Feelings about a weird time in my life

Ten years ago, I accidentally almost got married to a man

Ten years ago, I lived right around the corner from here. With a very tall British man, to whom I was engaged to be married.

There is the bench seat where I finished The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion, the sun fading behind the yachts, the autumn leaves crisp under my feet.

There is the library where I listened to Linda Jaivin and Louis Nowra discuss his book, Kings Cross. I shakily raised my hand to ask a question – something I’d rarely done back then. I don’t remember what I said.

There is the cafe where I sat and read Us by David Nicholls, drinking black coffee and eating avocado toast. I took a photo, and someone on Instagram noticed the way the blue stripe from my notebook perfectly lined up with the blue stripe on the red cover of the book. I hadn’t noticed, but now if I scroll through my old photos, it’s the first thing I see. I remember nothing of that book, except that I bought it at the cute little bookshop on Macleay St when I was feeling particularly depressed.

There is the black metal door to our apartment block, where a woman waited most nights with a plastic bag of supplies, reaching her hand towards men as they passed. She never lifted her gaze to mine. Where the floor rumbled from the force of the trains below, but the light was incredible. Where I watched the rats scooting through the alleyway below, where I watched Orange is the New Black while a tradie fixed the crack in the window, where I heard a deafening crash and ran into the lounge room to see him, red-faced, covered in shards of glass because he’d accidentally smashed the entire window. Where I read Yes Please by Amy Poehler and Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham and The Anti-Cool Girl by Rosie Waterland. Where I saw Russell Crowe in the British lolly shop and David Wenham on the train and Glenn Robbins at Woolies.

Where, one day, I became so frustrated during an argument that I threw a pen across the room – aiming for his head – and then threw myself on the bed, sobbing. My fiancé came in a few minutes later and placed a tentative hand on my shoulder. ‘Do you want to get pizza and watch The Walking Dead later?’ As if that would fix everything.

A large, older man with a walking stick and purple, swollen legs lived on the floor above us; occasionally we’d pass him in the hall. He never said hello. My fiancé thought he looked like a writer, and I laughed. ‘You think that’s what writers look like?’

He didn’t understand why I liked reading about real life. He only liked reading about swords and dragons. He thought all writers should look like George R.R. Martin.

‘But I’m a writer,’ I said in a small voice.

‘You’re not a real writer, though,’ he said.

I was doing my PhD and working for a parenting magazine and doing freelance copywriting for overpriced real estate listings and teaching creative writing at a university, but I thought he was right. I didn’t feel like a real writer.

There is the Mexican restaurant where I sat with my best friend over a plate of nachos and told her the news, flashing my engagement ring. I’ll never forget her face, the shock in her eyes. She might have choked on a bit of guac, or maybe I added that to the scene later on.

Recently, she laughed at the memory, and recounted the lecture I gave her about time. How we were running out of it. How if she wanted to get married and have kids before thirty, which I believe she’d talked about (didn’t we all, back then?), then she needed to get serious about finding her big love.

I listened, wide-eyed. Shook. ‘I believe you,’ I said, ‘but it doesn’t sound like me. I don’t remember that at all.’ I apologised and she waved her hand dismissively.

‘There was a whole lot of social conditioning going on back then,’ she said. It was a different time, we agreed.

As I walk these streets ten years later, I feel I could be the same 25-year-old girl. I remember so much — these places imbued with meaning and stories.

Last night, my brother came over and we wandered around our old neighborhood (he lived with us in that light-filled apartment, for a time), noticing what had changed, what survived. Our favourite pizza place is gone but the dumplings remain. More nightclubs have been gutted, the heritage edges of the buildings preserved for more high-rise apartment blocks. I haven’t seen the woman at our door. I wonder what became of her.

There is the movie theatre where we saw Her and Birdman together, lying on floor cushions. There is the restaurant where we ate cheeseburger spring rolls with my sister when she came to visit. My brother remembered I was mad at him for not having any money. ‘I was nineteen!’ he laughed.

I listened, wide-eyed. Shook. ‘I believe you,’ I said, ‘but it doesn’t sound like me. I don’t remember that at all.’ I apologised, confused. I didn’t have any money then either!

Back home, I’m distressed at these memories that don’t exist for me. My wife gently suggests that maybe my brother’s version of the argument is not the whole story. I breathe easier.

I remember a lot, but not everything. I’m the same girl — it was just a different time.

Assorted works from 2015 and it's safe to say I did not achieve any of those goals that year xoxo

There is the pawn shop where I finally sold my engagement ring a couple of years ago. It was a Sunday and I’d been swimming in the late winter sunlight at the ocean baths. Under a crisp blue sky, teeth chattering, I suddenly realised it was time. I wasn’t keeping the ring for any sentimental reason – I’d forgotten it existed until I stumbled across the box in a drawer. Shoved it in the boot of my car. At the baths, I googled the closest pawn shops and found two open in nearby beach suburbs. I drove there, but they turned out to be closed.

The next on the map was on Darlinghurst Road, directly opposite the black metal door to our old apartment block. I laughed, aloud, alone and wet in my car.

There was the place I’d buy sushi for lunch, sometimes taking him a protein smoothie at the backpacker hostel he managed. There was my old yoga studio, transformed into a fancy pharmacy. There was the red door to the hostel, where he was often called after hours to manage a police visit, or an emotional vacation break-up fuelled by too many Jagerbombs at the rooftop bar.

And there was my engagement ring, passing between the steel bars of the safety grate, to be examined and weighed and valued. I walked away with $350 in cash and a small, incredulous smile stretching across my face. There was the door to our old apartment block, right there. It was so serendipitous, so magical. So unplanned.

I used the money for a stunning Airbnb on the Promised Land, near Bellingen. Where I exchanged vows with someone else, barefoot, in front of three witnesses and a looming mountain.

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Ten years later, I live right around the corner from where I used to live with a very tall British man, to whom I was engaged to be married. I’m a doctor of words and I work for a writer’s festival and I host author events and I’ve published a book and my second novel comes out in a few months.

I live with my wife.

I feel like a real writer.

Here is the new bench seat where I’m reading The Cicada House by Ella Ward. Here is the new cafe where I’m meeting my author friend for lunch. Here is the same cute little bookshop where I’m buying Poor Artists by Zarina Muhammad and Gabrielle de la Puente. Here is the desk below the big window, where cockatoos regularly rest.

I’m the same girl, but I’m not.

The leaves on the tree outside are turning brown at the edges. The cool change is here.