1 month short of the 5th anniverary of his suicide. I don't dwell on thoughts of him as much anymore but he still lives on in my head and in this blog, for which after all, he was the inspiration.