Fuck It.
I sat down and invested a lot of time to Make It.
I'm going to fucking Send It.
-.-. .. .- .-. .-
Where we've come to: Oliver Tree - Flowers
I've taken a great deal of joy finding odd little incidental ways to give you flowers over the last few weeks; the first time, when I wedged a loose bouquet made out of cuttings from your garden in your front door handle when you kept me waiting and eventually stood me up several Sundays ago, was totally unscripted, but the opportunity to do something cute and awkwardly endearing which I knew would make you feel uncomfortably conflicted was irresistible, not to mention fulfilled the desire I wrote of in Noteworthy about wanting "to show up on your doorstep [...] with flowers". Whether you knew Oliver Tree had been releasing new music ahead of the album coming out on the 24th I'll probably never know, but it was playing in my head all three times. The romantic sentiment of a boy giving a pretty girl flowers, and the pissed-the-fuck-off sentiment in the song, have both been true and occupied the same space in my head at the same time, because this is something I can do; where your mind sees black/white love/hate either/or binary polarity, for me it's nuance - layer after layer of context stacked one atop the next which build depth of perception like building a complex graphic in Illustrator.
You know how that works, at least; I'm pretty sure it was what you used to vectorise the graphics for the Phase Shifting Tshirt which I gave you the only example of, and you later destroyed because... Reasons.
You were right when you asked me to help negotiate with [The Animal Hospital] for a better outcome for Millie, and you told me you couldn't do it on your own. The reason I succeeded wasn't the decades of experience, the MBA education, or my autistic aptitude for pattern recognition and data integration, although they certainly gave me the tools. It wasn't even that I could keep my cool and stick to the strategy when you felt you'd just clam up and burst into tears out of anger and frustration; it was my ability to take dozens of anecdotes of a man I'd never met, decode signal from the noise in the perceptions of every different person who shared them with us, accept the truth each one of them held no matter how contradictory they seemed, stack them in layers, walk around the 3D model that created and work out what would make him WANT to help us.
Afterwards I remember you criticising the segues into rapport-building (although you were on-point when you got me to refocus instead of going into the charity-decals - that was a good call), and thought to myself, "man, you still don't get it, or people in general, do you?"
We both remember how excited I was when I found out you knew what the word grok meant. Looking back on that moment 2-and-a-half years later I'm sad that you still don't know what it actually means, because if you did you might comprehend how I can love you with every fibre of my being and be completely and utterly fucking done with you.
If you hadn't worked it out already:
You're not going to like this.
You're going to like it even less when I make damn sure you know it exists, even if that means spray painting the URL across the Arbo carpark, although I doubt it will come to that.
You're not going to want to read it, but you're going to hate that there are people we both know who HAVE. If nothing else makes you look up the link to find out what it says, I suspect it will be that.
10:51PM, Friday April 24th. 2026
This is my third go at writing the next section by the way - the first time I got pissed off and rabbit-hole'd, the next I tried to frame around two foundational patterns I'd spotted in your behaviour. Then when I went to tie them together I realised that these fit a broader architecture which I may be entirely wrong about, but fits all of the pieces I've been juggling in my head too well to ignore. I had, and I swear this is a coincidence, 666 words of notes drafted about how your core drivers are 'anxiety' and 'guilt', but outside and behind those is something which explains so much of why I've been drawn to you so strongly, and felt such affinity, and sensed that we're far more alike than you want to believe.
Because I'm pretty fucking sure you can't empathy, either.
I'm sure you'll take that as a criticism, because of course you will.
You probably think I'm saying you're a bad person as well, and if that's the case I'll invite you to read that line again - I underlined it to make it stand out.
Take your time, I'll be here all day.
...
Does it SAY I think you're a bad person?
No?
Perhaps I'm over-preacting, then again once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, but Every Fucking Time is a pattern of behaviour...
But wait...
What it DOES say is that you're just like me, so of course "bad person" is how you'll see it.
But I'm not a bad person, and you know it; I'm just bad at being a person same as you are, but I know what I am, and I'm doing the best I can.
Maybe that's the difference?
You keep skipping to the end of conversations and jumping to your own conclusions of what you think I mean, so I thought I'd start by telling what it is rather than trying to take you on the journey and keep having to drag you back from whatever hallucination your internal LLM dreams up before I manage to finish my sentence. For once please for the love of dog I want you to listen to the words I'm saying without adding or exchanging something I'm not, and if you're going to make a prediction maybe try to base it on even the tiniest insight you have from our shared context-window instead of just what you'd mean if it were you saying it.
I want you to listen very carefully, Tyler C----, because my eyes are open.
And I've been paying attention.
One thing I have said in as many words is that since not long after we met I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. Resurrection + bridge = Happiness? sealed it for me at the time - seeing how you'd taken my own 'art', inverted it, made it your own, and shared it with me, made me think
"She did the thing I do right back at me.
"Holy shit...
"She really DOES get me."
Back in late January when we started talking again I told you that had been the moment I'd completely and utterly fallen for you, and I remember the confused look on your face. At the time I thought it was retrospectively contemplative. Later I realised there was a whole other pattern at play:
Like when you saw some of the photos I'd taken at Flags and immediately said yours were better; even if I HAD seen the ones you'd taken in the same style, in the same spot... what a pointless thing to say.
Same as when you told me you'd taken my Instagram tagline 'Don't follow me, I don't know where I'm going.' and "made it better" by adding strike-thru's 'Don't follow me, I don't know where I'm going.'; ripping off the device I introduced you to and using it to project the façade you want people to believe doesn't make it superior, it's just fit-for-purpose.
(Which I'd still respect, from a fake-it-'til-you-make-it perspective, if we both didn't know it's a bare-faced lie; we're both Going nowhere fast, but at least I'm not pretending otherwise.
You wrote them both off as attempts to build a house of bricks to ward off the Big Bad Wolf you imagined was at the door, but taking the literary device (I'm pretty sure) I created, inverting it, claiming it as yours, and rubbing it in my face was just taking pot shots to hurt me. Worse, you were desperately hurling sticks and stones to defend against someone you'd demonised, who was never stalking, hunting, or attacking you in the first place.)
The saddest thing was that I had no fucking idea what you were talking about, and would never have seen either of them if you'd not shown them to me - I didn't go setting up a face Instagram account to stalk you with like you did to me.
You said you were terrified of me after you Blocked me the first time, and I've found myself wondering more and more if somewhere in and amongst that I became both the template for what you wanted to be, and the Boogeyman you needed to defeat to prove to yourself you'd never need to be afraid again.
"Hitting someone back, first" only counts as self-defence when they pose an actual threat, or have a history of attacking you, otherwise you're just a bully; I should know, I've met a few.
Your anxiety dreamed up the horrible sorts of things you'd do if you were me, and our roles reversed.
Then unlike me, you went and did them.
The saddest thing isn't even that I had no fucking idea, and there was no way I was going to unless you showed me; it's that if you'd SHARED how you used my ideas with me, or how our separate inspirations had converged, I'd have been overjoyed to see what you'd done with them.
I think about how much you lit up every time I complimented how much your riding was improving; coming from me, with the skill I've gained from experience, that was always high praise in your eyes.
And how, more recently, you didn't want to ride with me because you thought I'd judge you; the one time I poked fun at you for being slow, because that seemed to be the game we were playing, you deflated, and it brought me no joy so I never did it again. What I DID do repeatedly was give you pointers on ways to improve when I noticed one, tune the suspension on your bee-themed GSX-R750 so you'd be more confident in corners, loudly appreciate how much fun it is to ride and how well it suits you, and how fast you've got on it.
Somehow you still think I judge you for your riding.
When I loudly declared that your version of Deadman was better than the one I'd been trying to write you glowed; hearing that it was the moment I went head-over-heels must have confused the shit out of you because why would I celebrate losing?
...
Except that I'd lost nothing because it was never a contest; I'd received the gift of something I couldn't do for myself, so why wouldn't I celebrate the person who'd given it to me?
It would be easy to write off the way you behave as childish, and Everyone (except Ian) I've sense-checked with does, but we both know it's not that; it's anxiety, an inability to process feelings you can't put your self in the centre of, and over a decade of looking in the mirror wanting to see someone who's strong, capable, resilient, self-reliant, all the things you've said you admired in me, but all you see is someone who's afraid that she isn't and is convinced that everyone she meets will see the same thing.
Somewhere between Blocking me on August 10th last year and when I made myself impossible to ignore because you'd invaded the space I'd found and carved a place in for myself, you decided you were going to change that, and you've put a LOT of work in - I respect that. The way you've gone about it IS childish tho, or at best short-sighted. I mean... you don't really believe I became this capable on my own, surely? I've told you in as many words that I'd not be alive today if not for the people I've found, who's friendships I've nurtured, and kept close.
Your template is flawed, and anything you base on it will be even more so.
You told me you trusted people you thought you could rely upon, and they burned you, so you decided not to rely on anyone else again. I've seen how you keep people at arms-length, engaging to build rapport with them, then deflecting when they try to engage back. I've seen the mask come down when you're talking to your 'friends', and it's impressive - so warm, effusive, and self-assured. I've listened to them talking when you're not around about how intimidating they find you. None of them have a fucking clue, and if I didn't know better, and only knew you in passing, you'd have me convinced too. You've mastered the art of drawing people in, but keeping them safely outside the boundary of your anxiety. You're a real class act; bravo:
I wonder, but have no way of verifying, if this is why you were dating A----; you told me a lot about him, and whilst very little of it was 'bad', none of it 'good'. You never once said anything that indicated why you liked him, or enjoyed being with him. He wasn't reliable, or particularly considerate, you never mentioned any talents, drive, or even basic fucking competence.
Then it occurred to me that might have actually been the point.
You'd never be able to rely on him, and you certainly didn't need him, so he would never be able to let you down.
If he wasn't considerate, he probably didn't have any expectations of you, either.
He's incompetent as an adult, so you got to be the competent one.
The best attribute I managed to infer from anything you said was that he was comfortable, like a baggy old hoodie that in no way restricts your movement and made of such coarse fabric it has no structure and just flops when you put it on, or playing Doom for the hundredth time on 'Hey, not too rough'.
He existed safely outside the boundary where he could never have enough impact to actually disappoint you; he must have seemed perfect, but I think part of you also knew that he'd never challenge, complement, or contribute anything to you, either.
Then there I was, an in-your-face reminder of what you can be when you live life on 'Ultra-Violence' by default. Credit where credit's due, on January 18th, the day after I confronted you at Sanctum Shakedown, you stood up to your worst 'Nightmare'. I gave you points at the time for your performance - pulling up in the driveway under my balcony, sitting there with your bike idling, staring up with cold blue eyes when I looked over the balcony, was an absolute power move. If you'd been gone when I got downstairs it would have been a master-stroke. Sticking around and trying to intimidate The Big Bad Wolf was an Epic Fail, not just because you did it poorly, but because you tried to play that guy instead of the one who actually stepped out of the elevator; me.
It would be cynical of me to suggest that you had any idea at that point, or even on Tuesday February 3rd when we ran into each other at Arbo and wound up hanging around Flags until nearly 3AM, that I was exactly the 'Nightmare' Millie needed (even if I wasn't the one you deserved), and that unBlocking me again after I dropped $1111 which I couldn't afford to lose but sent to your PayID anyway, so you could afford to pay her most recent round of vet bills would ultimately lead to getting the rest of her surgeries and vet-care provided pro bono.
And no, I'm not going to stop taking credit for that because I fucking earned it, I fucking deserve it, and fuck you for even suggesting I don't.
How dare you.
How FUCKING dare you.
You asked me, politely, cautiously, in a way that if you were to write the words down verbatim would sound like a request, but we both know was as close to begging as you could let yourself come, to help you build a case against TAH and find a way to get a refund out of them.
You told me you couldn't do it yourself, that in the moment you'd fall apart and burst into tears of anger.
You told me no one else you knew could come anywhere close do being able to do what you knew I could; A---- didn't have a snowball's chance in hell.
You asked me to help, knowing that alone meant there was no way I could say no.
You fucking said "Please".
You could have stopped three words in because all you ever needed to do was ask, or have started one word before the end, because and just said "Please".
You absolutely deserve credit for participation - you sent me the correspondence, tabulated the expenses, attended the tactical workshops, we co-designed the strategy.
But I PLANNED it, I EXECUTED it, and I fucking WON.
I was never going to benefit from the outcome - that was always going to be for you and Millie and I never sought claim to it, but...
You know better than anyone (except Ian) just how long, and how desperately, I've needed a win, then after pulling your arse out of the fire you tell me I shouldn't keep it?
How FUCKING dare you.
Or maybe I'm expecting too much because you can't empathy, either.
Why else would you tell me off for trimming your hedges when I was waiting for you to get home 3/4 of an hour after you were due to meet me to take Millie for a walk? I was bored, ran out of things to look at on my phone, and I never really realised how much I enjoyed doing that in my own garden until I didn't have one any more. I didn't even mention it to you, so it wasn't like I said anything to make you feel guilty for not having done it yourself - if that made you feel bad, that's on you. Interesting that standing me up because other people were more important didn't seem to bother you one bit, but I'll let you make what you will of that one.
If you're always the protagonist in your own story, there needs to be an antagonist to incite the drama, and if there's going to be a bad guy of course it's going to be Me, hi, I'm The Problem it's me.
You applied the same metric to the way you acted over the Jinba Ittai decals - you didn't have a problem with my selling them in the name of your vet bills until a couple of your 'friends' bought them. Perhaps they didn't register when I told them that I'd already given you twice as much money as I was going to make selling $10 stickers as meaning that you weren't likely to get any more out of me, but of all the reasons to Block me again that's... unbelievably juvenile. If you were doing it to make a point you really should have said something before we ran into each other again a week later, because until then I had no idea. Cutting off communication for such a silly reason isn't even what upsets me about that situation tho:
You could have helped me sell them, but you refused to lift a finger, because you'd already got what you needed.
I gave you that money when I did because you needed it then. I sold my art to make some of that back - I have cash reserves, true, but for more than two years I've been earning half as much as you do. Giving you $1111 gouged a hole in my budget that would have paid for the service my car still needs, and the warning light's been on for months now. Making back ~$500 fills some of that hole back in, and it would have been so easy for you to help sell the 14 I now have left, but...
That would have meant helping me, wouldn't it? You'll help just about anyone else tho:
Like when you had me ride along to Gunning when you went to rescue Alan so you wouldn't have to drive an hour each way on your own.
It was fine, I had nothing better to do, and I enjoyed spending that time with you, and I had nowhere better to be than where you were, so it was no hardship.
You said you were making a concerted effort to "be a good friend". That day it meant delivering a jerry can full of fuel to a guy you barely know, who'd not planned ahead, which meant missing the party you were supposed to be at and seeing the gift you'd coordinated being given.
Apparently I don't deserve that sort of courtesy.
You once told me that you didn't feel like there was anything you could do to help me because I'm soooooo competent. That's not it at all tho - you just won't. The only times you've shown me any real consideration have been when I've started making noises about distancing myself from you before The Animal Hospital meeting; it threatened what you needed, so you went out of your way to keep me on-side.
I don't know if you realise just how close I came to abandoning you on that. I was incredibly close the day my new niece was born Friday March 13th, when I started writing the semi-aborted post I published the other day, but the thought had been in my head since at least March 9th, which is why I sat down and slammed out Make It to create the foundation for a loose trilogy; it was always going to end with Fuck It (until it didn't). You know me well enough to have predicted that when you obliquely revealed that you HAVE been reading my blog after all - well done, have a Gold Star. Occam's Canadian Amy advocated against it, not in any way for your sake, but because she knows how important keeping my promises is to me, and it's Millie who'd have paid the price, and I'd always feel guilty if she wound up suffering because I was pissed off at you.
Way back on February 3rd, when we were sitting on the grass at Flags, you told be how guilty you felt because Millie slipped in your back seat when you took her home after the first surgery. You said you'd "failed her". Something about that stuck with me and I realised how much of your behaviour revolves, not around responding to or repairing what makes you feel guilty, but on avoiding the feeling in the first place. That was what made me open my Bank of Australia app the next day and shuffle money around the next day; whether you told me the night before, or I ran the numbers in my head, I knew the likelihood that you could afford to pay Damo the Vet's bill was going to be borderline at best, and if that meant Millie couldn't get the treatment she needed the guilt you'd feel was already crushing you. I didn't want that for either of you, and the problem giving it to you would cause for me was going to be a lot less immediate, so despite you having BBlocked me again and having no desire to help some other guy's girlfriend, I did it anyway because it was the right thing to do. I sent it without threat, promise, demand, or quid pro quo:
I sent it because I calculated the weight of the cost you'd carry if you had to make the sort of hard decision "not being able to pay your vet bills" can lead to.
I sent it because the cost to me was one I could bear far more lightly.
I sent it because I calculated that the guilt I'd feel for not acting would hurt me more than the pain you'd feel if I remained silent, because our war of coldness shouldn't incur that sort of Millie Assured Destruction, and because whilst I HATE playing that role at least I know how to be the fucking grown-up.
See, I'm bad at being a person too, and I can't empathy either. I'm just better at it, because I
keep
fucking
trying.
It's the anxiety about feeling it rather than the guilt itself that seems to drive you, because I can't think of when I've actually seen you learn from it:
When you betrayed S---'s trust you were upset, but I had to tell you how to make amends to both of us. Then when that came up in conversation in January you told me you regretted the 'penance' I'd prescribed so that you could feel you'd absolved yourself you had the cheek to say you regretted doing it (which came as a rude shock to me, because you enjoyed the shit out of it at the time, said "thank you, sir", and asked for another).
When I got upset at you for treading on my dreams feelings, you responded by saying "how can I avoid tripping over them when you leave them all over the flor?"
(which I did find a little amusing, but also deeply insulting, and... saddened by; I'd never imagined you could be callous enough to make a joke about hurting me using a reference to one of the songs on the mixtape you made for me) because how dare I express that I have feelings, and say something when you hurt them.
Then there was the time I Blocked you back for a change, because you made it apparent that whilst you were careful to avoid doing anything to hurt A----, you weren't going to show me any consideration whatever. I appreciated it a great deal when you called to clarify, which is why I unBlocked you immediately, although far less when you went and made it my fault for asking why you'd rejected my offer to spend another night with you.
And now I'm circling back to here because recounting the next anecdote has reminded me of how you saw it absolutely reasonable to not drop me a line somewhere somehow, to let me know how Millie's surgery had gone because you'd BBBlocked me and "didn't want to talk to me", because (you revealed the following evening when I came to Flags on Saturday April 25th to see if you'd talk to me if I pulled up, sat on my bike ~20m from where you were on yours, and made myself available) I'd had he audacity to sell my decals to your 'friends' and not just rando's. Apparently the best you could think of was to wave the Discharge Report at me on your phone instead of... shit, I don't know, speaking words to me when we were stuck opposite each other at dinner the on Friday April 24th whilst you chatted with my mate Conor.
Or... there's a thought people have shared with me on the quiet... maybe you just don't feel guilty when it's me who gets hurt?
Or... and this is me thinking out loud... maybe the sin you were punishing me for by BBBlocking me wasn't having worked my way through every other ear I could possibly bend in the Canberra street-riding community, it was telling them who, and for why I was selling them. They had no idea you were in such a precarious position that you'd had to accept a donation from the ex you'd B/BBlocked, then sell biker-philosophy tat to make some back. I expressed shock that you'd not said anything, and they replied "oh, she doesn't really open up to us much," which was when it fell into place. I didn't expect that to have been a secret you were keeping; it's the sort of thing friends worth keeping would usually share with each other. They'd just been telling me they were intimidated by you, and my accidental disclosure didn't necessarily expose what was under your façade, but it DID expose that the façade exists, suddenly you didn't look so invulnerable any more. Worse, it revealed that trusted your "psycho ex" with your problems more than you trusted THEM, and your retaliation for that was... to stop me from being able to talk to you.
But that doesn't hurt me anywhere near as much as once it might have, and it certainly hasn't stopped me from talking to anyone else I happen to run into.
If this were a conversation and not a letter you might just still be reading, this would be about the third time you'd be making a pained, frustrated comment about me "throwing things in your face". I remember how hard it was to not laugh out loud when you told me you'd not wanted me to do the negotiations for "with" you because you "knew" I'd hold it over you. It was even harder not to retort with "well maybe I should have dipped and let A---- do it instead?" but... we both know I draw the line at kicking puppies.
Do you think I'm doing this to upset you? Or score points? Do you think I'm doing this for fun? I can think of a dozen different ways to achieve each of those things that would have taken a LOT less effort - putting this all together and writing it down has taken weeks. I'm laying all of these data points down so that you can see patterns I see, and what impact the things you do and say have. I'm not trying to fix you; I can't do that, and neither can anyone else. There's an old joke which goes:
How many therapists does it take to change a light bulb?
One, but the lightbulb has to WANT to change.
Which always reminds me of a story Scott told me once, attributed to a friend of his brother Mal's, who was walking down the road in London one day when a beggar asked:
"Do you have any change?"
"Nah man," Mal's friend replied, "change comes from within."
Only you can fix you.
All the rest of us can do is love, care, and support you whilst you do.
I'm 93% certain I won't get to be part of that after this, but I'm taking one for the team and doing my ready-best to make you see where the damage is, how the pieces fit together, and the best way I have to do that is to show you the damage you're doing.
The last time I gave you flowers, almost a month ago on Easter Monday, was far more carefully planned than the first.
When I got carted off to hospital in an ambulance the day before, leaving the only thing I loved more than you shattered in a pool of oil and petrol in the middle of Cotter Rd just before the Mt Stromlo turnoff after that numbnuts BYD driver pulled an illegal U-Turn on Cotter Rd, you were the only person I messaged to tell them:
Those dents on the BYD's bonnet BTW? Those were me.
For the rest of the afternoon I lay there in ED wearing a neck-brace passing the time on my phone watching as the messages were eventually read, and subsequently ignored; I know they were ignored, because the nice thing about RCS Messages is you get the receipts:
That was the point you finally responded with a phone call full of excuses about being on a ride, about being out with your friends, about not being in a position to respond because
"Shit, you OK?"
is just too fucking complicated a message to send. When I messaged on Monday April 27th to tell you that my friend had crashed, on the other hand:
Because of course expressing sympathy and concern for someone you met not even 72 hours beforehand within 2 min of hearing about their crash is absolutely appropriate, but if I suggest that I'd have liked to have come to see how Millie was after the surgery that I'D MADE POSSIBLE and come along for walkies because watching my friend get wheeled into an ambulance, then helping take some of the load off his parents who were trying to go be with him in hospital and sort out his girlfriend's bike at the same time, all the while having some flashbacks to my own crash on the same route we'd just taken after which you didn't see fit to respond for 5 FUCKING HOURS had left me feeling a bit in need of some calming down...Gee golly no, can't be having that. Better nip it in the bud and reinforce those boundaries before Pete's feelings get where you might trip over them all over again. You might just get some them on you and feel a little guilt. No, a bit of push-back will send a clear message about who's feelings and needs are important here, obviously.
But I digress; none of that had happened yet, so not really relevant to the story I was telling.
You didn't want to offer me comfort when I got home from hospital, which was your right, just like it was my right to stop wasting my breath and hang up on you so I could get on with comforting myself. I sat down with my laptop and a pint of rum&coke, and posted to Sanctum Chat the photo I'd taken whilst waiting for my Uber with the caption:
Well just got out of hospital. Any crash you walk away from and all that.
Who's up for a ride?
I thought about it for a moment, put the second half of my drink in the fridge, and grabbed the key for the Triumph.
Shortly later I posted this photo to the chat, then turned it into a Story which I presume you wouldn't have seen because unless you've gone and created another dummy-account, you haven't been Following me:
It received many Likes, as you can see from the Hearts. In Sanctum Chat @undead.moto immediately replied
"Peter noooooooooo!"
The next day I woke up and got to work.
I'd been tinkering away at my new Art Project for a while, and nearly finished constructing the second prototype after the first one shattered mid-re-construction. It hadn't worked particularly well, and testing in my west-facing windows indicated that it wasn't going to spray sparks and shattered rainbows around your living room anywhere near as prettily as I'd imagined all those months ago when I was sitting on your couch watching the afternoon sun streaming in across your desk, and I was increasingly certain that the concept was flawed so it was never going to. Nonetheless, using a mix of fire (targeted heating using a combination of conductive copper tape I had lying around from electronics projects, my de-soldering rework station, and the oven) and ice (a jug of iced water) I had a reasonable process down for shattering the jar. Masking and spraying the mirror paint was a shitfight, but spraying it into a spare plastic cap, adding a drop of thinners, then painting with a fine-detail brush was getting the mirrored edges down nicely. I'd been persevering through Prototype#2 to help narrow down what glues not to use, and got a good result with Shoe Glue which provided a clear rubbery coating to prevent you cutting yourself on the jagged edges around the top of the Sweet Chilli Sauce bottle I'd used on this pass. I tested whether it would hold water to see if Gemini had been right, and after cleaning up the mess I threw more glue into the cracks that hadn't sealed, then left it in the sun to dry.
The 21yo HJC "Girlfriend Helmet" that I'd bought so I could take Amanda for rides on my Yamaha YZF-1000R Thunderace back when I lived here the first time, then Emma when I first got Gideon, had been sanded, primed, and the Flat White I'd painted it with had dried a couple of days beforehand leaving a pristine egg-textured white canvas for you to draw and paint on, just how I'd promised when I proposed using it for a collaborative Art Project involving my spraypaint skills and your ability to draw. I retrieved it from the spray-booth downstairs and peeled the masking tape off, refitted the plastic vent covers, edging, and liner, and left it by the door.
I spent at least 20min looking for the pack of blue card that had been left over from the letter I sent to Anna all those years ago, eventually remembering that it hadn't survived the purge when I moved back to Canberra. A blue sheath from my filing cabinet proved a reasonable substitute, so I cut away the hangers to turn it into a card, then practiced what I planned to write with a couple of different (actual) pens before I committed one to (actual) paper:
This is the most successful prototype of the mirror/kintsugi jar I've managed to construct. I'd nicknamed this Art Project:
"Hope & Chemistry"
I don't expect that I'll be inclined to try making another one.
Do what you want with it.
Maybe use it for flowers, if anyone gives you any.
Giving it to you with
Congratulations!
You finally made me lose my faith in you.
I hope that achievement brings you joy, or at least satisfaction.
∞ <3
Peter Raven
I wrote "infinite love" three times over the same spot, because... well, you've met me.
I cleaned myself up, put together my shopping list for the week, then loaded it all up in the car and headed for Queanbeyan, parked along the last route we'd taken Millie for her afternoon walkies where I'd spotted a garden with rose bushes growing along the footpath, parked, and quickly cut a handful of different-coloured blooms. I'd intended selecting three, but wound up with three clusters, which I trimmed in the car and placed in the cylinder I'd made of the card.
All in readiness, I headed to yours to find that your car was now in the driveway, so I'd not be able to just drop them on your doorstep. I knocked, and when you answered I stood at 45 degrees with my left hand holding the helmet out to you.
No, I didn't want it any more, I didn't reply.
Yes, I still wanted you to paint all over it, I didn't say.
Once you'd taken it, I turned and repeated the gesture with the jar full of letter and flowers.
No, I didn't care whether you want flowers from me or not, my eyes told you.
Yes, I'm going to give it to you anyway, my posture insisted.
I stood there a moment, then bent down and placed the jar gently just inside the doorway, turned and left having never said a word.
I got back in the Frogrocket, filled up at the Metro, then went and did my shopping at the Woolies because it's MUCH better than what's on offer at Civic and Dickson so why not take something away from the trip?
Then I went for a pint at the Belco Labour Club with Conor, because he's even better people than he is company, and he'd offered to help me grieve the 'busa which, when we clinked glasses, had been dead for just less than 30 hours.
See, THAT was me saying I think you're a bad person.
Hopefully you can see the difference?
...
I wonder if you can see the disservice Bridget did to me.
You told me somewhere in January about how She subsumed and masked and people-pleased and pretended because you thought it would make me happy, never letting me know that you were upset, or disagreed, or that things weren't working. The act was masterful - all that time I had no idea that you'd Pagliacci'd me flawlessly. She gave me faith that This Could Work, so it was completely unbelievable when you told me that it wouldn't; it felt like a decision you'd made, and by deciding the outcome you were committed to making sure it occurred. You told me over and over again that
Me,
I
couldn't
fix it.
Me.
And I tore myself apart trying to work out why, because I can fix anything when I can see how all of the pieces fit, or tell why I can't, and all the while you'd been hiding the problems from me so I could never see where the damage was, or what damage I'd been doing.
It never occurred to me that
Bridget you lied to me.
Repeatedly.
What She you did to make me happy
was what broke me
and I wonder, sitting here, now
If you'll feel any guilt for that
Or if you'll somehow find a way to make it my fault?
Every time we gravitated back in towards each other and you pushed me away just-before and immediately-after you broke up with A---- it was always my fault for pushing boundaries. You'd never acknowledge that I was there by invitation, and you'd encouraged me right up to the line I'd inevitably cross. If it was just that I kept pushing and pushing I'd take it entirely on the chin, because every time I accepted the invite it was with enthusiasm, and I didn't put anywhere near enough effort into making sure you explicitly asked me to stay rather than just letting you imply that I needn't leave.
The problem was how hard you made it for me to leave when I chose to. Every time you'd make that sad-face, and when you asked my answer was always "no, I don't want to leave, but I feel like I should." It's as if my withdrawl triggered your rejection-sensitivity. If I pulled away and created distance, you'd immediately pursue, show care, create intimacy. You've been incredibly, repeatedly clear that you don't want me, but I wonder if the thought that I might not want YOU put you into a panic, so you'd pull me back in just so you could push me away again. I, being a fool, let you because that intimacy was exactly what I wanted, the magnetism would kick in, and before I knew it I'd get ejected once more.
It never occurred to you that you were relieving the pain of implied rejection by giving it to me explicitly, and how much more that hurts.
All these words, and what does it all mean?
You're full of anxiety, but you always seem to run away instead of addressing it.
All this weight of guilt, but I can't sense any shame.
You're adamant about all the things you don't want, but when I've asked what you do want there's only silence. There are a great-many things you say you don't want, but I'm coming to suspect that what they all boil down to is:
You want to not hurt.
You keep telling me that you can't give me what I want, then go out of your way to spend time with me, confide in me, make me feel useful... but only when it suits you, and really... that's the whole point, isn't it? Not relying on other people because they let you down is a convenient cover-story - you can't stand the idea of anyone else being reliant on you because you're terrified that you'll let people down just as badly. Boyfriend/girlfriend status is playing relationships on "I'm too young to die" - being Partners starts on "Hurt me plenty" and just gets harder from there, even if it IS proportionally more rewarding. Co-dependency means relying on each other, and the part of you which wants that is in constant struggle with the part that's terrified of either side of that equation failing.
So you run away from both of them.
Or maybe Everyone (except Ian) is right, and you're just selfish, only interested in your own edification, and wearing the veneer of care so you won't feel guilty about it... but if I believed that I'd have finished this nearly 2 months ago with the first thing I wrote which you'll find way down at the bottom of the scroll-bar.
Where I'm going to leave you: Enter Shikari - Demons
My new job starts tomorrow - deployed to a Fed Gov department with a reputation for being a great environment to work at on a 12 month contract, paying $67/day more than I was earning at [The Job That Brought Me Back To Canberra]. The consultancy I'm running through are already making noises about the other things they want my involvement in, and the support they have to offer to grow and build.
My ribs have healed quickly over the last month, and I should be able to get back into exercise and strength-training soon.
The crate containing the pristine parts which will soon become Gideon II arrived at the dealership on Friday and should be ready to christen next weekend.
When you finally picked up from the background noise in conversation that all of this had happened - I hadn't told you, but I hadn't hidden it from you either, you asked if I'd celebrated appropriately. Of course I hadn't; it's been so long since I felt I have anything to actually celebrate I can barely fucking remember how to any more.
You were there when this bullshitfuckery Phase of my life began, and even now, after everything that's happened, and everything I've written above, you're the only person I really want to celebrate with now it's ending; I was thinking dinner - somewhere nice where you make a point of not looking at the prices and nothing comes with fries. Likewise, I'd like you to be there for the next Phase where my life really starts getting BETTER, not just the one where it went to shit. You'll want to, because that's what a good friend would do, but you won't because you "want to send the wrong message", but more than anything else you'll say "No, thanks" and possibly "I don't want to do that" because it's me who's asking.
I'm not sure which is sadder - that entire last paragraph, or the fact that I know I'm going to ask you anyway.
What else can I say? I'm sure there's plenty, but to what end? Ultimately, everything I've said, and left unsaid and might possibly say, boils down to:
I miss you, Bridget; but I'm
Over it, so
Fuck you, C---- Bridget W-------.
Make of this what you will.
Sent with ∞ <3
.--. . - . .-.
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