i’ve literally had a brain fart that night, as well, which has left me unable to drive for at least 12 months. that is making life awkward, tho i’m seeing it as more training time on the bike. thank God/dess i have a decent mountainbike, Manny the Norco hardtail. 

the incident had left me unable to get to my track and race, as well. as i talked a little to my BMX forum friends about it, and the subject of the Retro Grands came up again. The Retro’s are basically an excuse for older guys and former riders to get out on the tracks with the bikes they rode/loved/lusted after in their childhoods, and show off their collections (or part of) in a show-and-shine. it’s held at Macarthur BMX track in far western Sydney, on the long weekend this year, tho the date has been changed to run it alongside an Open meet next year. a few more chats with the boys later, and the decision was made for me, i was coming down to race.

the bikes have to be pre-1985 with original or reproduction components. i had Nicole, my little Apollo Spitfire i’d picked up for $40 at the bike recyclers, so then it was a matter of sourcing a few era-specific parts and getting the wheels trued. some parts i bought, others were donated by the boys on OZBMX and of course, then i had to splash out on matching tyres…

it was six hours on the train to Maitland and then another two and a half in the car with another of the riders, Gazzz. the main story is here ,  in a format more suitable for my bike-riding friends.

all i knew at the time was that another of my forum friends (who we call The Reverend) was going to be there, he’d originally proposed the road trip from Melbourne the a couple of other guys, and was supposed to be picking me up from Central station. the other boys pulled out, and Daz, the organiser of the races, had come a cropper off a ladder at work, smashed his hip socket, and was in traction in hospital, tho he still generously threw his house open to us. Daz also organised Gazzz to pick me up at Maitland to save The Reverend an hour’s drive thru the city, and that, dear readers, put a different spin on the whole weekend…

Gazzz and i arrived at the house to complete silence, broken only by the snores emitting from the couch. The Reverend had driven all night and was still catching up on sleep. Gazzz had said two riders from Adelaide were supposed to be there too, they’d arrived the night before, but they were out, so Gazzz and i started unpacking the car and sorting our bikes. once the SA boys arrived, it was introductions and swapping bike stories, organising a food run and me doing a few laps of the paddock to stretch after my travels. i already knew Gazzz and The Reverend fairly well, so we were easily laughing and talking crap, with young BennyMac playing along, but the other SA rider, Mr Es, wasn’t as sociable. BennyMac gave me a hand with my bike and we ended up talking cars and bikes until the boys came back with some dinner makings, upon which all the boys naturally drifted out to the BBQ and i was left to find my way around a bachelor’s kitchen to make salad and get plates out. the boys were all out there talking man stuff while i was in the kitchen, of course, but BennyMac had volunteered to cook and so enlisted my help to set up barbecue supplies, and once that was happening, wandered back in to ask if i needed help inside. we’d talked for a couple of hours earlier, and while i had no idea who he was or anything about his racing history, i felt very comfortable with him, despite his size. remember that only nine weeks before i’d been trapped and beaten by someone who i’d loved and trusted, so it says a lot that i was ok with having this 6’4″ strong, fit man following me around and chatting like we’d known each other for years.

sitting around the table after dinner, chatting, talk got around to odd things we’d done and i was showing BennyMac photos off my phone of me as Trav Esty, my drag-king alter-ego. he was having a good laugh at me, egging me on to show more photos, when he got up and came to sit beside me. somehow, his arm ended up around me, the rest of the boys chose that moment to go out to the carport for a smoke, and i found myself being very thoroughly kissed. most unexpected, totally cheeky and full of assumption on his part, but very nice indeed.

a couple of drinks and more chat later, i’d had enough, i was off to bed. BennyMac had had my room the night before, but he’d graciously turned it over to me. however, when i woke up at 2am (when the Gazzz and BennyMac had finally come in from playing with bikes, of course) i realised he’d left himself with nothing to sleep on, and so i told him he was fine to share the bed with me. i’d rolled in to bed fully clothed anyway, and although he’d kissed me earlier he hadn’t gone for the grope or tried anything else since – however, once we did get into bed, we just naturally spooned, and other things just as naturally happened from there.

the next morning there was nothing said, but i could tell the boys were wondering what had gone on, and neither BennyMac or myself were saying a word…:p

off at racing, we hung out a little, wandered off to chat to other fellow riders and forum members, raced, and hung out some more. i wasn’t sure what to do, obviously we lived in different states, and i had no idea at that time that he thought of it as anything more than something that happened on a weekend away. we spent a fair bit of time cuddling up that evening in between the boys packing things up for Daz, as he wasn’t comfortable with leaving his BMX treasures home alone while he was in hospital. snuggling up again that night brought on a repeat of the night before, and not much sleep was had…

the next day i was distracted by packing the bike back into it’s box for the train, and packing Gazzz’s car so we could get going. BennyMac gave me a hand, and once done, we had a chance to talk a little and hug. he didn’t want me to leave, took my phone number and asked me to add him to Facebook, extracting a promise that i would talk to him again soon.

a few texts on the way home very soon graduated into long, late night Facebook chats, hours of getting to know one another, hours of late-night phone calls swapping stories, and a mutual decision that he was coming over to NSW for a working holiday – his work at home is permanent casual. the death of one of our forum members, a week after we came back from the Grands, made us both stop and realise we had something growing between us, we both talked through a lot of soul-searching and fears, and talk turned very quickly to the Radelaide ride day show-and-shine. i bit the bullet and decided to fly over, it being my birthday in the week before, and unbeknownst to me, BennyMac had begun building up a vintage BMX bike for me to ride, out of his own racing history. extensive racing history, thru the course of our chats i’d discovered this man has been a podium placer 15 times, quite a few of which have been number 1′s in the State Championships. i haven’t written up the Radelaide day on my training blog yet, when i do, i’ll link it here.

the look on his face when he spotted me coming off the plane was truly priceless. it confirmed my  gut feeling that something real was indeed growing here and somehow, we had to make it happen. i’d brought my race bike over, and we spent time on three of his tracks, raced one out of the three meets we’d planned (another long story i’ll cover in my training blog) and had a long, leisurely ride and chat on the creek trails near his house. he took me round to meet his close friends, drove me places to show me his town, and of course, we had other distractions too. if i’d known i could, i would have changed my tickets to fly home later, but it didn’t happen. somewhere over our four-day weekend, i realised that if one of us was going to have to move, it would be me, at least for the next couple of years. the BMX Nationals are in Mt Gambier in April, and riding them gives us both a good chance of being able to ride the World Titles in NZ in 2013. that is a chance of a lifetime that we both, but he especially, should be grabbing with both hands.

leaving him behind at the airport had us both in tears, it was the hardest thing i’ve done in a very long time. once home, i started looking at work and applying for TAFE courses in Adelaide, and things have been quickly falling into place. i’m in the process of organising tenants, beginning the packing process for storage and what i will bring over for a nominal 6-month stay, and BennyMac is flying in for a two-week stay over Christmas, with plans for us to drive back to Adelaide over three days in my ute, in January.

this will be the biggest move i’ve ever made in my life, and things will be coming full circle in many ways for me, we’ll be living in the very town that my mother settled in when she first came to Australia.

another odd thing that has cropped up in all of this is that when i first saw this man, i knew him. i’d never met him before, but i knew the timbre of his voice and the shape of his hands, the way he moves is so familiar to me. we’re as comfortable as an old married couple, no awkwardness, and often say the same thing simultaneously or complete each other’s sentences. i do believe it was him who i saw when i was doing some past life work with a very spiritual kinesiologist, just a couple of weeks before my life was catastrophically changed by my bashing.

who’d have thought that two people so distant in kilometres from each other, would meet and fall in love?

It’s difficult to say what new medical knowledge I gained from this program, considering my background in health care. What I did gain though, was a deep insight into the selflessness of people such as the SES volunteers who came to speak to us, their depth of commitment to our community, the wealth of knowledge they possess, and their willingness to help their fellow human beings without judgement.

It’s very easy for the average person to dismiss the work of those in the health and caring professions, as so much goes on behind the scenes. When one comes to Emergency, for example, all we see is the Triage nurse and the lines in the waiting room. What we don’t see is that most likely scenario that’s happening  while we wait safely, bored in the waiting room, the doctors and nurses on a 12 hour shift dealing with the aftermath of a road accident, a bashing, or perhaps an attempted suicide. We don’t give any thought to their families waiting for them to come home, or the children they don’t get to tuck in at night because they’re trying to get an IV line into a dehydrated teenager who’s coming down off a three day ecstasy binge at a rave.

We see the ambulance drivers carefully negotiating traffic, and wonder why they’re not speeding to the scene of the accident. What we don’t feel is the tightness in that driver’s gut because he’s wondering how many deceased he’ll have to transport back to the morgue, or when he’s hearing the woman screaming in pain as they try to put her face back together in the back of an ambulance. We aren’t inside their heads when they close their eyes at night and all they can see is the blood on the road and the twisted pile of metal that a few minutes ago was a car.

It hit me hard last night, hearing the police officer speak about how the smell of meat in a supermarket puts him straight back into an accident scene. He will live with that smell for the rest of his life. It will affect his relationship with his family, friends, and colleagues. Forever.

It’s very easy to be dismissive of SES worker, the average person is a little suss on what exactly drives someone to volunteer their personal time to do something dangerous. We ask, “is this person power-tripping? Are they a firebug?” what we don’t know, is this person has immense compassion and a desire to serve, a willingness to give up their family time and social life to study a myriad of courses that enable them to put their own lives at risk to pull people out of wrecked cars, off cliff faces, out of flooded rivers and houses threatened by bushfire.

And no-one has mentioned the tow-truck drivers who are called to remove these cars from the scene, how the blood and the smell of roasted human flesh stays with them for the rest of their lives.

I also gained a deep insight into how a single accident has far-reaching effects. How witnesses to an accident are deeply affected, and see it over and over in their heads, feel the viscereal shock of the hit, as if it had happened to them. How an accident has far-reaching effects on the families of the victims, how every relationship is suddenly severed and no-one’s life is ever the same after. How the grieving goes on for years, decades, the rest of your life.

it’s given me a new way of seeing these people who serve our community. obviously, as with all professions there will be a fe who lack compassion and understanding suitable for the job, but on the whole, i have a new-found respect for these people.

it never ceases to amaze me how we live in such a sick society, where two of the most insidious drugs known to man – alcohol and tobacco – are so freely available and widely socially accepted, regardless of the damage they do and the lives they ruin….when will we wake up to it, and actually DO something? the methods and scare tactics in place obviously aren’t working!

January began on the dance floor. it was a great night, i felt good in my body, having put in a lot of gym work. i was working towards riding the Nerang Nationals, training hard, when my trainer pulled out of our trip at the last minute. he’d let me down before, i’d only been speaking to him again for a matter of months, but this time i just called it quits. there’s only so many chances you can give someone, so i pulled in my boundaries and said, enough.

February was gym, training, and buying a new car – Feargus – who was stolen later in the month. the next night, i was introduced to a sweet man, a complex and damaged man, whose damage only became apparent the more i got to know him. it’s meant that March, April and May have been spent working through the rollercoaster of emotion that the on-again, off-again, friendship, lovers, dear friends, just friends, whatever that day he’s deciding that the relationship is. at that moment, he was not even speaking to me. i still have very little idea why, and i was wondering if he is worth all the trouble.

my heart hurts. attachment is still a huge issue for me. i also had a friend who i’d once been very attached to commit suicide in April, and i’m still trying to process that. even tho we hadn’t been close for years, he’s still left a hole in my life.

july this man of mine started talking to me again and the rollercoaster became an even wilder ride. i helped him evict non-paying tenants, he spiralled further into addiction, and unbeknownst to me, further into debt. most of August was spent looking after him when he tore the AC joint of his shoulder drunk wrestling with our mate. he was alternately pulling me closer and literally smacking me down, studying the Bible with me while refusing to practice what he preached, equating a lot of my health care modalities to Devil-worship while requesting massage constantly. our friendship ended in the wee small hours of the @6th August, with him literally trapping me, kidnapping, repeatedly holding me in a headlock from behind while driving me into the ground, alternated with screaming abuse in my face. needless to say, i’ve pressed charges and have taken out an AVO. the worst part is that although he declares he can’t remember doing it, he was aware enough to drag me away from the only possible witnesses. i wonder if he did it to avoid paying back money he owes me.

September was pretty much a writeoff with me barely leaving my room, let alone my house. i’m having flashbacks and panic attacks, still trying to come to terms with the loss of what i thought was an intimate, affectionate friendship and the hole in my life he’s left.  this month i’ve forced myself to ride most days and have even been feeling like the rides are less of a chore. i’ve put a bit of weight back on and some serious muscle mass on the thighs from all the pedalling, but haven’t been to bmx in two months.

i have just a few days till the Retro Grands, and i’m caught between panic and looking forward to it. today i’m taking stock and making final arrangements, organizing a bike box and my tickets.

i’ve learnt how easy it is to allow someone in through your boundaries even when you think you can spot the signs of an abuser, especially if you still have unresolved, unprocessed hurt from a previous relationship. i’d still been vulnerable earlier this year. i’d still been hollow from the betrayal of my lover the year before. i didn’t see the abuse cycle that had been happening clearly until now. i’m cross-correlating this with incidents in other relationship, and forgiving myself for not seeing it for what it was.

still, i have a trio of trouble at the moment – a guy who has been trying to date me for years is still hassling despite me making it very plain (ad nauseum) that our lifestyles are incompatible. i’ve taken to avoiding even his calls.

another guy friend who i’ve known for 12 years and once had a thing with (we were both separated from our spouses at the time) is asking me for a relationship and keeps buying me gifts which i really feel badly about. trouble is, he lost his wife earlier this year and i feel he’s nowhere near ready to take on something new. nor do i think his children would accept it.

the third is a guy i briefly dated about five years back who is telling me he’s never forgotten me. he also wants a relationship, i’m worried about cultural differences though, he’s Kenyan and has only been in Australia six years. i have enough trouble finding an Aussie man of my vintage willing to let me be something other than a hausfrau. he asked me if he could come stay the night – i literally felt panic at the thought. i think i should listen to my inner feelings, because i had this same stab of fear when i first got involved with the last one, who turned out to be such a nutter – i can well do without any more drama.

it’s difficult to hold my boundaries when i’m incredibly lonely. having been so intensely involved with someone for the best part of this year, he’s left a hole in my heart and my life that i’m struggling to fill with more “normal” things like resuming my own hobbies and riding my bike more. i haven’t at this point been able to move past the grieving who i thought he was, i still miss him terribly  and yet at times i feel resentful that he couldn’t love me as i deserved, despite saying he did. i’m angry that he’s free to live the life i set up for him, free to go on with it without the fear i’m feeling.

even turning to the Bible is difficult, considering how much i associate my studies with him. but i don’t feel anything else is helping me much. i’m  having a great deal of difficulty sleeping, finding myself waking at odd times during the night, often with my mind churning resentfully or with a stab of viscereal fear. i pray and meditate, often going through the sleep meditation several times before i do go to sleep, only to wake half an hour later and have to do it all over again. i’m slowly healing, not as numb as i was, but still haven’t found that joy in my life again. trying to be grateful always for what i *do* have rather than focusing on what i don’t, but still struggling between wanting company and being afraid of letting anyone in.

i’m healing. i’m setting firmer boundaries yet again. but oh God/dess, it’s a long, harsh, and painful process.

This is the long version of the story, with names changed to avoid defamation suits by the guilty.

I was introduced to Chuck by a mutual friend. I say friend, but I actually didn’t know John that well, only that we’d known each other for years and he’d dated a friend of mine for a couple. I’ve been divorced near seven years now, in abusive relationships for probably three years of that, and celibate and not dating for at least two separate years.  Four months before I met Chuck a painful, messy breakup with a lover had sent me into crisis. It had been a rough few years for me. Marriage breakdown, multiple miscarriage in a new relationship with a compulsive liar and serial cheat, depression, illness, and surgery for an ovarian tumour had taken their toll, and that latest breakup had pushed me to that crisis point. I’d thought I was getting better, tho in hindsight, 20/20 as it so often is, I can see I was still incredibly vulnerable.

This man was 11 years younger, sweet, polite, intelligent, articulate, and on the surface seemed caring and compassionate. He was an incredibly attentive lover, affectionate, but with an inherent vulnerability that I often find very attractive in a man. He seemed gentle, indeed he wasn’t the big, macho man which is the type that has so often led me to trouble. We talked constantly, shared our stories, debated the nature of God, time, and the universe, explored feminist ideals, cooked together, shared hobbies, and made long, slow, love constantly, often a few times a day. It was a wonderful, wonderful honeymoon. He stayed with me full-time for a couple of weeks due to issues at his home, so it became very intense. I learned that there’d been domestic issues with his ex, but she’d had mental health problems, so I minimised what he’d said about his own behaviour. That should have been the first red flag, but I was besotted.

One night about two weeks in, we had some wine with dinner. One bottle turned into two, and the debate became heated. He got up in my face trying to make me see his point, and I resisted. I’m used to having my own opinions, I’m well educated and intelligent myself. We argued, and he grabbed my shoulder. At that point I went to bed and left him. He came to bed later. In the morning he was contrite, we both apologised, and that was that.

Less than a week later, we were curled up on the couch together, movie on in the background, chatting, and I was happily rambling on. He became very still, started trembling, and when I stopped talking because I noticed, he started ranting at me. I couldn’t understand what the problem was, tried to soothe the situation, but he escalated, invaded my personal space again, shouting in my face. I asked him to leave, and he did. Next day he rang me from our friend’s place, contrite, and asked me to come there for tea. We had wine with another female friend of mine, we all stayed the night, and a blowup happened because John had propositioned me for group sex. We argued, I cried, and we eventually talked it through and went to bed. I was very hurt and confused, in our arguments he was very good at deflecting and changing the subject, twisting my words till the original problem became lost in the mess of accusation and counter-accusation. My background as a people-pleaser still has me trying to make things right for everyone – there’s another red flag for you.

Another dinner party with our friend and his flatmate turned into a party where we stayed over. John told me I had the double bed for the night and I assumed Chuck was told the same. I wandered in fully dressed when I was ready, laid down, and left the three boys to it – I assume they kept on drinking. I’d also had a very strange conversation with Chuck’s flatmate earlier that disturbed me. I woke up in the morning with my maxi dress hiked up past my rear and the blankets off, with John in the doorway watching me. The other side of the bed was disturbed and Chuck was asleep in the other room. I got up and hopped into bed with him, but he thought I had been in the bed with him earlier…weird. When I got up an hour later, the double bed had been made. I had a bad feeling that John had orchestrated something, I still feel that all the time he was trying to get Chuck into bed, with or without me. It caused issues between Chuck and I that became my focus, taking my mind off the other undercurrent that was happening, and Chuck sided of course with John against me. The subtle psychological abuse had begun.

Chuck and I had talked about his “Daddy issues” and other family quirks, the kind of thing that John Bradshaw calls “cross-generational emotional abuse”. I talked him through the work I’d done on myself, with my own background of family alcoholism, abuse, and sexual abuse. I thought we had a rapport. He knew all the labels, had read many of the same books. Meanwhile we were still having the most wonderful, beautiful, loving sex I’ve ever experienced, alternating with odd things like Chuck insisting he sleep on the couch some nights. I tried to understand, but meanwhile it was triggering my own unresolved abandonment issues.

Then his flatmate Michael died from auto-erotic asphyxiation. Chuck went on a bender with John, refused to tell me where he was or answer his phone, and I panicked. I was having an odd bleed, perhaps an early miscarriage. I hadn’t thought about protection thinking I was infertile now, and we’d both tested clear. I went to John’s house looking for him, and Chuck was furious. Livid. We argued, he got up in my face again, I cried, he threw my house key I’d given him at me, and told me not to speak to him. The next day he came by with John, picked up his things, and broke it off with me. I was devastated.

A week later, a friend of mine suicided too, only days after I’d spoken to him about Michael’s death. I sent a text to Chuck who was working away during the weekdays, and he rang me. When he got back that weekend he invited me over, we talked, and we appeared to have patched things up – but the boys were drinking heavily, and Chuck went back to work the next day. The next weekend was the same, a party, not much time alone but wonderful lovemaking. The weekend after, we locked ourselves in his room and made love pretty much all weekend, only stopping for food. I was besotted again. The next weekend he was off with John, I was hurt because I was missing him, and so we argued. This cycle of working away, partying hard, and seeing him only for a day each weekend continued with issues with Michael’s elderly parents (who were staying at the house too) stirring as well until Chuck’s birthday, about six weeks later. I’d ask where we were at and he’d change his mind constantly. We still made love at times, at others we would just cuddle. He’d say he wanted me and then he’d say no, sex wasn’t good for him at this time. He’d want massage and touch but say no “relationship affection”. One night in front of John, he said he loved me but didn’t want a relationship, he wasn’t ready. Constant mixed messages, every time I saw him the story would be different. I was in a miasm of hurt and confusion, constantly, walking on eggshells, trying to show him how much I cared in the hope he’d settle in and trust me. We argued on his birthday because I’d wanted to spend the evening with him but he wanted to go party. He went off furious, I cried, and then he refused to speak to me for a month.

I was so glad to see him when he finally called again that I went up and spent as much time with him as he’d allow. I didn’t understand what his problem was, and every time I tried to broach the subject we’d argue, I’d apologise, and the cycle would start again. I was growing increasingly isolated from my friends, trying to get a handle on the situation with Bible study with Chuck, and helping out because he’d lost his job. All my attention was now focussed on keeping him happy and not provoking his anger. (Are we seeing a pattern here?) I’d dropped my training, was neglecting my own garden, and was constantly confused by his ever-changing demands on me. I was deep into the abuse cycle now and couldn’t break away, even though my friends could see it. Things came to a head one night when we were discussing Old v New Testament, and he got up in my face again and grabbed me by both arms. I quietly asked him to let go of me, repeating myself a few times until he kind of “came to” and let me go. Immediately he blamed me and ordered me to leave. He accused me of being the type of woman who incites men to hit them. (Is the pattern even clearer now?) I refused to leave, it was late, said I’d sleep on the couch. We didn’t have enough blankets so we ended up in his bed, but I was hearing the warning bells rather loudly at this point, yet still unable to break away. My self-esteem was eroding rapidly.

He was smoking dope as well at his point, drinking heavily, and almost chain-smoking. All things that I didn’t want in my life, but accepted so I could have him there. His addictions were escalating as his behaviour deteriorated. Another incident had him breaking his phone in my face because I’d asked him who he was texting. I knew by this point there was something else going on, an involvement with someone else, but didn’t know what and was holding out for proof, thinking I was being unreasonably jealous. I only knew he was lying to me, but I thought I loved him, needed him, so I kept trying to be the woman he seemed to want. He would belittle my intelligence because I don’t have a mathematical turn of mind and sure as hell don’t understand physics. The three diplomas hanging on my wall against his lack of formal education didn’t seem to matter. Here was yet another red flag, clear as the Lundy book can spell it out to us. Was I listening yet? No.

I pulled back and started doing more things with my own friends, even dating another man for a while, a few weeks. It didn’t help that I still wanted Chuck. He started to question me about them, got more affectionate, was calling me constantly, and very soon I was back in the abuse cycle. I supported him through him having to kick Michael’s parents out – their ongoing abuse of the house space and non-payment of rent had been another issue distracting me from Chuck’s emotional manipulations – and my adult daughter needing somewhere to live in a hurry ended up with me helping clean, move things, and generally helping him out around the house. Once we’d moved her in, he finally disclosed just how critical the situation was, not before we’d heard it from the landlord’s son who lives next door and is a friend of my daughter’s. That became an issue in my mind, with an impending inspection coupled with him going on yet another bender with John and ending up injured. I of course ended up nursing him, cleaning the backlog between the mess Michael’s parents had left and his own inability to do anything while he’d been working away. I’d just got the house clean when they had another big night, and I lost the plot. I gave both boys a serve and of course Chuck and I argued over it.

That was last Sunday. I was unwell, and I’d spent four hours cleaning for him the day before. Tuesday night he and John had another big night, and Wednesday I asked him to come down and see me as I was still unwell and needed some company while I did some things at my own house. He came down, stinking of alcohol, hungover and with the “dreads” – those “why did I drink so much, I’m so sick, why did I do this, what the hell did I do?, who did I insult?” feelings. I talked him through how this injury is his wakeup call, how yet another the night on the booze wasn’t worth losing another job and maybe his house over, and he seemed to listen. He went home, supposedly to prepare for the house inspection which had been delayed, and I went out with my woman friends to karaoke.

Come midnight he started ringing. “come up, come up” “no, Chuck, you’re drunk.” “come up, please, I want to see you” “no, Chuck, who’s there?” I could hear another man’s voice. He wouldn’t tell me who it was. I said I wasn’t coming. I still wasn’t well. But a major error in judgement on my part meant that I did go up. He picked me up from my house, drunk, insisting I get in the car. He wouldn’t leave so I did.

I was upset. I’d had an incident of my own happen that night. I needed to vent to my friend. I’d spoken to him many times how I do walk that fine line between loving life and suicide triggers. We stood in the kitchen talking, he wrapped me in a hug, rocking me. I leant on his chest and cried a little, told him how the night’s events had triggered my suicidal impulse. I went to get a drink, and he wrapped me from behind, pinning my arms to my sides. I tried to get him off me, I was uncomfortable. He leant down and hissed in my ear “you want to suicide? I’ll show you suicide. How serious are you, huh? You really want to do it?” and speared me into the kitchen floor, him on top. He shoved my shoulder, got up, and I pulled myself up by the kitchen bench. I went to grab my handbag (it had my house keys in it) and leave, he grabbed me from behind again, and marched me out the door. He was in my ear again, saying “let’s do it together. Let’s go under the train. One’s coming, come on, I dare you to show me how serious you are”. I was getting concerned, the landlord’s son lives next door, a friend of my daughter’s, and I didn’t want to be causing trouble. I was shushing him, trying to de-escalate the situation. Trying to just get away. He shoved me two-handed on my back, through the grass verge onto the neighbour’s access road. I stumbled, he walked away into the house. I went to get my bag, slung it across my body, and left. He caught up with me half-way down the driveway, grabbed my left shoulder from the right hand side, and gripped hard. He hissed in my ear “you want to be closer to me? How much closer would we be if we died together?” I said “I won’t be responsible for your suicide, Chuck, go home and let me leave.” He was bodily walking me down the driveway, and I was still trying to keep calm and not struggle. We were walking past the landlord’s house at this point, then off down the access road. Part-way down that hill he speared me into the grass verge, grabbed a handful of hair, swung round and got in my face. He said “when did I promise you a baby? Huh? When? When did I promise you a baby?” over and over, getting louder. I said “let me go, Chuck. The best thing you can do right now is walk away and let me leave.” He got even more agitated, louder, and said “let’s turn this around. Where’s MY baby, huh? Where’s mine? Give me my baby. Come on, where is it? You owe me a life!” I was still asking him to just let go and let me leave, quietly, still trying to de-escalate the situation, not struggling. At no time did I hit back. He flung me down on my face, sat on the road, and as I gathered myself began hitting himself on the head with a beer bottle and yelling abuse at me. “Bitch” was the mildest of epithets. He scrambled to his feet, shoved me two-handed in the back again, and shouted “don’t ever come up here again. Don’t call me, don’t text me, I never want to see you again!” I simply turned and walked away, down a pitch-black farm track at 3am.

I repeatedly tried to call my son, friends, anyone to come get me. I was hurting, dazed, bruised, stumbling in the dark, kilometres from home. I even rang and texted our mate who was at the house. I was desperate. Eventually I got hold of a friend who came and picked me up and took me to the police station, where I waited three hours to be able to talk to anyone. The police gave me a blanket and called the ambulance, but were too busy to do any more just then. I was in shock. I’d just endured an hour and a half ordeal at the hands of a man I loved, and thought had loved me.

At 6am, I made my report, as dry and factual as I could. The policewoman was concerned, sympathetic, helpful. She took photos of the mud on my clothes, the dishevelled hair, the bruises and scrapes. She told me what would happen once I made my statement, counselled me, and sent me home with another female police officer.

He was arrested and charged at 6pm. He apparently doesn’t remember a thing.

How does it happen that love turns to abuse so quickly? How does an intelligent, articulate, educated woman get sucked into the vortex of domestic violence? By extending love and compassion, friendship and nurturing to an abuser, a master manipulator. It’s textbook Lundy. Page three, chapter one. I urge every woman to read the book, have her friends read it, and discuss as openly as you can. Don’t let this be your story too.

the saga began when i was rolling down a steep hill towards the highway, went to brake – in an older car i always use my gears as well – and there was nothing. picture Feargus and Violet heading straight for a T-bone with a semi doing over 60k’s and you’ll see me reefing on the handbrake and steering for the gutter in desperation, wide-eyed with terror…

i did stop, obviously, but not before scaring the crap out of myself. at the time i didn’t notice, but i’d gone from crappy brakes one day to pretty much nothing the next…

a day or so later, Feargus was stolen. that story is covered in a previous post, so i won’t repeat myself here, but that meant that i’d completely forgotten about the brakes suddenly being dodgy.  the next day, as i was still furiously contacting everyone i could think of, a friend took me up the hill to meet another friend of his. this man and i, well, like the corny love stories, it happened at “hello”. a rollercoaster ride ensued, in between me getting Feargus back (eventually) from the police and organising a computer for my elder daughter who was in the process of a separation and going back to uni. he also had troubles at the house he was living in, so he spent a lot of time with me at first.

being a lay mechanic, he offered to have a look at my brakes when i mentioned that i was booking it in. ok, i thought, let’s do it this afternoon…but he’d double booked himself, and was off fixing a computer for our friend. Violet was not happy, but when you’ve given your word you will do something, you do it. so we made another time to do it, and it just didn’t happen…then he was off to spend the day fixing another computer, and that night, we got word of his flatmate’s death by unintentional suicide. i came home to find he’d brought other people to my house, and i hit the roof. the invasion of my space after having him staying with me was just a little too much…

so we fought. he went to leave, ended up staying because i asked him to, but the fight went unresolved. i had to leave the next day as we were still trying to talk it through, and when i phoned him later that night, wondering if he was coming back for dinner, we fought again. he hung up on me, i drove out to see him, and we fought again. i was bleeding that night, unexpectedly, and that contributed to my emotional distress. our friend who had introduced us was also jealous, and had been stirring.

i saw him the next day when he came to pick up his things, and he broke it off, saying he just wanted to be friends.

i was devastated. the time we’d spent together was so intense, so loving, so sexual, i had thought we would be exploring it for a long time. we were still talking, still swapping massage at my request. he’d got some work and had to be away, we set rules around contact, and then my own friend suicided. i sent a text, not expecting an answer. he rang me, we talked for half an hour. a couple of days later, he rang again, we talked. that Friday he came home and invited me up to his house for drinks. i was rambling, talking, happy to be in his company, until he gave me an opening i couldn’t not use…i asked him why we had to be apart. nothing much had changed apart from the physical side of things, we were still affectionate friends, so i proposed to him that we should start where we had promised each other we would, as dear friends and lovers.  i stayed the night, all was lovely, and then he went off to work again.

he came back middle of the week, and i saw him briefly to give his arms a quick massage before he went off to his mate’s funeral. he tried to make dinner plans with me that night, but i laughed and told him i’d be surprised if they didn’t get on the drink and make it an all-nighter….they did. i made curry for lunch for my man and our friend, they barely ate with eyes open, and then our friend went off for a while, leaving my man here. after a little intimacy time and a snooze, he went off fishing. the next day, i was impatient, so i got a little pushy and pretty much invited myself over. we had a couple of drinks, went down town for more and to pick up some food from my place, and then basically locked ourselves away in his room for 24 hours.

i’m drawing the Victorian velvet curtain over that one. suffice it to say, i believe we reached authentic intimacy that day.

i’d already explained to him that i didn’t expect him to help me with my car, nor would i rely on him, my issue had been with him making a deal with me to do it and then dropping it to go do things for others, and letting me down. i’ve built a network of tradies that i trust over the years, so i’m not without resources. anyway, over the weekend we gradually started the work on the Morris. we’d already adjusted the front brake shoes with very little discernible effect, so now we went to the rear. my man discovered a leaky rear brake booster cylinder, and proceeded to bleed the brakes. then we discovered that there was very little actual brake fluid getting to the rear, and that the brake master cylinder had pretty much seized, or at least the rear mechanism had. so then it was hours of entertainment trying to get the damn thing off the firewall, in an engine bay designed by an eccentric Englishman for midget mechanics. getting it apart was another story entirely, at one stage he wedged the body of the master cylinder itself in the mulberry tree to crack a couple of bottom nuts – one of which, when it let go, flung me face first into the ground. how embarrassment

after a cleanup the part was ready to be kitted out. i’ve chosen to drop it off to Brakepoint for them to take care of. once i get it back, it should be a fairly straightforward job to put it all back together…i hope….

an epiphany today has gained me a great deal of insight into the workings of this man’s mind. we’d been discussing authentic sexuality over the time we’ve been together. i was rambling the other day about how i felt that the impositions, demands, and expectations of other people in my life have shaped and indeed warped my own sexuality, how i feel that for a woman it’s even more so, because we are literally taking another person into our bodies. he’s pulled me up on that, and reiterated how it’s very much the same imposition for him, despite the fact he’s not being penetrated. today, writing this and reflecting on that conversation, i had a very viscereal, very real gut stab of realisation just what he meant by that, and how true it is for him.

how wonderful, and marvellous. 

amd walking this path as a survivor requires the most strength.

in 2010, i stood by my daughter thru a brief pregnancy that ended in miscarriage. it was two years to the very day since she had left my house screaming that she wanted me to lose the babe i was carrying at the time. her loss brought my own losses full circle, and all i could do was be with her and love her and thru supporting her unconditionally, overcome the memory of my own trauma.

in 2010 i survived four benign but proliferative tumours. i surrendered half an ovary to the process and in doing so, was able to heal a great deal of the hospital trauma surrounding my first miscarriage.  i took back my personal power that i had somehow let slip away from my sport, and succeeded in racing again. i took back my body with gym workouts and weight loss. i took back my sexuality with the help of the young man on the healing journey with me. his betrayal set me back in the pain, to go thru the healing all over again in a different way to how i’d handled it previously, this time sitting with my pain and cross-correlating how i felt with other times i’d gone thru loss and grief. it’s made me set my personal boundaries more firmly, yet without the brittleness and bitterness of previous times. this time, i think another blow may bend them, but i don’t think they will ever be shattered again. and even so, i now know there are women in my life who stand at my back.

in 2010 my creativity flowered. no longer tied to or governed by the men in my life, my singing voice and my photography took on a whole new aspect. a rich, dark, raw blues voice came out of me one night at muso night and has continued to express itself like a living entity of it’s own – thru me, and thru the drag king alter-ego that manifested himself as Mr Trav Esty. Trav stunned and delighted three separate audiences ad a cabaret singer and an 80′s rock god…..my photography took me  to using my own body as a subject, to publish stunning nude shots in classic dancer poses for The Shape Of A Mother and in other women’s publications. my jewelry was very well received, and no two pieces are ever the same…my garden has been neglected, but i have been, literally, building my new house to dwell in. i will finish my garden this year. 

in 2010, the man in my life and our healing journey opened a place in me i’d kept shut down for many years, my energetic healing. in teaching and working with and on him, i got to integrate much that i had learned in seven years of college and ten years of bodywork as a profession. i opened my heart again to Spirit, and in doing so, despite the pain i’ve gone through since, i’ve been able to open my heart to a more unconditional path to love.

in 2010, i wrote. on my beloved forum, here, on two blogs, for two online magazines. i wrote my childhood pain, i wrote my healing journey. i wrote from the heart, and was stunned that people read, accepted, and even loved my work.  my dream of writing has also come full circle this year…

in 2010, i closed the door on my fertile years. not without pain –  in all honesty, with an overwhelming sense of loss, but with love, and maybe one day soon, acceptance. i’m learning to redefine my sexuality as The Crone, rather than The Maiden, or The Mother. my newest tattoos reflect this, and this year, i will finish yet another tattoo project. The Crone still has much to teach about love and sexuality, healing and surviving abuse. i feel sure she will take me on a longer journey, this year.

in 2010, i closed doors on old sufferings, took my heart in my own hands, and took an amazing leap of faith. there was love, pleasure, pain, suffering, grief, and loss, but somehow, i feel i’ve ended the year on the upside of the scales. 

i am a woman in my power and i walk this journey with amazing grace. why? because i can.

i’m struggling to write this, it’s not flowing like my usual writing. so forgive me if it reads a little disjointed.

i feel like i’m processing many layers at once, which is why i became overwhelmed on the long weekend. as far back as i remember i’ve lived with rejection, of me as a person, a child, a sibling, a friend, and of course that pattern of behaviour and relating carried over into my adult relationships, making it extremely difficult for me to form friendships and romantic relationships that weren’t abuse-driven. moving house as often as we did also made it hard for an extremely shy and socially awkward child to make new friendships. i still struggle – just like Lola/Simon from the movie Kinky Boots, put me on stage in front of a few hundred people and i have no trouble performing outrageously, but put me in a room with my peers and i can barely speak.

i had great difficulty approaching women at the Village Inc Festival, even though they had moved mountains to get me there. impostor syndrome is a bitch.

back to unpacking though.

Kubler-Ross notes five stages of the grieving process, some of which may be visited several times over the course of healing, some perhaps not at all. they are:

Denial

Anger

Bargaining

Depression

Acceptance

i’ve been thru the numbness and denial, it took a couple of weeks, maybe three. i laid in my bed feeling the body symptoms of my heartbreak – increased pulse, racing thoughts, hollow feeling in the solar plexus, loss of appetite. i barely moved for a week. couldn’t even cry…used what Rescue Remedy i had, and it wasn’t enough. we’d been connected on an energetic level and to have that suddenly ripped away was excruciatingly painful, on the emotional, energetic, and even physical level. for weeks i saw the psychic wound as a crater in my own energetic field, similar to the hole in the earth after a tree is ripped out of the ground. it was raw and wet-looking for those weeks, and now is healing, scabbing over and growing smaller daily. slowly, but still surely healing.

i think part of the “bargaining” stage is where you think you’d take the person back into your life if they asked – and having done this myself, a few times, i know it doesn’t work in the long run, especially if the leaving partner feels coerced into coming back, by bargaining and tears or promises. when you’ve placed trust in someone, handed them your vulnerable heart, and they have broken that trust, you need to start again with full openness and vulnerability on both sides or the hurt and resentment will never heal. today i’m at the acceptance stage that i would not take him back into a healing journey, because it would just not have the same innocent trust i placed in him before. i feel like i had, in the words of my dear friend Nemain, offered him something precious and he’s thrown it away like garbage.

i may feel differently again tomorrow, and the day after…who knows. but more and more i’m feeling clear about where i’m at.

i haven’t yet felt a full expression of anger, partly because i know exactly why he jumped from my bed to hers, and partly because i’m still attached enough that i can see good things in him. also because i tried to keep this as a healing journey, not a “special” relationship i also am resisting being angry at him. i’m hurt that he handled the breakup so badly, that he lied, broke my trust, and didn’t take the easy out he was offered. i’m hurt that he did the one thing that would cause me to cut contact with him, and justified it by saying he couldn’t help it, he was in need of the support she was giving him, when he had all my love and support. it still brings me to tears when i think about it, but i haven’t yet got truly angry. perhaps i need to, despite it being an ego reaction.

i know full well that he won’t be feeling the pain i am, because he’s already attached to someone else, and can use the heat of a new relationship to avoid feeling any of the emotions of the process. at least while that relationship is working for them both.

i’ve been through the depression, i’ve let my house get messy and stopped training so hard. the first few weeks i was so gutted i could hardly ride at all. hence my decision over the long weekend to list my baby and maternity things and the subsequent fall into self-harm and suicidal ideation.

in the years since i divorced my husband i’ve had two relationships with compulsive liars and serial cheats. both times i clung, tried to help them, took them back, and tore my own heart out thinking there was something terribly wrong with me. last year, dealing with my latest ex all over again, i was directed to read Lundy Bancroft’s book “Why Does He Do That?” and finally started to see how childhood abuse had set me up to become an abused wife, mother, and partner.

the last few years especially i’ve dealt with a lot of loss. coming back to Coffs four years ago, i had little contact with  my eldest daughter, a fraught relationship with my son, a youngest daughter who was fiercely angry with me, and still numb from the abusive relationship a year before. not to mention having to deal with being alone but for an emotionally abusive sister in a strange town while we were down in Wollongong…came back to find that work was stressful, lost my beloved dog thru negligence on my own part, started a new relationship only to have him bail in the worst possible way within a few months, got past that a little and lost my job thru a betrayal, entered another relationship only to find he was another abuser and fell into the conception-loss-abuser-grief rollercoaster that that relationship was…lost my other daughter over it, and my son for a while as well. pretty much three years of my life were tied up in that emotional storm, and just as i was coming out of it, working with the Lundy book and supported by the forum women, this young man walked into my life and the latest healing journey began, in tandem with the surgery and healing journey of the tumours i’d been carrying.

chalk another one up for the law of Attraction.

i’m relating how i feel about this latest loss and the manner in which the relationship ended back to how i’ve felt about other breakups, and seeing the experiences from different angles. working thru it with the new tools at my disposal plus others which i’d never utilised before. using specific Bach flowers to support the emotional changes and readjustments i’m having to do, facing my life as a mother of young adults, partnerless and looking likely to stay that way, totally different from the 25 years of service i’ve given to partners, children, and other relationships. i can see i never really dealt with the issues i had in my marriage, the betrayals and pain i went thru because of his behaviour, the internalising anger that ended up making me so sick. that compounded the childhood stuff i was already carrying and led to me attracting more of the same.

even with this latest journey, the underlying fear always was that he would go off with someone else. and of course, so he did. but i’m coming to acceptance, i’m not blaming myself this time. i “know” it was meant to happen so that i could fully integrate the lesson this time and hopefully for the last time. i woke up in the night last night with the thought that i’ve indulged in my personal pity party long enough, and it’s time to be the kind of person i’d like to attract into my life. to that end, i’ve made a pact with my trainer, who is going thru a similar grieving process, that we will ride a big open meet in Taree in three weeks and we will both put out heads down and train hard for it. small goals, small steps. it’s important to do the things that make you happy, whether you actually feel the feeling at the time or not, because it’s part of the healing process after a loss. fake it till you make it, you might say. i’ processing three things at once here, the recent medical drama, the giving up my conception journey, and the loss of a healing journey. no wonder i walked the brink of suicide for a few weeks. if it hadnt been for the forum and the women who reached out to me, i really do think i would have gone thru with it this time.

so this weekend i’m getting Trav out to perform at the local CoastOut Festival, and will finally write a post on his adventures. then that will leave me two more weeks to Taree where i will be riding against experienced women riders on their own track, so i will have to get stuck in and work for it. and i shall.

i’ll probably post more in this later but right now, Jet is demanding and mother duty calls.

a few months back, i was guided to take my sometime lover on that healing journey, for his tightly held issues and mine. it became an intense time of bodywork, psychological healing, and energetic healing. so tightly woven were we that my creativity was sublimated into supporting his healing work, rather than mine. we were tied energetically in a way i hadn’t allowed for a very long time, simply because it makes me extremely vulnerable to do so. it can tip the balance for me between reality and my inner world, the world that i see thru my healer’s eyes, energetically charged, time-shifted, peopled by souls who may or may not be currently walking the world in a body.

then suddenly, he was with someone else. he’d hit crisis point and rather than confront his issues head-on, he’d jumped for the safety of another woman’s arms. he lied to me, even when offered the graceful way out of our relationship, and betrayed my trust in the worst possible way, by sleeping with her and then coming back to me, lying to me about it, and leaving again.

i remained frozen for a month. in denial, in pain, in grief, bargaining with the cosmos. we’d finally talked in person a week after it happened, but i was still too much in shock to articulate all i needed to. we’ve talked a little since, on msn, but after a revelation last week, not at all. and i’m feeling it today.

in the seven months since he’d walked into my life, i’d done a complete 180. i’d shed the shackles of my cheating ex, got karmic revenge by being successful in my own life, started to lose the weight from the tumour i was carrying, had the surgery booked, and started singing again. i’d expanded my photographic skills, and started a small business in designing beaded jewelry. this man walking into my life turned it upside down again, then …i got the news, after i’d had to order my own post-surgery checkup, that i had another possible tumour in my kidney.

three months later i finally got in to see my GP. i’m still is almost as much pain as i was before the tumour was removed. despite stretching, training, diet and supplements, i’m still in that pain, and my cycles are still erratic. the GP gave me no more answers than i already had, so i ordered another round of scans and blood tests. this was last Friday, and over the long weekend that ensued, i listed all my baby and maternity clothing and slings for sale. this was so incredibly confronting that i had a minor breakdown. i cried, yelled, grunted with the sheer physical pain of the betrayal of our healing journey, wrote on my beloved forum, completely stripped my bedroom apart, salted, vacuumed, cleaned, wiped over every surface, re-arranged it according to feng shui principles, completely changed the bed and smudged the whole room. then i smudged myself, and sat of the floor of my shower doing a letting-go meditation…but all i could think about was smashing my water glass, slashing my wrists, and lying there to bleed my pain away.

the one thought that kept me from doing so was that my youngest daughter wouldn’t survive my suicide. she, however much we have a love-hate relationship, would forever be damaged by her parent dying.

i’ve tried, over the course of my miscarriage, grieving, conception, and illness journey, to talk to my friends in real life, and my children. i’ve not spoken to my sister in two years due to her emotionally abusive ways, i haven’t told my stepmother very much, she has her own health issues to sort thru. coming to crisis last weekend, i tried to talk to a male friend of mine about how i felt about the new tumour scare, the betrayal, the loneliness i feel having lost my best friend and healing partner…his response was to offer me sex. and he cannot for the life of him understand why i simply don’t want a man in my body right now. another friend last week could only talk about her issues with her new boyfriend, while i was trying to get ready to put on my Finals performance as Mr Trav Esty, and still feeling hollow from the loss of my lover. my younger daughter is still playing at being homeless and crying at me about it, after trashing my house and leaving screaming insults three times in the last two years. i’m increasingly isolated in real life, having worked on my own for more then ten years now, so the women’s forum is pretty much the only place i have to vent.

last weekend i vented. i started a thread, not knowing where it would go, just trying to find a way thru the pain and confrontation of accepting the end of my fertile years, accepting that my struggle with my health still hasn’t ended, accepting that yet again a journey to healing had, accepting that despite loving and caring there are some people who simply do not have the strength to heal, and as a healer, one must be prepared for the overwhelming grief and loss that comes with such abrupt endings.

i entered into this relationship knowing it would end, but trusting my guidance that said “push this young man, he needs to heal”. he’d already inadvertently opened an energy circuit into me, and try as i would, i couldn’t shut it down. so i challenged him, and kicking and struggling he came. as we explored the dark places in his psyche, we also dealt with issues of trust, safety, abuse, and loss that i have around relationships myself. we explored physical healing with diet, exercise, facilitated stretching, supplements, and Ayurvedic body-typing,  emotional healing with Bach flowers, core work,  cranial-sacral therapy, massage,  and a process i use very similar to Reiki but not as structured, psychological healing with John Bradshaw’s Inner Child and Louise Hay’s Heal Your Body, among other things. in the process i got to integrate and explore a lot of the techniques i’d learnt in my own studies but never had the chance to work with because i’d begun my healing studies in great physical and emotional distress, and had so much else to deal with in the intervening years.

i’ve often found that i’ll be talking thru, sorting thru an issue such as i have this last week and something will come out of my mouth that i haven’t planned to say, as if my subconscious is speaking for me. yesterday, talking with my good friend Nemain, who has opened her home to me this week, i said, “his work in my life is done” and i feel it was a true statement. i always knew this man would not stay, and even the manner of his betrayal, so much like previous lovers, has this time taught me that i’m not to blame, there is no more i could have done, said, or given, it’s just that he wasn’t strong enough to keep walking the path with me, and now my task is to accept that and consolidate the lessons he taught me.

it’s time to turn the focus onto myself, and my own healing, after a lifetime of service to other people. first to my family, walking on eggshells as a child, hypervigilant, cowed, and deprived of human touch, hoping to keep the peace in a family that was torn apart by alcoholism and abuse – those ingrained reflexes coloured the choices i made in my adult relationships, choosing to allow other abusers into my life and to be overwhelmed by their need to dominate and control, and finally, gaining a enough sense of self to begin to pull in my boundaries and begin my own healing, for my inner child and her damaged adult. it’s been a huge journey, with what i thought were sidetracks along the way, but in my current mode of re-evaluation, i can see these all now as lessons along the way. stepping stones, if you will, lessons in how to recognise my red flags and act on the feelings they raise in me instead of second-guessing myself. seeing the same situation from another angle, over and over, till i finally have learned the lesson.

i have been offered an opportunity to sink into a circle of women and be loved….and i’m struggling with impostor syndrome, i’ve never been supported thru a crisis before. i’ve always turned back to to the beloved other and kept ripping the scab off the wound because they had walked away, and that clinging hasn’t ever helped me heal. it’s kept the wound open and my heart empty, and of course the lessons unlearnt, not integrated, and doomed to be repeated….

talking with another lovely woman tonight, i was reminded of the lessons from A Course In Miracles regarding special relationships and how they can be transformed by surrendering your own agenda for the relationship to Spirit. it’s time for me to do so with this man, regardless of how i would have liked a different outcome, or how much i would dearly love to keep working with his healing. that need for control is holding my own healing back and depriving me of the comfort i can gain by at last allowing a circle of women to be there for me.

my IGG is squarking “you don’t deserve it” and “what about your BMX plans” but i will have to surrender that too, and just allow myself to be loved. i will ride as well as i’m able to and will just have to hope that the foundation work i have put in will be enough. too many women have sent too much love and care my way to put my ego’s need to prove itself to other people in front of the chance to be loved and cherished by these women who have opened their hearts to me.

the long twin silver lines that i have recently travelled are taking me to another journey, and this time, i surrender to the process, not my ego’s agenda. I’m offering this relationship up to Spirit, for healing. and every time i feel myself wanting to control, change things, force contact or get upset about any of it, i will offer it up again, and again, until i find peace. and i will find peace.

last night, about 11pm, i beached my car on my driveway. it’s steep and has two 90 degree bends, one coming straight off the road so that when i’m heading west along my street, which is what i mostly do, i actually do a complete and very tight u-turn entering my property. my street is long, and is a feeder road for the next housing estate, so people speed along here all the time. last night, coming home in the dark with a tailgater, i turned into my driveway and went off the edge of the concrete into my garden, with just one front wheel.

because of the angle, of course i couldn’t get traction to reverse out.

so i rang my 21yro son. he has a V8 ute, and i explained to him what i needed. no mum, he says, i can’t do that with my car. ok, so i rang a guy friend and asked if he knew someone who has a fourby. no, no joy there. he says call the NRMA. i happen to know the local NRMA don’t have a fourby to tow with, and are useless buggers anyway. rang another male friend who has a V8, he didn’t want to even try. he says get a tow truck. gee thanks for that. now if i’d said come over for sex he would have been there like a shot…

anyway, by this time i was fuming, and shivering because it was damn cold. and because i share the driveway, really cranky with myself for blocking the access to the property. and embarrassed. then i hear a V8…my son had turned up after all. and we towed it out, just as i said we should do it, all he had to do was bring me back a metre.

what i get fired up about is that i’m perfectly capable of assessing a situation, and making a judgement call. but men seem to insist that i can’t possibly know how to tow a car…because i’m female. i keep headbutting against this ingrained attitude and it shits me to tears. twice recently there’s been a car beached on my drive, twice i have assessed the situation and made the judgement call on how to move it, twice i’ve been told by men no, that’s not how to do it, and twice, the car has been moved exactly how i said it would. the van that got stuck was actually moved by us women, with no male overseeing the job.

i know some women like to be “rescued” by men, but i always feel that having a go myself first is more satisfying. obviously if i have a job that needs a tradie i will hire the tradie, but i can do a lot with these two hands and always will.

FFS, i built this car with my own hands and help from the tradies where they were necessary, but i sourced the parts myself, did the research, and i still to this day maintain it myself. i built it specifically to drive well, with suspension upgrades and lots of small tweaks. what right has a man got to assume i can’t tow her, or drive her the way she deserves?

a couple of months ago, both of us had our lives shaken up, our world-views challenged, and i was guided to ask him to come on a healing journey with me. i’ve never discussed my TTC plans with him, there wasn’t any need to when he was just a bit of fun on the side to me. now he’s much more, and this journey of healing our trust issues and collapsed boundaries has both of us opening up more to each other. i’m working on honesty and intimacy with him, so my dilemma now is, do i tell him that i still want a babe? do i ask him if he’d like to be part of that journey with me? he’s mentioned he’s never thought of having children. and considering i may never regain my fertility, should i say anything at all? should i just leave it in the lap of the Goddess, and let her choose for both of us? or is that deceiving him by omission? he is very aware i don’t use hormonal contraception and we don’t use barrier methods now that we’re exclusive with each other. i feel my focus slowly shifting away from TTC, now the grief is healing and i’m not so desperate to replace the babes i lost. i’m also taking She-Oak to see if that makes a difference to how i feel.

i’ve seen myself laying a newborn daughter in his arms, wishful thinking or a real vision? i don’t know. i know i made a conscious decision to lay my grieving aside as i walked thru the door of the eclipse. the goal posts have shifted, and i can only walk this healing journey a day at a time.