Tag Archives: life

by

Choosing to be Childless

I had it all figured out. I had a plan of what I was going to do when I got pregnant. I was going to have photos taken every month of my baby bump, from the day of confirmation all the way up until the birth, Artsy, candid shots of my blooming belly in soft lighting, but not hiding any of the messy bits of pregnancy like stretch marks or rosacea.

Then, when the baby was born, I was going to have a pagan midwife and use meditation and hypnosis to give birth drug free. We were going to have mood-filled family pics, rose coloured and achingly beautiful. The miracle of birth. New life. All that.

I got older. We had donors lined up, my lesbian wife and I, but they all fell through. Then I turned 40 and we decided that probably the only way I could get pregnant was through IVF, and that was hella expensive, so the choice was made for my wife to bear our children. All my plans for the documenting of my own pregnancy was transferred to her, as was most of my life. She would have photos every month, she would have a pagan midwife and lovingly cradle our newborn addition in that rose coloured light. I was so excited for a brown baby, for my little rainbow family. We planned for it, had names picked out, godparents chosen, shared pictures of baby and toddler fashion that our very cool kid would wear.

And then everything changed. And I mean everything. Shattered marriage leading to a new job, new life, new couch to surf, new goals. Whether I liked it or not, my existence shifted. I found myself cleaning houses for a living; the suburban homes of the working mother, some married, some not, all with children of different ages, different stages. The one thing that became abundantly clear to me is that children take over everything. And I mean everything.

These women I clean for are all intelligent, hard working, motivated career women. They have jobs, they have partners, they have lives. But one thing I noticed that they all shared was that their lives and their homes were dominated by their children. They were mothers first. Women second. People third. Their lives were defined by their offspring. It made me feel anxious.

I went home, back to New Zealand to figure out where I was going. I tested the waters back home, trying on the possibility of moving there, having a baby on my own. My dad and his husband are there, both big fans of the idea of me progenerating little Bentons everywhere. I had a chat to one of my cousins about how her life had changed since she had kids. She said unequivocably that she loved her sons, but all her dreams for herself had taken a back seat. I looked at her face. She was tired.

On the plane flying back to Australia I thought about all the times I’ve been pregnant, ended in either a termination or miscarriage. My doctor had told me that I was very fertile, that despite the polyps in my ovaries and the scarring in my uterus, I had a “very viable womb”. If that were so, why so childless?

The realisation settled on me like dust settles on polished wood: I would make a wonderful mother. But I will never be one.

Quite simply, I’m too selfish to give up my life for a child. I gave it up for a partner and it nearly destroyed me. I would love that child until I had nothing else to give, but I would grieve for my childless life. I understand that everything changes when the child is in one’s arms, but to be honest, I don’t want that change. I’ve just emerged from a cocoon of my own making, all my insecurities and neuroses woven into a personal carapace that blinded me as it protected me. I have broken free of not only an abusive and toxic relationship with another person, but also with myself. I’m not ready to put that aside to dedicate my energy to someone else, fruit of my loins or no. By the time I am ready, I will be too old. I’m already too tired.

I wept painful racking sobs over this decision. I had longed for a baby since puberty hit at age 11 and I had always assumed that it was an inevitability. Even as I flip flopped about marriage, shooting out a sprog was unquestionably a thing that would happen. But as I’ve matured and grown and realised what being a parent actually entails, I’ve chosen myself instead. I look back at all the sacrifices my mother made for us kids, how the decision to have a family impacted her life. She died stating that her greatest achievement was her children and I am so grateful to her for that. But I just can’t do it.

I’m okay with it now. In another life, in a parallel universe, I am a mother and I’m damn good at it. In that existence, my kid is ridiculously talented, intelligent and beautiful and will grow up to change the world. And in that world I would be content with being a mother first. I would be proud to be a mum.

But not in this one.

Aside by

You used to take my breath away. There was a time when I’d look at you and my heart would stop, just for a moment. I’d watch you dance and my knees would buckle at the heat emanating from my very core. I used to wonder how I got so lucky to get someone as sexy, as talented, as wonderful as you.

Now, it’s all been exposed as an illusion. You tag me in things because I wrote music for you, hoping I’m sure, to impress me. But I can see through it all now. It doesn’t impress me. I don’t feel the same heat. In fact, I feel a passing indifference. It’s all the same. The same moves, the same looks, the same songs, all directed at someone else, all trying to show me what I’m missing out on. I’m not missing out on much.

Today, though. Today was different. It was supposed to be a day of celebration, a day of love. It was, but I walked into that room where three years ago we exchanged vows that I thought were sacred, that I took very seriously, and it all came crashing down. Here, in this room, where another same sex couple were joining themselves together under the law, where I thought my life as a married woman had begun, I was reminded that you got away scot free. You walked away relatively unscathed. You don’t have to be confronted with any of this.

I returned to New Zealand seeking solace. Seeking my home. I didn’t find it. I hadn’t been home since my mother died, since you and I became wives, and it all slapped me hard in the face. You don’t have to feel any of this. You keep telling me that you were hurting too when you ended our marriage, but how could you have been? You will never be forced to come back here and go to the places we went to together, to relive those times now knowing it meant nothing to you. You do not have to look into the eyes of my family that took vows with you to help us to honour our union and admit that you fucked up. You will never be forced to remember, to have your home forever linked with something that was so full of promise, but wasn’t treasured as it should have been. You can just walk away into another person’s arms and never have to take responsibility for the pain you caused because you’re so good at pretending that everything’s fine.

I have to carry that weight. I have to carry it for both of us. Still. And I hate you for that.

But …

But, I’ve met someone else. I’ve met a man that has opened my eyes and my heart. I’ve met a man who has reminded me that I’m allowed to be beautiful, that I’m fascinating, that I’m intelligent, that I’m sexy. All the things you failed to see in me, he sees. I’ve met a man at a time when I don’t want a man’s attention. I’ve met a man at a time when I don’t need anyone’s attention, and yet here it is. And it’s reawakened in me the knowledge of my own power as a woman. It doesn’t lie with you. It doesn’t lie with him, either. It’s all within me and it’s all mine.

I am not pursuing this man. He came into my life simply as a signpost. He has reminded me that I am not your soon-to-be ex wife. I am not a divorcee. I am not one of many of the broken souls you have left behind. I am not one of your victims. I am better than how you left me. I am better than how you treated me.

I am moving on.

Onwards

by

The Fullest Circle

22 years ago I arrived in Australia, fresh faced and damaged, 18 going on 19, already affected yet still so naive. I moved in with my Dad in a Victorian suburb called Clifton Hill, in a cute little apartment opposite the massive park that dominates the suburb. I had intended on a fresh start, away from the mire and malignancy of Auckland, a city I loved and hated simultaneously. I came here, to Australia, to Clifton Hill to reinvent myself.

Of course, we all know that problems follow us, even across the expanse of oceans. A fresh start is a fallacy, especially at that age, when wisdom is yet to touch our brows. The span of experience between then and now is staggering. So many lives compacted into one. 41 years old, and I find myself back in Clifton Hill, cat sitting a marvellous creature named Keyser in a cute little shoebox apartment – right next door to where I used to live.

The concept of things coming full circle has always eluded me, being somewhat of an unintentional nomad. I have moved constantly in the 20 odd years I’ve been here, all within the same city, never settling for long, always trying to outrun the darkness. And here I am, back where I started, in much the same situation. Shell-shocked and blinking against the light as I start my life again. Again. Always again. It feels odd. I don’t feel completed, or satisfied, or finalised in any way. I feel much the same as I did then, albeit tempered by the complexities of a life well-lived. Here I am, talking as if I’m in my twilight years when really, I’m just beginning.

I have no idea what’s coming next. I don’t know what the Fates have in store for me. I know things are moving; my career, my self worth, my adultness, all are moving forward at a rate that I can’t fathom. I have no control, I’m just holding on and going for the ride, knowing that what’s to come will be as surprising and soul altering as what has been.

One thing that is different now to what was then: I am fierce now. More fierce than I have ever been. My heart is shredded, my soul is singed at the edges, but it gives me a power that I can’t describe. I am aware now, more awake than I ever could have imagined. I don’t see the path in front of me, but I’m now at a point where I don’t need to know what’s coming. I just have an unwavering faith that the Universe knows what it’s doing, and I’m about to enter something new and unimagined.

This blog, all the things I have written, splashing my innermost desires and despairs across the page gives only a fraction of what I experience. It’s my platform, my tool of self-expression. I have followers, but really, it’s just for me. My own little narcissistic soap box of opinions and responses; a sifting of disjointed thoughts into something clearer. Comprehensible.

I am here now.

I am here.

I am.

by

A Woman of Wonder

I miss something that doesn’t exist. A whisper, a feeling, a brush of a hand. It used to be so solid, so clear. Now it’s fuzzy and distant, this thing I miss. It’s like trying to embrace a cloud.

I took my first plane trip when I was 11. My brothers and I flew over to Australia to see my dad. As we flew I looked out the airplane window and imagined I was flying through the clouds, bouncing off each one like they were cotton balls. My mother had parachuted through a cloud back in her Navy days. She described it as passing through damp gossamer. Clouds have no substance, she told me. They’re like dreams.

On long road trips past oceans, I’d imagine the sea had frozen and I was ice skating over the waves. It gave me a feeling of freedom and power to believe that on some plane of existence I could conquer the impossible. 10 year old me could command the weather, use my ridiculously long hair as lightning, stop an oncoming train with a look. In my mind, I was unstoppable.

It should be no surprise that Wonder Woman was my first crush as a kid. I became obsessed with her at the age of 5. She encapsulates everything I want to be: strong, fast, awesome boobs, a lasso of truth, the ability to run in heels and an innate capacity to take no shit. She’s a saviour with good and honest morals and values. She’ll cut a bitch, but only if that bitch is violating the liberty of someone else. Also, she likes girls and boys, but that’s besides the point.

Being my own version of Wonder Woman is intoxicating, particularly when someone else is prepared to be Steve (or Stephanie) Trevor. Being the one who saves the day is empowering and satisfying and ego stroking and extremely dangerous. It lulls one into a false sense of invulnerability, which then makes the inevitable fall from the messiah pedestal that much more painful.

The thing about superheroes is, they don’t exist. I mean, yes, there are extraordinary people who do amazing, miraculous things, but they’re just people. No capes, no superpowers. No one can leap tall buildings in a single bound. If only. There are plenty of damsels and dudes in distress, though, that fuel the need for superheroes. But it’s false. No one can save anyone else. We can only rescue ourselves, truth be told, and I used all the skills I learned in my journey through life for the one I loved, all the while forgetting that even Batman was not always everybody’s favourite guy in Gotham City. Bruce Wayne had to eventually acknowledge that saving the day was not going to take away his trauma.

Growing up has a tendency to curb those thoughts of indestructibility, to transform them into things more attainable. There’s always been a part of my mind, however, that has believed that the improbable is still possible. The Universe has a way of making things happen along a path we least expect. Goals can be achieved, dreams can come true.

Ah, yes. Those dreams again. Paper thin and fragile. Unsubstantial and deceptive, like a cloud. Like you turned out to be. My cumulonimbus. I believed in those dreams, in those clouds of my youth. I allowed myself to be swept up in the fantasy, in the idea that me and my love could overcome anything, that the Wonder Woman inside me would stay vigilant and true. It could have, but it didn’t exist. I miss a thing that didn’t exist. I miss my Paradise Island. I miss you – not the victim you, not the damsel you, certainly not the abusive you, but the version of you that was loving and strong and generous and kind and honest. Sadly, that version you gave to me was as false as it was true. What I felt was truth. Who I felt it for wasn’t.

So, my heart breaks one last time as I reach for those flimsy, filmy illusions, wishing so hard that they were real. Wishing I could grasp them to my heart because they were so beautiful. My belief in making the impossible probable hasn’t died. I’m sure you didn’t intend for your abuse of my love to do that, any more than my saviour complex was intended to deny you your autonomy. I like to think you’re not aware of what you do to people. I guess I’ll never know.

But, it’s no one else’s concern, my awakening. It is mine. My renewal is my responsibility. For probably the first time in my life, I’m being my own superhero. I’m saving myself and although I have wise, wonderful, pull-no-punches honest friends and family to guide me, I’m doing it alone.

And it feels so good.

 

by

Born to Love, Cursed to Feel

I can be on my own. I’m actually quite good at it. I enjoy my own company. I think I’m funny, smart and a good conversationalist. I could talk to myself for hours. I can be silent by myself for longer. I function better, actually, on my own. I have more money, I eat better, my career thrives, I’m thinner. I’m better on my own.

I never expected forever; I wasn’t brought up in a family of forever, but I must admit I got used to the idea of it. I felt like I could relax. I had no fear of making future plans.

I’ve been in love before.  I have loved keenly and powerfully, but with you, I don’t know, it was different. I can’t even say why it was different. I mean, I can give you reasons, like my eye was never turned (except once by an old high school friend who lives in New Zealand so there was no chance of anything coming of it and I wouldn’t have done anything anyway because I was so ridiculously in love with you). Like I could be myself around you, my full mentally unwell, ageing, thickening, witchy, farting and burping self. Like my family loves you. Adores you even. Like I could be wrong and you still thought I was cool. Like, I married you.

And then you lied to me. You did something that hurt me and you lied about it. I was angry and betrayed and I did what I knew I was allowed to do and I felt that anger and betrayal and I didn’t let you slide away from it softly. But I was prepared to forgive because I have been forgiven. I was prepared to love you anyway because I have been loved anyway and to be honest, I couldn’t help but love you. I always knew that I would with you.

It was hard, don’t get me wrong. Everything you did triggered (I hate that word) what had happened with my ex, and all that distrust, that black, sticky doubt came creeping back in, but I wouldn’t let it infect me like it did back then. It was a struggle, but I was determined. Sometimes it overtook my thoughts and strangled them because my BPD doesn’t let go easily, but I was working through it and trying to find ways around it. Understanding myself and my own hand in it. Understanding you and where this behaviour comes from. I understood. It didn’t take the pain away, but it would have eventually. If you had just held on.

But it was too hard. Facing up to not being perfect, owning that sometimes you’re an asshole – just like every single member of the human race is sometimes an asshole – was too hard for you. The fighting that is inevitable after a bond has been tested was too hard for you. The work that had to be done was too overwhelming because you believed you couldn’t do it. You believed you weren’t worth it. So you left. And again, I understand. But my God, it cuts deep into the depths of my soul, a place that I have kept wrapped up and hidden away from the world. The path to that place was something I allowed only a very few of you to discover. A wiser person would grow vines around that path, obscuring it, allowing no one to ever again stumble upon it. But it appears I’m not wise, because I would let you find it once more. You left your mark there. It wants you back.

I was put on this earth to love. I am a nurturer, a guide, a gardener. I am a welcomer and a helper. A healer. But I forget that I need those things too, and I am cursed to feel all my experiences and all of yours and yours and yours and yours and I am left empty and broken but I still feel. I cannot stop feeling.

I am not perfection in any way other than my imperfection. I am a child, stumbling around in the dark, pretending I know the way, faking it until I make it. Life taught me that I must be prepared to make mistakes in order to grow, so I have made them gleefully at times, ready for the wisdom that comes with it. I am a hermit, I am insular, I block people out because I feel too much, I isolate myself because the voices in my head are too much company. I’m a terrible friend one minute and the best person to be around the next. I am selfish and selfless, I am strong and fragile. I am beauty incarnate and the hag of your nightmares. I am the queen of the Universe and the muck on your shoe.

This is who I am. And I will walk this trail again and again until the day I die. I’d just prefer to walk it with you.

by

Two Years of Phenomena

I haven’t written much of late. I haven’t really had much to say. Well, I have. I had a whole rant fest about the plebiscite and Trump and racism ready and waiting to go, but I wasn’t saying anything that anybody else hadn’t already covered.

My mum died two years ago tomorrow. Two years is a relatively short time in the scheme of things. It still doesn’t seem quite real, although I know it very definitely is. I can look at a photo of her without crying now, although occasionally I get a flash of her face when she was dying, and my heart drops down into my butt, and I can’t breathe, and there it all is again.

My life changed inexorably when she died. I have had a leaden pall over my head since then, a feeling of greyness. My therapist calls it grief, and it is, but it’s also something else. It’s fear. Mum was my safety net. I may have hated her in my youth, but as I got older her value became more and more apparent to me. It’s that thing, you know, when you’re feeling like absolute shit, and all you need is a hug or a word from your mum and you suddenly feel better. I know not everyone experiences that with their parents, and despite the wounds of my childhood that still seep blood every now and then, I am distinctly aware of how lucky I was to have mended my relationship with Mum so I could have that.

Now I miss it. So, I’m afraid. I’m afraid of life without my emotional safety net. K tries, she really does, but she’s young and scared too. And really, let’s be honest, a partner is no replacement for a parent.

But, yeah. I’m scared.

Like, really actually scared. All the time.

I’m scared of being wrong. I’m scared of being not awesome. I’m scared I’m actually an asshole and no one told me. I’m scared of getting older. I’m scared of getting fat. I’m scared of losing my hair. I’m scared of randomly meeting my wife’s ex in public somewhere because I think I might not be able to stop myself from punching her. I’m scared I’m full of shit. I’m scared that people don’t like me. I’m scared of being pitied. I’m scared of my own anger. I’m scared that I’m not writing for me but for others to see how “human” and “awesome” I am. I’m scared that my marriage won’t last. I’m scared that BPD will ruin everything. I’m scared that my wife will wake up one day and decide I’m not all that because I’m too old/fat/lazy/stupid/ugly/fucked up. I’m scared that my Dad will die soon. I’m scared that I’ll never get over Mum’s death. I’m scared of never making it as an actor. I’m scared I’m damaged goods. I’m scared that sex work has left a smear on me that I can never get rid of. I’m scared I’ll never be well. I’m scared that I’m lazy. I’m scared of being stupid. I’m scared of men. I’m scared of women who are stronger and smarter than me. I’m scared of being wrong – have I said that already? I’m scared of being alone. I’m scared of expectations being placed on me that I can’t fulfil. I’m scared I’ll never love myself. I’m scared of injustice. I’m scared of change. I’m scared of demons. I’m scared this spirituality thing I’m into is bullshit. I’m scared I’ll never be able to have a child. I’m scared of not knowing things. I’m scared of people. I’m scared of needles. I’m scared of ambiguity. I’m scared of pain. I’m scared of being judged. I’m scared that women will never be equal. I’m scared of secret governments and big corporations. I’m scared of guns. I’m scared of being raped again. I’m scared of violence. I’m scared that I’m self-indulgent. I’m scared of you.

Here’s the thing: You are scared of me too.

And all of that other shit that I just purged all over the page.

At the end of the day we are all the same. We are all scared. Terrified. Of everything. No one is better than anyone else because we are all the same. The only things that separate us are constructs of our own design: wealth, privilege, education, race, etc. Put a cross section of us on a deserted island and sure, some of us will be cannier than others with ideas of how to survive, but we all need the same things: food, shelter, water. Therefore it’s kind of silly to be scared because we’re all in the same boat and we’ll all die one day, so stick a geranium in your hat and be happy!

Yeah, okay.

Fuck, I don’t have the answers. I turn 40 in a few weeks and I’m still coming to terms with the fact that I actually made it to this point, to be honest. There’s a term psychologists use for the feeling someone gets after they’ve attempted suicide, but they’re still alive: it’s called phenomena, apparently. I’ve felt it before because I’ve tried to die before. I feel it now, not because I’ve tried to die lately, but because in spite of everything I’ve subjected myself to, I’m still here. It feels … odd. What’s even odder is that I’m alive and Mum isn’t. I still can’t quite get my head around that one.

I miss my mum because I knew, despite everything, that she was always on my side. I said at her funeral that the stuff I have done in my life, the things I’ve thrown at her, could have caused her a great deal of shame. But it didn’t. She took it in her stride, she understood that shit happens, and she told me as often as she could that she loved me. And she did.

She visits me sometimes. I’ll smell her perfume, or a song she used to sing will come on the radio somewhere, or – as happened this time last year just before I was about to go on stage – she’ll just be in the room, and I and the people around me can feel her. A medium friend of mine did a reading for me recently, and she said that Mum has been unwilling to come forward very often because she was ashamed of what she did to me as a kid. She could see my mother, standing to the side, looking abashed. I’ve never seen my mother look abashed in my life, but I believed my friend because I’ve been feeling it. I never told Mum that I forgave her. I do. I do forgive her.

This is getting easier, this life-without-Mum thing. Actually admitting that I’m afraid has helped. Time has helped. Getting rid of awful, unsupportive people from my life has helped. But there’s still that piece missing; that scar that will never quite go away. Phenomena. This is life now. It’s never going to be what it was again.