Author Archives

by

Parlour Tricks

So, I think it’s about time to talk about prostitution.

Why? Well, I very recently was cast in a small role for a television show on ABC, and guess what I was cast as? Yep, that’s right, a prostitute. A protesting prostitute to be exact. When I told my father he joked, “You’re certainly not being typecast, are you?” Considering this is the third role as a prostitute I’ve done, I’m beginning to think I am. Also, an actor friend of mine has just been cast as a prostitute in a play, and as my friends are wont to do she wanted to have a chat about my experiences. It’s something I’m more than happy to do if it informs someone’s art.

But taking into consideration that I tend to use art as a basis for these posts, I guess it’s time to tell that particular story. But first, let me give you a little background.

Very young me

Very young me

I grew up in a South Auckland suburb called Manurewa, which is a low socio-economic area, in a single parent family. I was sexually molested at the age of 5 by a teenage girl who was babysitting me while my mum was at work, and again at 6 by a male boarder at my father’s house when he and his partner were out. I had a rough childhood; my parents both made mistakes while I was growing up that I won’t go into simply because I’ve come to terms with it, and quite frankly, they’re human and are allowed to make mistakes. I have a very good relationship with both of them now and through our honesty with each other, we’ve managed to get passed the past.

I was a sad kid, but a fairly good one. I liked Barbie and cats. I knew I wanted to perform for a job from a very young age. I was intelligent, I did well at school, I didn’t go to parties or get drunk or make a dick of myself. Although I was an emotionally screwed up teenager I did theatre instead of drugs, and had music lessons in lieu of sex. I made a few cock ups here and there, but in the scheme of things, I was an okay child.

As soon as I left school I moved out of home. Things were not great at home, and I was desperate to get out and start the journey towards an acting career. I got a job at a legal firm as a legal secretary to save money to move to Australia, and I lived by myself in a 2 bedroom unit. One week, I couldn’t afford my rent and my car repayments (not surprisingly, considering I was only earning $200 a week), and so I made a decision that changed the course of my life. I became a sex worker.

I struggled with it, hated it even, but I felt I had very little choice. I was working full time and still not earning enough, there was no way I was going to move home, and I didn’t want to get a loan and have more money to pay back. I was earning a lot of money very quickly through prostitution, and suddenly it became the only way I could live. Strangely enough, I felt I belonged somewhere for the first time in my life (other than in the theatre). We were all the same, us working girls. No matter where we came from we all fucked for money, which put us on a level playing field. Coming from a poor family didn’t matter, having divorced parents didn’t matter, being a little bit fat didn’t matter, we were all prostitutes. That can be very empowering.

But still, I hear you ask, why didn’t you get out if you hated it so much? Well, when I find that out I’ll tell you. I had my theories: I was psychologically damaged by the abuse and was trying to get back my power through selling sex instead of having it taken from me; I was punishing myself; I was fulfilling some karmic drama from a previous life; I was avoiding following my dream because I might fail at it – the list goes on and on and on. Quite simply, on a practical level, I needed the money. Money equalled security and independence. If I had my own lucre I wouldn’t need to rely on anyone else. Being financially dependent on someone else meant that they had power over me, by my reasoning, and I wasn’t going to be owned by anyone.

On with the story. (NB “Work” means sex work as opposed to having a “job”.) I moved to Australia just before I turned 19 and auditioned for VCA, failing to get a place. I went back to work for a few months until I got a full time job and a boyfriend. The boyfriend and I broke up 9 months later and the job contract ended, so I went back to work. The boyfriend told my father I was working, so I stopped, went to a doctor and was diagnosed with depression. A couple of suicide attempts later, I started my performing arts degree, met my fiancé and did okay for a year or two.

Then I had a major psychotic break and went insane for a little while. I fucked up. Really fucked up, and learned the ultimate lesson of self-responsibility. I did something really quite unforgivable to myself that hurt the people closest to me and although I was mentally unhinged at the time (I ended up being diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and chronic depression), I couldn’t forgive myself. I worked extraordinarily hard to get over that incident and make amends for what I had done. It was probably the worst time of my life, but also the best in terms of what it taught me. It was then that I vowed to be as honest as I possibly could at all times about everything, as it was the only way to earn back the trust of those I had aggrieved.

Model2

During my working years

Try as we might, however, the fiancé and I couldn’t get past that incident. We tried, really tried because we loved each other, but it just wasn’t meant to be. I met the woman who was to become my girlfriend and one of the greatest loves of my life, the fiancé and I split up, and soon after the girlfriend (also an ex-hooker) and I went back to work. Although I was to jump the desk and become a manager (and jump it again occasionally to make some extra money), I stayed in the industry for another six years. I gave up all thoughts of acting, the band that the ex-fiancé and I had started three years before fell apart, and my life became all about sex work. I was a manager, an escort, a driver for a male escort company, a phone bitch for an escort service, I even cleaned a brothel while I was managing. I did just about every job there is to do in that industry, and I was pretty good at all of them. I worked in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth, went on holiday to Bali, paid off $30,000 worth of debt, and at times had a pretty fabulous time with some of the friends I made in that industry. The girlfriend and I split up halfway through that time, and I went a little crazy again, had a minor amphetamine habit, and dated a criminal (who was actually one of the kindest, sweetest men I’ve ever been with).

And then, one day, just before my 29th birthday, I couldn’t do it anymore. I just couldn’t be in that environment anymore. The clincher was when I was introduced to someone out in the “real” world and I had to take a moment to think of what name to give them. I had lost myself. I had become so entrenched in that cloistered, isolating industry that I no longer knew who I was anymore. Hardened, dangerous criminals knew my real name, hookers would call me at home asking to “borrow” money for drugs, I was asked to lie in court for one of my bosses (if I didn’t do it I believe I would have “disappeared”. Luckily, the charges were dropped). So I left.

And promptly got sick. I spent a horrible year trying to find myself again. I got horrendously fat, smoked way too much dope, and rarely left the house. I spent my 29th birthday with my boss at the boutique hotel that I cleaned on the weekends. I had no one. I lived by myself, my father lived overseas, my industry friends had gone, I wasn’t dating anyone; I was completely and utterly alone.

But then I turned 30 and everything changed. I moved back in with my dad in the house he had just bought, I went back to Uni to finish my degree, and I got my first “real” world job in years. I found who I was in the years that followed. I decided I wanted to go back and do what I wanted to do when I was a kid: act. So I entered into my year of intensive training as part of my honours degree and suddenly found that being at Uni full time didn’t leave a lot of time for work. So, against my better judgment, I went back into the industry. I spent nine months working as a manager at a brothel that was owned by an acquaintance of my father’s, and I loathed it. I earned very good money and lived quite well while I finished my training, but it did some damage to my newly forged mental state. And here’s where my life was saved, so to speak. I had often written about the industry, and had the first 30 pages of a script that I wanted to develop. My housemate at the time, Fleur sat me down one day and asked me questions. She then came back to me a few days later and said, “let’s do a play about sex work.” It turned into Skinhouse, which we performed at the Adelaide Fringe Festival and at La Mama in Melbourne to sold out audiences in 2011. It was one of the most cathartic, empowering, enlivening experiences I have ever had. The support I received from the general public and the theatre industry was overwhelming. The process of putting on the play was difficult emotionally, and Fleur and I both struggled with the implications of delving into this period of my life night after night. But it educated people. It surprised them, enlightened them and made them cry. I believe it also humanised prostitutes for those who saw it.

I have been criticised in the past by well-meaning friends for being so open about my past, because it leaves me vulnerable to attack. And yeah, I have been attacked. A Catholic housemate when I was living in Auckland tried to throw me out of the house when she discovered I was a sex worker. She didn’t succeed and eventually came around and we were friends again, but I was treated like a criminal for a while there. My ex-fiancé hated me talking about it in public because of the way people might respond to him. A friend (who is no longer a friend) insisted on calling me a whore because she said I had to get over my abhorrence for the word (she also thought she had a right to tell me that she was spiritually superior to me because I had worked). My most recent ex’s mother told her son before she even met me that he was just another one of my customers, which is actually a really polite way of calling me a whore (this was a direct result of him stupidly telling his parents that I was an ex-hooker, something I should have raked him over the coals for but didn’t because I gave him concessions for his youth and general naïveté about these things). She went on to say a couple of years later that I was sick and broken, so no matter what I did the woman simply didn’t think I was good enough for her son, based purely, I believe, on the fact that I used to be a prostitute.

Skinhouse Photography by Sarah Walker

Skinhouse
Photography by Sarah Walker

I was never a whore. A whore, to my reckoning, is someone who can be bought with anything, be it money or drugs. A whore is someone who has no limits to what they will do for that payment, and who will screw over any and everyone for their own gain. Not all prostitutes are whores, and I actually find “whore” to be a hateful word. I was never a whore. I kept my boundaries and my integrity throughout my entire career. I didn’t work to support a drug habit, I didn’t cheat, lie or steal, and I proved time and again to the people that mattered that I could be trusted. I never worked the streets and I always used protection. That means little to those outside the industry, but it means everything to me.

Let me tell you some of the things that happened to me while I was working: I was beaten up by a client for refusing to allow him to penetrate me anally; I was raped by another client with a dirty long-neck beer bottle on a roll of carpet; I was held up against a wall by a client who bit me on the cheek because he didn’t want me to leave; I was anally raped by another client with the justification that he had just paid me $500 and was “entitled” to do whatever he wanted to me (and I was subsequently told by the madam of the escort service/brothel I worked for to have a bath, have a drink and come back to work). I don’t tell you these things for you to feel sorry for me. I tell you because this is what a lot of sex workers have to contend with on the job, and there’s not a hell of a lot of readily available support for working girls who have been abused. There’s always the risk of violence in that job. It’s no wonder that there is rampant drug use, crime, addiction and general bad behaviour in that industry. Sex workers are vilified, judged, discriminated against, and abused by the ignorant majority of the public for what they do. Oftentimes, sex workers do not seek help because there is a sense of shame – whether acknowledged or not – for “putting themselves at risk” in the first place. Even if a worker never experiences violence, the mere physical act of doing the job is stressful and potentially psychologically damaging.

So why do I talk about it? Why not do what other ex working girls I know have done and pretend it never happened? Well, Oscar Wilde once wrote, “To regret one’s own experiences is to arrest one’s own development. To deny one’s own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one’s own life. It is no less than a denial of the soul.” Mind you, he also wrote, “If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they’ll kill you.” Luckily I’m funny. All hilarity aside, I’m open about it because I’m an open person. Being honest about that time ensures that no one else can throw it in my face later on down the track. It was also such a large part of my life for so long that it didn’t so much define me as a person, but gave me the opportunity to know myself. I learned of my own strength, tenacity, and ability to overcome anything life throws at me. I also learned that I am human, that I make mistakes, and that I am actually quite fragile at times. I struggled for a long time to get over being a prostitute. I was lucky in that I have incredible parents who accepted me whatever I did. They didn’t like that I worked (what parent would, really?) but they never told me I was a bad person for it, and they were there to pick up the pieces with me. I remember my father coming into the living room as I was sobbing over the movie Leaving Las Vegas. He looked at me long and hard and asked me when I was going to forgive myself.

When indeed?

I’m working on it still, to tell the truth. I am an advocate for the sex industry, in that I believe it is necessary in this society, and I believe there would be less of the aforementioned incidences of addiction and abuse if there was on-hand support for workers, equally for those who wish to continue in the industry and for those who wish to leave it. I believe in legislation of the sex industry, but for the purposes of providing protection for the worker, not for ensuring revenue for the government. I will be very glad if I never have to step one foot inside a brothel again, but never again will I be ashamed of having spent a great deal of my adult life inside one (or seven, as the case may be).

I know who I am now. I am Kristina, not Kate, Gia, Georgia, Lauren, Alison or any of the other names I’ve used. I’ve had this life, and if I died tomorrow I would be very happy with the life I’ve lived. It is as it is, and I am who I am because of it; in spite of it even.

So, there it is.

Aside by

This is not a “wah wah, poor me” post, just an observation on life and things. I’ve just had new headshots taken because of new hair, and I’m going through them looking at my face and asking “When did I get so old?” It’s not that I’m old, not at all, but I don’t feel the way my face looks. There are crinkles and lines and crepe-iness that I don’t feel old enough to have. I am blessed with very good skin, and I look after it fairly well, but there’s no stopping the ageing process. There’s no reversing of gravity, preventing of folds or ceasing of smiling, frowning, laughing, grimacing – all the things that have an effect on the face. And other than drastic surgery, there’s no changing what already exists on the face. That’s a very sobering thought.

We – I – live in a society that reveres youth. Beauty goes hand in hand with youth, and although I’ve never considered myself to be conventionally beautiful, I’ve felt that I’ve grown more attractive the older I’ve gotten due to my acceptance of self, and the fact that I behave like a child 80% of the time. Older certainly doesn’t equal ugly as far as I’m concerned, but it interests me to look at photos of myself, or to look in the mirror and have that slight sense of panic that my face isn’t smooth plains of creamy unblemished goodness, and that somehow that diminishes my worth (particularly in the acting industry), or means that I’ve failed as a woman.

861220_10151482661175406_402694557_o

Heather
Acidtongue and Dollface
Photography by Alexandra Dye

How ridiculous! How stupidly, profoundly, contemptibly ridiculous. I resent being conditioned to feel like that. I resent buying into that bullshit as if it’s a true measure of who I am as a human being. I stand up in the face of that ludicrous societal standard of beauty and acceptability and I laugh! I love my wrinkles (that I slather cream on every night to reduce)! I love my tuck-shop-lady arms (that I do repetitive, pointless exercise to try to get rid of) ! I love my grey hairs (that I cover up with artificial colour)!

Oh gods, I’m such a hypocrite. Because I can say all that, and rant and rave to the four winds, but I will guarantee you within the next 24 hours I will be in front of the mirror examining my pores and inwardly sobbing over my rotund abdomen and judging myself because I don’t fit the media/society-dictated norm. I don’t even find that norm particularly attractive, but I want to fit it.

Humans are stupid sometimes.

Getting Older

by

Resolution of the Cockroach

I hate cockroaches. I effing hate them. Spiders I’m fine with, but cockroaches. Ugh. They’re ugly and dirty and revolting and when I see one I tend to twitch and convulse around the room like Iggy Pop trying to put on impossibly tight jeans while dancing a jig. Yep, they give me the willies.

This manifest hatred stems from the time I used to work in a brothel in Sydney, and invariably there’d always be three or four of the little bastards scuttling up the walls of the hallway to the laundry. After every booking some of the girls and I would routinely smack our stilettos against the wall in a vain attempt to squish the disgusting creatures and make examples of them to the roach hordes flying around outside waiting to come in and land in our hair (yes, in Sydney they fly. That’s probably why I don’t like the city at all. And yes, one did land in my hair once. *shudder*).

Cockroaches aren’t overly common in Melbourne, at least they haven’t been since I’ve lived here, but lately I’ve seen them everywhere, particularly in my bedroom and bathroom. It never occurred to me back in Sydney to discover what the symbolic meaning behind them is, but having been subjected to about six encounters with the bloody things since the new year, I endeavoured to find out. What I discovered has profound relevance, both during the time in Sydney and now. Cockroaches symbolise the art of adaptability, longevity and ultimate survival instincts. They represent perseverance, tenacity, determination and the fortitude to survive in any event. Well, that is right on the money. The ability to do all these things is paramount if one wishes to survive working in the sex industry, as dramatic as that sounds. Some women used drugs, others gambling, others still alcohol as a coping mechanism in that game – anything to preserve the fragile mental stability that sex work has such potential to destroy. I guess I used my inner cockroach.

So that’s awesome. That explains the roach significance for that time of my life, but what about now? I’m not working now, and I haven’t for seven years because I successfully adapted and persevered and tenaciously determined to get out of that industry and become an actor. So why am I encountering them now? Well, read on, dear blog follower.

Cockroaches also represent the need for renewal, rejuvenation and the cleansing of the self. There’s significance in where I have stumbled upon these paroxysm-inducing insects: the bedroom – intimacy, sex, privacy, rest, healing through sleep, sanctuary; the bathroom – psychological and emotional cleansing (as well as physical, of course), elimination of the old, renewal, vulnerability, purification and so on. If you’ve been reading my posts since the beginning of this internet blogging adventure you will have noticed that I’ve been through some riveting, all-consuming emotional shit. I use that word quite specifically, because it has been shit (2012 was shit for a lot of people, so it’s no wonder cockroaches have been rearing their frightfully repugnant little heads). Most of the shit has been to do with relationships (well, a relationship), the sense of self worth, issues with vulnerability and intimacy, mental insecurity, the feeling of not belonging anywhere, the feeling of being misunderstood and judged … all this stuff has been all up in my grill and preventing me from moving on in my life and achieving the things I want to achieve. I hadn’t cleared it. The Universe has been using the foul little periplaneta australasiae (I looked it up) to remind me right, well and proper that clearing stuff is what needs to happen in order to take full advantage of this new cycle we’re now in.

Well, that’s all very well and good but you know the other thing I dislike intensely? Confrontation. See, I have a relatively slow fuse when it comes to anger, but piss me off enough and I can get quite nasty. Having to confront someone I care for about their behaviour towards me always gets me on the defensive, and ultimately that need to preserve myself against any possible backlash results in my snapping like a dragon and yelling and throwing things (I can be a bit of a dick sometimes). And if that someone has hurt me deeply, betrayed me or insulted me, things can get … well … messy. So I usually avoid confrontation, let things roll off my back like so much water, bitch to my friends about it, and get on with it.

Obviously, that method of dealing with the things that happen is not healthy in the long term. Closure is important, and I know for me specifically, not having closure results in a whole pile of anxiety, stress and festering anger. So a week ago, I had to bite that bullet good and hard and go confront some people.

Holy cow wowness. Just saying “you were a jerk to me” was like emerging into cool air from an intense 90-minute Bikram yoga sesh. The relief was palpable. I was scared stiff leading up to the moment, shaking and trembling like a Mexican chihuahua, but once it was done, I relaxed. I didn’t even raise my voice, or get angry, or throw a single chair. I found my empathy again, and I understood that friendship doesn’t mean being joined at the hip, forgiveness is only possible when you let go of your own ego, and love – no matter how deeply it’s felt – isn’t always enough (that part made me sad, but I’m okay with it). I feel clearer. Lighter. Even wiser. I can deal with criticism and rejection better, I have less expectation of people, and I even like myself more.

Who would have thought that the creature I abhor most in this world would lead me to this? Funny little varmint, being all significant and stuff. I’m not saying I’m about to get a pet cockroach, call it Stampy and love it forever, but before I flush the crushed and broken corpse of the next roach that dares invade my habitat down the toilet, I’m going to stop and be reminded of what the wee ugly beastie is trying to tell me. ‘Cause the Universe is always whispering.

by

Expect the Unexpected

When I was playing Lady Macbeth last year, the actor playing my Macbeth and I would find ourselves rather unconsciously speaking like our characters in every day life. “Wife!” he would bellow. “Where have I placed my dagger?”

“Did not you preset it, my love?” I would reply.

“Ah yes, indeed it lies behind the throne,” and so on.

I was in an abysmal show earlier this year in which I played a prostitute (I know, what a stretch). My character Ophelia was sassy and funny, quick with witty banter and one-liners. Suddenly, I found myself getting my funny on all the time and the sass factor had risen threefold, particularly in dealing with the men in my life.

14975_10152422956370526_595151906_n

Heather
Acidtongue and Dollface
Photography by Alexandra Dye

Now, as I am discovering my new character, Heather, I’m not so much taking on her personality as I am her fatal flaw: expectation.

Expectation. It is the state of being expectant. It’s up there with attachment as being a primary cause of suffering. As has this year for a great many people. I think some sense of expectation is valid: we can expect to be treated with a certain level of respect by our peers; we can expect to be paid appropriately for the work we do; we can expect to get food poisoning from consuming three-day-old undercooked chicken. But then there is the expectation of other people, and of events that are beyond our control. Like, I expected to hear from the ex for my birthday; I expected to be accepted by the agent I wanted; I expected people to get that the world wasn’t going to end, just shift; I expected my bitterness towards my failed relationship to be gone.

Look, things happen that we as humans sometimes don’t understand. This year, things happened that I still don’t understand. My character doesn’t understand anything about what happened to her life. Because she, I, and all of us have an expectation that if we do the “right” things, good things will come to us. If I love with all my heart, I will be loved in return. If I approach my craft with dedication and professionalism, it’ll be noticed and I’ll get that part/agent/big break that I “deserve”. If I’m honest with the people around me, they’ll be honest with me. If I have the relationship, the job, the house, the friends, I’ll be a functioning human being and life will be sweet. Right?

Nope. Not always.

Expectation. It’s a hard habit to kick. Because we could do all the right things – and even all the wrong things – but sometimes, for reasons we don’t understand, it just doesn’t go the way we expected. And that, quite frankly, can be devastating. But, I’m really starting to get my head around the idea that it’s also an opportunity for us to get the things we want for our lives in a way we hadn’t considered before. And taking that path freely may lead us to gain other things that we didn’t even know we needed as well as the original thing we were striving for in the first place.

Easier said than done. Yes, well, it can be done. With a little practice, it can be done.

Heather will never know that as she will be stuck in the state of expectation for eternity. Such is the life of a fictional character. But – yet again – the persona I put on for my craft has reminded me of an extremely important thing:

LET GO.

Quit thinking you know how it’s going to be, because you don’t, and let’s face it, if you did it would take all the fun out of it.

And this, my friends, is why art is awesome. Happy New Year.

by

An Empty Church

I am not what you would call a religious person. I was brought up in both the Catholic and Anglican Church, and have a respect and fascination for theology, but I do not believe in God in the Christian sense. I think Jesus the man was a dude who was totally switched on to what makes us human, but I don’t believe he was the Messiah. I have a deep and abiding Hermetic belief in the interconnectedness of all things. I feel the Universe is a conscious force that we are all connected to and are a part of. I believe in magic because I’ve seen and made it happen. But no, I don’t believe in God, certainly not the one that religion created.

Having said that, every time I walk into a church, I feel something. A presence, if you will, that is all-encompassing and powerful. It is full of love – not the butterflies and puppy dogs kind of love, but that deep, primordial, ancient love that is a little bit scary. I feel it more when the church is empty, devoid of humankind’s interpretation of that power. In going to mass – which I do rarely and only when my father is in the pulpit – I feel only the catechism; the dogma. I feel the congregation’s guilt for not being a good enough Christian. I feel their boredom as they reel off the prayers and responses by rote. I feel their hypocrisy, their hope that if they do this enough times, surely they’ll get into Heaven.

I don’t mean that as disrespectfully as it sounds. Some people’s faith is inspiring, quiet and beautiful; the type of faith that is unfettered by judgment, hate, and intolerance; that is fueled by love. My father’s faith in his God is comforting to me because my father’s God is accepting and loving and enriching, not vengeful and wrathful.

Maybe that’s what I feel when the church is empty. I feel the true belief, created by persons who strive to be Christ-like, whose love for themselves, their neighbour, and their God is uplifting and powerful. We have, as humans, an ability to influence the world around us purely through thought. Action and deed compounds this, of course, but in the simple moment of feeling love, compassion or empathy we can project that energy out and do some amazing things.

I have not been very loving of late. I have been caught up in anger and frustration and hurt towards people I once loved and respected, people I put things aside for and helped and looked after when they needed me. But now I have compassion fatigue and it’s exhausting me. Ageing me. Sickening me. People have poured their woes into me, and siphoned out my tolerance and acceptance, and now I feel I’ve been used up and spat out and trodden all over, and it makes me feel very sorry for myself.

And whose fault is it?

Mine. Entirely. Because as I sat in an empty church today and felt that power overwhelm me, I realised I haven’t been looking after me. I’ve been so concerned with others, and so caught up in my own pain, I forgot to love myself. Maybe I’ve never actually known how, but now I’ll start to learn. I have to. I’ll be the Universe expressing itself as a human being for a while and let the Universe love itself through me. Then everything else will fall into place and be connected again. Then I can love again, and be that compassionate, empathetic person I pride myself on being.

It’s hard. Oh my [insert deity here], it’s hard. I feel like a coal mine with no coal left. Like a dried up well. Like a million other metaphors that I can’t think of because I no longer have the resources left for thinking. But it’s either do it, or crumple, and I will not crumple. I want that feeling of being in an empty church everywhere I go.

Watch this space.

by

An Open Letter to the Man Who Broke My Heart

I write this, safe in the knowledge that the likelihood of this ever being read by the person in question is quite infinitesimal.

This relationship has been going on and off and on and off for nigh on three years. We have been through a storm of trying times together and apart, but we seemed to always find our way back to each other. We couldn’t help ourselves. We couldn’t walk away.

Until now.

There has always been factors against us: age, history, mental illness, his family, infidelity, but we battled through because we didn’t care about anything except how we felt about each other. We were too strong together. We loved each other.

We were about to go on a new relationship adventure together when suddenly things changed. For him. The off switch has been flicked, and I suspect it will stay off. I cannot turn it back on again. Not again.

So I write, because that is what I do. I write to express, to let go, to say all those things my heart can’t articulate in spoken word. Maybe it is voyeuristic for you to witness, dear reader, but I have never been one to shy away from open expression.

So here it is.

I want to eradicate you from my life. I want to rip your memory from my body; trade in the parts you claimed to love with such ardour. I want to erase every whispered sentiment, every passion filled exclamation, every declaration of love. Because, as you claim, every such utterance was a lie.

And oh, how you lied! Oh, how I believed. I thought I could be free and safe. I thought I was secure in tearing down the walls of self protection to let you see the flawed yet beautiful creature within.

How wrong I was. Lulled into that false sense of security by a selfish, scared little boy who talked big but walked small, I failed to see the deception. I failed to notice the apron strings of a self righteous, judgmental mother tangle their way through our tenuous single bond. I failed to see how weak you truly are, and how you could not have survived half of what I have lived through.

I never claimed to be a heroine of epic proportions. All I wanted you to see was my humanity. I never wanted pity. I never wanted concessions. I wanted to be understood. I wanted to be loved.

I found comfort in Martha Wainwright’s exalted, melodic assertations, you bloody mother fucking asshole, but then I remembered your devotion to her brother, and now even the music I retreat into is sullied by your presence.

I wish you failure. I wish you protracted periods of darkness. I wish you to ache for me, for what you have done. I wish for you to feel so alone that even the sun seems to shun you. I wish you separation from your family, disconnectedness, and an overwhelming feeling of being forgotten. I wish you isolation. I even wish you despair.

Interestingly enough, I do not wish you these things with any antipathy or malicious intent. I actually wish them with love. This even surprises me. Because through all this betrayal, all this cruel back and forth, erratic behaviour that you have exhibited, through all this pain you have heaped upon me in unrelenting waves, I wish for you to grow. I wish for you to understand yourself to better understand others. Only then will you be a man worth loving. Only then will you be a man.

And so I walk away, taking my sore, embittered heart with me. I remove my light from your world for the simple reason that you never thought I would. And if you think your absence from my life will cause me to fall, to harm myself, or even to utter a cry of anguished sorrow, hear this:

I have survived without you before. I will again. Effortlessly.

by

The Animal

If I’m honest with myself, there’s one true reason why I act. It’s not for the accolades, or the applause, or the eventual AFI award, it’s really quite a simple reason. I act so I can be someone else.

You see, I have a pet. It’s a shitty pet. It varies in size depending on the day. It stinks to high heaven. It won’t heel, sit or play dead. I can’t let it off the leash, because it just runs amok, causing havoc wherever it goes. It sniffs people’s crotches, dry-humps legs, scratches the couch, leaves ‘gifts’ on the bed, yowls all night and keeps me awake. It won’t come when it’s called, it’s not micro-chipped and it’s certainly not registered with the local council.

black dog

I can’t get rid of it. There’s no euthanising this sucker, or leaving it at the pound. I can’t give it away to a good, loving home. It’s mine. To keep.

This pet gets in the way. It sticks its stupid nose into everything, jumps up onto my lap at the most inconvenient times, and it pushes me into predicaments I can, at times, see no way out of. It can sometimes make my life a living hell. It has, in the past, made it impossible to live normally.

There are many names for this pet and I could rattle them all off now, but really they’re just words to describe an animal I acquired a long time ago through no fault of my own which is now here to stay. I have to live with it every day. Some days are easier than others. Some years it has been medicated, so it behaved itself, but it’s been drug-free for a few years now. I’ve been training it, but lately the training has slipped because I’ve been tired and busy and distracted, and a couple of weeks ago it chewed through its lead and ruined my good relationship. The one I’ve put a lot of investment in. The one that counted.

Some may call this pet an excuse. Try living with it for a while, you’ll see it’s no excuse. There’s no choice involved, no willing signing of adoption papers. It’s attached to me, and I constantly apologise for it, but it’s not going anywhere. I just have to learn better ways to live with it. Don’t feel sorry for me. The last thing I want or need is pity. I am who I am in spite of this sneaky, manipulative creature; this thing who pushes me to the edge of the world and then feigns ignorance when I fall off.

blackdogproject

So, you see dear reader, sometimes it’s just too hard to be who I am with this pet wrapping itself around my neck. So I act. Because then, at least for a while, I can forget it exists.

by

Human Is As Human Does

A couple of days ago I made a huge mistake. One of those mistakes that makes me feel like human garbage. Not the funny human garbage that sits under the dining table eating dinner ’cause they don’t deserve to eat at the table a la Homer Simpson, but the horrible human garbage who has badly hurt someone they love deeply. The unfunny kind.

This is not the first time I have successfully executed a personal cock-up of magnificent proportions. Neither is it the first time I have hurt someone I love, but I arrogantly assumed that at 35 I had made all the asinine mistakes I could possibly make in this lifetime. Isn’t that what your 20s are for?

My very patient friends – older, younger, all infinitely wiser – admonish me admirably.

“Friend,” they say, shaking their heads. “Dear, dear stupid friend whom we love despite your incessant and endearing stupidity, hear this: you are going to make mistakes for the rest of your life, just like everyone else. What measures you as a human being is not that you make mistakes, but how you deal with them when you make them.”

My friends don’t actually call me stupid. They are very loving and understanding and tell me that I’m not a bad person, that I can call them anytime to tell them how stupid I feel so they can tell me I’m not. I love them for it, but this does not make me feel better, however logical their words may be.

Making mistakes that effect other people in a hurtful, devastating way are awful. They’re awful to commit, and they’re awful to be on the receiving end of. I feel bad. I feel hollow. I feel physically sick. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. And there’s not a damn thing I can do about it, except be sorry. I want to say I’m sorry time and again, even though I know hearing that word too much can make it lose its meaning. I want to do anything I can to make it better. But I can’t.

And so I’m dealing with it. I want no sympathy and I expect none. I sit here in my living room with a cup of tea and a cat and maybe an episode or six of Buffy, not feeling the warmth of any of these things, feeling instead the contemplation of my mistake. I cry. A lot. I cry for my loved one’s pain and what I did to cause it. I cry as I uselessly wish to undo it. I cry for the wrongness of it and for my disappointment in myself.

And I wait for the person I’ve hurt to be ready to talk to me. And yell at me and be angry with me and blame me and punish me so I’ll feel validated for hating myself, and then maybe we’ll both even eventually forgive me.

But that’s a long way off, so for now I can only wait for the feeling of epic shitness to settle, knowing that it will never really go away completely because, as with all monumental fuck-ups, this one will pop up in years to come to remind me of my own human iniquities and imperfections.

By then I think I’ll be grown up enough to accept them.

by

Artistic Indulgence Time

To state that life imitates art is to state a cliché. But clichés are so because they exist in truth, and there is no more truth at this moment than the fact that life does indeed imitate art. And vice versa.

It’s odd. Every serious (as opposed to comedic) role I have had since graduating has at that point in my life had some corresponding relevance to my non-actorly life. Or else, the role has provided me the opportunity to work through some shit that’s been going on in said life. That’s not to say that I actively indulge myself in using the theatre as a cheap psychologist (I have one of them already), and I certainly do not advocate the practice, but there is something to be said – as an intuitive actor – for using the stuff that’s going on in one’s outside life to inform one’s onstage performance. Acting Class 101, I know, but sometimes we have to be reminded of the obvious.

I’m certainly finding that at the moment. I’m currently performing in an Adelaide Fringe show called Awake, written by my artistic comrade-in-arms Fleur. There was a lot of hoopla surrounding the circumstances in me getting this role, but trusting that things always work out the way they must in this funny ol’ Universe, here I am, acting in this role which has some uncanny correlations to my outside existence.

Ellen in Awake, with Justin Batchelor Photo by Sarah Walker

Ellen in Awake, with Justin Batchelor
Photo by Sarah Walker

You remember the ex I told you about in a former post? Well, he’s pretty much a musical genius in my mind. He would protest that claim, but for a 24 year old, he has a huge amount of musical knowledge and skill, and has the potential for career brilliance in the years to come. Now, I grew up in a very musical family, and I consider myself a musician – far less than I am an actor, but a musician nonetheless. I have two older brothers, both musicians for a living, and both highly skilled in their professions. One brother, Hiran, is one of those ridiculous people who can pick up an instrument and pretty much work out how to play it within five minutes. He and Karl, my eldest brother, live and breathe music, far more than I. Much like the ex.

Thus, although I’m a pretty darn good actor, I’ve always felt a little below par as a muso. In comparison to these virtuosi in my life anyway. And who am I playing in this Awake play? The wife of a brilliant composer and musician. The wife who met her husband at a music conservatorium. The wife who considered herself a musician until she was overwhelmed by the magnificence of her husband’s talent. And all she wants is for him to see her, mediocre talent and all, and to think she’s something special. She wants him to remember her. So yeah. Art imitates life. And my life, connected as it is to everything in this glorious and complex Universe is doing a very good job at allowing me to see that my human weakness makes for a very interesting exploration of my characters. It also allows me to have a little bit of a cry for my human failings, ’cause I’m allowed occasionally to do that.

Thanks art. You rock.

by

The Right to be Human

I am writing today as a human being, born with the same rights as every other human being in this country. Born to believe in whatever spiritually makes sense to me; born to follow whatever dream I may have for my life; born to live freely in a Western country that embraces every human as an equal inhabitant. Equal, that is, as long as I’m straight.

Australia is supposed to be a free country. We arrogantly call ourselves part of the first world, an appellation we give to this country due to industry, opportunity, freedom of expression, and human rights. But that’s bullshit, because in Australia, gay people are not equal. Gay people do not have the same rights as every other citizen. A gay person is not allowed to marry their partner.

Now, I’ve heard every argument under the sun: the mother of my ex-girlfriend (yes, a woman with a gay child) questions the validity of the government putting energy into marriage equality as “there are so many more important things to consider, like our economy!” The ex-boyfriend’s mother said it was not a governmental issue because “marriage is a religious concern.” Julia Gillard, our Prime Minister, says she doesn’t believe in marriage equality because “it goes against my upbringing”. And spare me the religious diatribe that states that “homosexuals are an abomination against God”, ’cause I don’t believe in your God, and the Universe I am connected to doesn’t give a fuck who I share my bed with.

What this whole thing boils down to for me is that it’s about basic, fundamental human rights. These human rights are being violated, which makes it an extremely important governmental issue. Marriage ceased to be solely a religious convention decades ago – thousands of heterosexuals have non-religious marriage services conducted by civil marriage celebrants. It is definitely a legal issue. There is no demand for marriage between gay people to be recognised by the Church anyway, so the point is moot. And if you, like Julia, were brought up to be a bigoted, prejudicial idiot? Well, change. You’re an adult, aren’t you? You have the capacity for independent thought, yes? If that’s troubling for you, try this on: imagine you love someone so much you want to marry them, but you can’t because your government says you’re not allowed to. Imagine that the very act of loving that person was considered a crime in some Western countries a few short years ago. Imagine that holding your lover’s hand in public (or even behind closed doors) could get you hanged, shot or bashed. Now what do you think?

Photo by Christopher Bryant

Photo by Christopher Bryant

Look, not every gay person wants to get married, just as not every straight person does. The point is, the marriage equality fight is for the right to choose, just like straight people have the right to choose. And what will happen if gay people are allowed to marry? Well – hold on to your hats, people – some gay people will get married. That’s it. So, what’s the big deal?

This effects all of us. We all have a connection, however tenuous, to someone who is gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, and is therefore being discriminated against by our government. All I am asking you to do, is open your mind and your heart. Change is coming.

P.S. In case you’re wondering, my sexual orientation is irrelevant. I’m writing as a human being, with the same rights as every other human being in this country. That is all.