Sunday 24/08/2025 17:11
I haven't been able to write for... a while now. I've tried a few times, got a paragraph in, then looked for the next thing to say which would make it mean something and... Nothing. I don't know that I can really do it now... not to any standard I'll ever be proud of, but I'm going to throw words at the page in the hope that they make some sense to someone and that a few of them will stick.
I don't know if I'm going to get to finish this either, so when I sat down to try I decided I'd just hit Publish whenever I run out of Continue, then if and/or when I come back to it I'll just Publish again. That way, whatever happens, something gets out.
If I do I'll add the words "in the end" to the title, regardless of where it winds up you'll know whether or not to check back in or hit 'Refresh'.
Sunday 24/08/2025 17:20
3 weeks ago on Sunday 03/08/2025 at 17:35 Bridget sent me a Message saying:
"I need you to let me go."
I called her and there was a conversation. I can't say in any honesty I was really surprised; she'd been getting more and more distant, messages had become fewer and thinner and further between. It wasn't a long conversation, and I can't remember with any clarity what was said, but I do recall telling her:
"I'll fight for this, but I won't fight you."
According to the Messenger logs, our next communication was when I sent her a Message on Wednesday 06/08/2025 at 22:08:
"Hey."
"Hi.
"Everything ok?"
"No.
"No.
"Sorry."
"I'm sorry this hurts. I want you to be ok"
"You, and doing stuff for you, were pretty much the only thing keeping me ok.
"That's why I put up with much... shit."
"I don't know what you want me to say"
"Either do I."
There was some idle chatter over the next few days. A couple of days before she told me what she needed she'd asked me to order a part for her bike, and I was checking the tracking a couple of times a day waiting for it to arrive. It finally did on Friday 08/08/2025, so I asked if I could go round to deliver it. I had a couple of other things she'd left at mine to drop off as well - the toothbrush she'd been using, her deodorant, inconsequential shit like that. It was more of an excuse to see her and have a more, a better conversation.
When I got there I told her how my mate Dave's cat Bella had passed away earlier in the week, and I was arranging with him to take Beckett. Beckett and I haven't been getting along for ages, and the relationship had turned toxic. He'd taken to pissing on my bed as a general protest, and the last time he'd been so thorough he'd got my sheets and both doonas. I nearly killed him. I was so out of cope with him and with everything, I knew it was the last time I'd be able to stop myself. Dave needed a companion, and the way I was feeling, I wanted to make sure Beckett was going to be taken care of.
Then I asked her for a PostIt note, or a piece of paper, and wrote down the PIN for my phone, and the password for my Password Manager. That was probably a dumb move. She asked why, and I told her I wanted to be sure someone could get into the main portal for everything connected to my life... y'know, just in case. The next thing I knew she was crying, freaking out, screaming
"Nonono, don't you dare, you can't do that, I'll never forgive you, promise me you won't."
We were sitting on the floor just inside her door for some reason, I can't remember why. Maybe because in her flailing her knees buckled? I remember pulling her to me and holding her whilst she flailed so she wouldn't hurt herself. I remember my face feeling like a block of wood. I couldn't promise anything beyond that I didn't have... intentions. There was no threat here. She'd been My Person for so long, I trusted her so implicitly, she was just the most obvious person to leave that with.
Eventually she stopped, but first she begged me to promise that if things got to That Point I'd reach out to her. I couldn't, but I said I'd try.
We took Millie for a walk and talked about all of the things we should have talked about over the previous weeks. About how distant she'd become, how much I was struggling with... everything, how my most recent engagement and her new gym schedule had made it almost impossible to spend any quality together during the week. She said she couldn't stop thinking about how well things seemed to work with her Ex, and how with me so much had needed effort, that she'd reached out to him again, sent him a long email, had asked him what he'd do or say if she just showed up on his doorstep. She said she was sick of her job already and was applying for new ones all over the country. She said she needed time to herself. She said I couldn't fix everything. We ran out of time - it was coming up on when she usually met with her biker friends, so I rushed her out the door so she could get there.
The next day I woke up early for fuck knows why, and she had an appointment in Civic so I asked if she'd like company for it. When she didn't respond I decided to resurrect my old "Bike, Book, Brunch" thing, and picked a cafe in Lynham. At about the time I finished my Eggs Benny she replied saying she'd gone on her own, and stopped at Bad Bunny down the road from me, along with a photo of the Eggs Benny she was eating, so I asked if she'd like me to join her. She wouldn't say yes or no, so I went anyway to find her gone - I should have taken that as her answer, but I called her and she'd just left, was getting on her bike. Still, she came to where I'd parked and we agreed that I'd follow her on her errands. I said to her what I'd said on several previous Saturdays:
"I have nowhere better to be than wherever you are."
We rode around, making various stops, eventually wound up back at her place. We fitted her bike part, and did some other tinkering besides, more as something enjoyable to do together than anything else, took Millie for her walk, and talked some more. I said I wanted to work on it, how I'd always work on it. I said it had been feeling like she wasn't working on it, like she was doing the opposite of working on it, like every time I seemed to have the balance right again she'd shift things around to make it Not Work. I said I'd run out of anything else. I told her she was the last bright light, last solid thing I had to hold on to. I asked her, almost begged her, to not take that away from me. I told her I couldn't let go because if I did I'd fall, but if she told me to go I would.
She wouldn't say that.
She said she wanted me to be OK.
That was something I couldn't say.
The scheduling issue came back up - it was, I felt, the final nail in a coffin which had been sliding shut for a while. Scheduling has always been a big part of her dissatisfaction with our relationship; it was core to the breakup we'd had a year ago. Between work commitments, the distance between her place and mine, meeting the care, feeding, and walkies needs of her dog, and my fluctuating energy levels, we never managed to have enough time together. She'd loved it when we were together, but the times we were apart hurt her. There wasn't much we could do to make that better, but I'd been trying. I was always trying. When I could manage it, I'd often come round to hers after work for Millie walkies; we'd sort something for dinner, cuddle on the couch, watch a show, I'd put her to bed and head home. I couldn't sleep at hers - we'd tried, and I'd lay there for half the night, or wake up in huge amounts of pain because my back is a fucking princess. I'd got her a free bed on Buy Nothing, we'd found her a cheap mattress at Aldi, found better, second-hand furniture, made massive improvements to how comfortable her place was. I spend a day driving a rental ute from Bunnings to collect furniture, turf her old stuff at the tip, get the new stuff set up, and it was exhausting, but I was glad I could do it for her. I was resistant to spending the night at hers during the week because I didn't want to wake up in the morning alone in her place, and just have to head home. I was having similar problems sleeping in my own bed, so if she stayed at mine she'd often wake up and let herself out without waking me because I'd have been up half the night.
We did what we could, but it was never enough.
The only way I could think to solve this was to find a place we could move into, together. Her place was great for her and Millie, but way too small for me and Beckett. She could have fit into mine with some careful rearrangement, but not with Millie as well. We needed somewhere bigger, and that meant money, which neither of us had enough of. She needed to improve her income, and over time she did. I'd like to think I helped with that. I needed to improve mine as well and...
Ever since finishing The Job That Brought Me Back To Canberra, I've been trying to do that. Applying for jobs and getting nowhere. It was a huge part of the constant failure I spoke of in It's not you (I'm giving up on) it's me... My consistent, repetitive inability to find a new gig has been chipping away at me for more than a year and a half now. Dealing with constant rejection was bad enough, but in the background was this feeling of sand slipping between my fingers. With every month that passed she was less and less happy, and so I became more and more desperate. Eventually we broke up, not because we didn't love each other, but because the gap we couldn't quite close hurt her too much. We tried being a bit more casual, hoping that might make it easier for her, and for a time it did.
She had unresolved issues with her previous breakup, and I encouraged her to reach out and try restarting a friendship with her immediate-previous Ex. That had its ups and downs, and he'd come past Canberra at one point so they could see each other and talk. I made a point of not making demands, all I asked was that she "tell me anything she felt I needed to know". He stayed at her place, and there was... something, but he didn't like that she was still casual with me so it didn't go far. He slept in his car and left without saying goodbye, and Blocked her. I was unimpressed with it all, but I also wanted her to tie off that hanging thread one way or another.
They reopened contact again, and talked some more, but he imposed the condition that if they were going to have any sort of friendship she had to end things completely with anyone else. This little factoid I didn't find this out until some time afterwards when she revealed to me that they'd been phone sexting. It didn't break any rules I'd imposed - it was pushing boundaries, but it was non-contact, and she'd told me when she felt I needed to know. She hadn't stopped sleeping with me throughout this tho, which meant that it broke HIS rules. That didn't really bother me either, because they were HIS rules, not hers, right? Except no - by her own definition phone-sex was still sex, so by her own standards she'd been cheating on him with me, and whilst she hadn't explicitly agreed to his requirements she'd still engaged in the activity with him which was an IMPLICIT agreement. She hadn't thought of that until I pointed it out.
That was something I refused to abide. I insisted that she apologise to him for breaching his trust, and that she apologise to me for making me an accomplice in it. She did both, and he Blocked her again, which I thought was the end of it.
After a time, conversations kept coming back to how few relationships she'd had, and how she'd never really dated anyone particularly close to her age. She had a nagging curiosity for what she'd been missing out on, so despite my discomfort I encouraged her to find out. She got on the dating apps and... she's a beautiful, clever, funny young woman, so of course she matched with plenty of people, and proceeded to go on dates with a few. I told her I didn't really want to know, and I'd generally not ask, but would trust her to stay true to the one rule I had and "tell me anything she felt I needed to know". Occasionally she'd call me on her way home from somewhere and I'd ask
"Oh, what were you doing out in Belconnen?"
"I... was out on a date."
"Ah. So... um..."
"Look, I'm heading home and I'll be near your place. Shall I drop by?"
"...
"I... don't know how I feel about that, TBH."
I was increasingly uncomfortable with the situation; I felt like a fallback, but more importantly I felt like I was constantly waiting for one of her dates to go well, and that I'd be cast aside without warning because until then I hadn't needed to know. I wasn't looking. I don't even know HOW to go looking. I had no interest in looking; I was happy with what I had. She'd ask me, occasionally:
"What do you want?"
And I'd answer, "you."
She was starting to make friends with a group of young people who were all getting into motorcycles, and would be out with them a lot. I encouraged that too, but after a while I realised I was getting lower and lower on her list of priorities. If they were out being social, she'd want to do that rather than spend time with me, and being young and untethered they'd be out a lot, which meant that I barely got to see her. She wasn't interested in including me in that, either. Eventually I realised she was actively excluding me; where there'd been no part of my world I excluded her from, I didn't exist in that world, and there'd be no place in it for me. I got to see her intermittently here and there, but never in a way which intersected. It felt like I had the lowest priority in her life, but she was still the highest in mine.
It finally came to a head one Friday - I'd gone for a walk through Braddon and messaged to see what she was up to, and whether I'd be seeing her that evening. She replied saying that she was having dinner with her crew at Grease Monkey, which I'd just walked past. I told her that, and got no reply which just made me more and more furious as the evening went on. The next day I finally send a her a
"We need to talk."
and went round to issue an ultimatum.
I was sick of it, and heartsore, felt abandoned and badly misused. I told her how upset I was that she knew I was maybe 100m away from her, and she'd still not invited me to even come and say hello. I was upset at how it felt that she was stringing me along, how little I seemed to matter, that I didn't necessarily expect to be included, but this feeling of being EXcluded... it was too much. The disparity in our priorities was hurting me. It was too much. I told her to choose:
"I can't keep doing this. You need to be in, or out, but you have to make the call. I'd rather we make a real go of this. I really believe this can work, but at this point I'm good either way."
She hadn't realised how bad this had been making me feel. I accepted a lot of the blame for that; I'd been glad to see her when I did, and didn't want to rock the boat, so I'd been keeping a lot of it to myself. I still felt that she'd been wilfully ignorant. I still thought of her as a 'partner', even if she was treating me as basically a 'fallback friend'. I told her that if she wanted out I'd need space to realign, to stop immediately jumping the moment she needed something. Seeing her all the time, I'd not be able to stop thinking of her like that and it was going to break me, especially if she started seeing someone else. If she was in, I needed her to commit to trying and making a real go of it.
She told me she didn't want to lose me, and over the next couple of days we talked a lot. Eventually she declared herself 'in', but looking back I know, and knew for most of that time, that she never really was.
We carried on for a time, and I made a huge effort to be there for her as much as I could be. She was going to the gym a lot in the mornings so couldn't stay at mine, so I spent more evenings at hers. Then she started shifting to evenings, so I worked around that. She had a Team Sports thing with some old work colleagues which I said I'd come along to, but then never quite got included in, but it was around the corner from mine on a Thursday so she'd spent the night at mine afterwards. She even invited me along to some of her Friday Night Ride hangouts, and we had a really nice time fanging around on our bikes.
Meanwhile, I was still applying for every job I could find, and getting more and more desperate. Not long after my last blog post, I bombed the first promising interview I'd had, which ripped me apart. I had other, promising opportunities fall through for no apparent reason. I finally had one which looked like it was in the bag, promising enough that I let her encourage me to buy another bike. Riding together had been a huge amount of fun, and she'd helped me reconnect with my passion for motorcycles. For so long my bike was just a fun way to get around, but apart from the Chase The Sunset post I hadn't really felt that joy in a long time. She was getting FAST, too, and keeping up with her little Ninja 300 on my Hayabusa through the roads we'd ride on was becoming a challenge that made me really have to work on my skills in a way I hadn't had to in far too long. She spotted a Suzuki Katana going second-hand and encouraged me to take it for a test-ride because the original model of that bike was what had made me want one in the first place. That 20min cruise made me realise just how much effort the 'busa was to ride. I didn't buy it, but went looking for something light and quick that would be a better match for the bikes she was keen on, eventually landing on a Triumph Street Triple 765 RS, the little brother of the Speed Triple I'd once built my own Streetfighter in homage of. She was looking for an upgrade, and after a couple of near-misses found a Suzuki GSX-R750 she wanted in Sydney.
She'd wanted to do a trip up to Sydney to look at bikes for ages, and I'd been resistant. I was so low on energy, and motivation, that I didn't want to go back and forth to kick tyres. I was so tired, and so worn down, the effort to even plan a trip was more than I had. I'd not managed to get to Sydney for myself, to visit friends, anything, since going to the Good Things Festival with Ian. We'd start talking about going and planning getting up there, how to fit in the things we wanted to do, and I'd just... blank. It was too hard. She'd be so disappointed, and I felt so ashamed. Eventually she found some options that were really promising, and I helped her negotiate prices, and there was a window we could make work. She did most of the organising - booking a hotel, planning dinner at a place she wanted to go, driving up after work. The window was really tight, getting out of Canberra, to Sydney in time for dinner and dessert at the places she desperately wanted to make new memories of, the popup-shop selling jeans she wanted to go to the next day, then off to check one or maybe two bikes. There was even time for me to catch up with an old friend and his boyfriend for lunch before getting back to Canberra in time for her to make dinner with some old work colleagues. We got it all done, even stopped in at a couple of bike stores along the way, and I drove her car back so she could ride her new Gixxer. It was exhausting, but we did it.
That night, I thanked her - it had been a wonderful time, and it had worn me out, but she showed me that I didn't have to do all the planning, all the driving, make it all happen. I didn't mind that very little of that trip included things I'd wanted to do for me; I was deliriously happy that I could do it at all, and I'd wanted to do it for her. She showed me that we could do it as a team, and I wanted to do it again.
That got thrown back at me, later.
I've been tinkering with the Gixxer ever since, and I spent a bunch of time and effort getting her Ninja 300 cleaned up and ready for her to sell. I spent hours on them, so much time I barely had energy left to tinker with my own, but I didn't care. She was so happy, and I wanted to make her happy. I didn't have energy left for me, but it's been so long since I had any energy left for me anyway.
Sunday 24/08/2025 19:55
I've been burning out for... for so fucking long now.
I made a New Friend recently on Buy Nothing called Louise. She was giving away a random assortment of tea, so I put my hand up. After collecting it, she sent me a random message asking if I was into metal as an overture for conversation, then another one a couple of days later. I reciprocated, and the next thing I knew we were meeting up at Peacemaker to do the "getting to know you" dance. We've become rapidly, ridiculously close, and I have her to thank for getting me through the last couple of weeks. There's absolutely no romantic over- or under-tone; she's been going through her own heartbreak, but we seem to be just the right people, and have met at just the right time, to be just the right company for each other.
It was during one of our frequent, increasingly frantic conversations that I realised:
"I'm... I've been drowning for far too long."
To provide context, I linked her to the Drowning In Silence post.
"OK well all the more reason to escalate this, Peter"
"25 months ago.
"Please I want to stop drowning"
At first I was applying for jobs because I had this sense of confidence that I could do it, I'd earned it, I'd proven myself. The priority shifted quickly because it was how I'd be able to earn enough money to fund a place where Bridget and I could be together, for both of our sakes. As her dissatisfaction grew, it became more and more about her, and my desire to keep her. It's been a long time since I wanted the job, or the money, or the bigger home, for me. As the days turned to weeks turned to months and I had less and less Continue, I've been putting things aside, one thing at a time, so I could keep pouring energy into that one thing that was preventing it from working. I've reached out to friends less and less; I kept my social energy for her. I've not pursued hobbies; I've done and made things she wanted. I was eating bachelor-chow ready-meals when I was on my own; when I did cook I'd bake high-fibre, low-sugar brownies for her to have for breakfasts, or healthy dinners when we've been together. I stopped blogging entirely; I had so little time and energy left, and it had become a huge strain for all the reasons mentioned in my last post, but I also needed to reserve what I had for her. I've kept working my clients to make money, and cut my spending to reduce how much cash I was bleeding. Quitting smoking was all about saving money, and because I knew it would make her happy - it's not the number of days I've been smoke-free I keep track of, it's the money I've saved. I'd wanted a 'project bike' I could tinker with and customise for years, but I didn't buy that Triumph for me; I did it because it felt like it strengthened our bond, and our mutual joy.
The less I have to give, the less I've cared about anything else I might want; there's been nothing I want that's more important until, somewhere in the last few months I stopped wanting anything else, until now
The only thing I want for me... is her.
<Fuck man.>
<Just... fucking...>
<Fuck...>
<I'm going to step away for a bit.>
Sunday 24/08/2025 22:18
I needed a break there because it's fucking hard to keep typing and making sense when you're crying. I went and ate something cheap and forgettable out of the freezer and watched an episode of Brooklyn 99, and I've got not a goddamn thing else better to do so I'm back.
I know this hasn't been sustainable.
I know that no one can be anyone else's entire world.
I know
I know
I know.
It was never MEANT to be fucking sustainable.
The next gig was always just around the corner.
Things were supposed to get BETTER.
It's not just been scheduling and introspection, the age difference has become more and more of a thing. It wasn't at first, not for ages. "Age is just a number," I was reassured by plenty of reasoned, sensible voices. I was shocked when I realised how young she was shortly after we met - I'd thought she was in her 30's, not her 20's, and I'm not exactly your typical man-in-his-early-mid-40's. I'm less wild and active than I was at her age, but a lot of that has been because my friend-group has moved on, and I've not got the community to do that with. One of the things I loved about her, and about being with her, was that she had the energy and desire to go and have fun, and it meant that I got to do that as well... to a point. I'd like to think that if I'd not been beaten down so hard over the last couple of years I'd have been able to drive and engage more fun and shenanigans. I miss the random long rides, and the Sydney/Melbourne trips, the... fun.
I miss not being boring.
I miss being fit and healthy.
I miss not being sick all the time.
One thing she's raised was how when she's 30 I'll be 50, when she's 40 I'll be 60, when she's 50 I'll probably be dead. It's not just age gap; I have diabetes, and other health problems. I'm carrying a lot of old injuries. I'd like to think things can turn around enough that I can make improvements, but all I have to show for the last 2 years has been one failure after another.
I'd hoped that I could make up for a lot of that with all the things I can do for her - not just having cash, but the gift of my experience, and the things I know how to do. Even when I was running out of motivation to do any of this shit for myself I was taking so much joy in doing things for her. It was a disparity she was never comfortable with, but having a reason to use all the tools I've accumulated has made me as close as I can come to what I'm told people call 'happy'.
New Friend Lou is more critical. Just now she messaged me:
"... I don't like how she strung u along
"I said that in the beginning and you've just refreshed my memory"
"I know."
"I hope you have managed to refresh your own memory by recalling the shitty treatment
"and writing it down like
"man that's shit"
"You know I don't care, right?
"I've never forgotten."
Because I don't feel that Bridget ever intended to 'string me along', even if that's what wound up happening, any more than I intended to slide so far that she became the last bright spark in my world. I genuinely believe that she's made the choices she has because she thought they were for the best, and when she's realised that things were otherwise she's tried to do better.
Even now.
Before I left her place on Saturday 09/08/2025, after we got back from walking Millie, the conversation was winding to a close. I was desperately trying to steer it one way, but Bridget was leaning hard towards the other. I'd been trying not to bring up the perception I had of her constantly making it harder to make it work because I knew it was was never going to be productive, but it came to a point where I needed that to be heard. Just saying it out loud was hard, and the flat look on her face told me that whilst it may not have been conscious... she knew it was true. All the grief and pain and struggle came out, and much like I had the day before she held me whilst I fell to pieces and wept for I don't know how long. I left shortly after. She made a noise about ordering pizza, watching a show or something, but I couldn't. Unless it was part of moving us forward, I couldn't sit there like everything was fine anymore, I had to go. Before I left she reiterated that she wanted me to be OK, she loved me, she just wasn't 'in love' with me, and demanded that I tell her if things got to That Point where she might need the passwords I'd left her.
I fled, and wound up over New Friend Lou's place where she fed me and made me play Giant Jenga until it was time to go home, and to bed.
The next day on Sunday 10/08/2025 New Friend Lou dragged me to see the live Sooshi Mango show. She'd invited me along because she wanted someone to go with; I'd never heard of it, but what the hell? I was still processing, so Bridget was more or less all we talked about. As we walked to the Canberra Theatre from Peacemaker I remember talking about what I'd say to Bridget on those random Saturdays
"I have nowhere better to be than wherever you are," and she replied
"Man, I wish someone loved me like that."
It was fun, and I didn't laugh a whole lot, but that didn't mean I wasn't enjoying it. I bailed right afterwards because I had a job interview - Bridget had shared a link for a PM role at UC which had been advertised by one of her old managers, and to my surprise I'd been invited to interview. It was in the format of a video - log into a website, make sure your camera and mic are set up, then click the button to start. A question would come up which you had a minute to think about, then record a 3-4 min video response. You had one take to get it right. We'd talked it over during Millie walkies the day before, and they'd shared the questions in advance, but staring at the button I needed to press I was struggling to get my thoughts in order.
10 Aug 2025, 19:19
"Are you there?"
"There?"
"Like... responsive."
"I'm out with people"
"OK"
10 Aug 2025, 20:22
"Just did the interview thing.
"Think I fucked it.
"No, I know I fucked it."
10 Aug 2025, 20:59
"Sorry to hear that, it doesn't let you have a few tries?"
"No. One shot."
"Oh that's a real bummer"
"Remember on Friday when we were sitting on the floor inside your front door and you were screaming and crying at me?
"That's where I am in my head.
"Couldn't get through one day without caving in and reaching out to you."
10 Aug 2025, 21:38
"Please"
"This isn't healthy"
"I cant
"I'm trying"
"I'm just helping my sister with a resume
"My brain is not here, give me a few to at least make it so I'm not multitasking"
"Ok"
So I waited, and tried to play a game, and kept an eye on my phone waiting, then an hour or so later the text-field at the bottom of the page was replaced with
"This person is not contactable on Messenger."
"Oh what...
"No... nonononono"
I frantically fired up my laptop, and as it booted sent her a series of SMS's saying she'd disappeared... had she Blocked me? Please don't do this. When I checked Facebook the popup pinged to say I'd been Blocked.
The SMS's sat there saying "Delivered", but not "Read".
I stared at them both in disbelief for quiet a while.
Then I wept.
Then I stared some more.
Then I wept again.
Eventually I washed down some painkillers with a glass of whisky and passed out on the couch.
I'm still waiting for that call, or any sign of life.
For the last fortnight I've been inconsolable, although New Friend Lou has done a heroic job of trying. I couldn't bring myself to say much to Ricky, or Sandra, or Ian, but someone I barely knew seemed perfectly fine. I tried to go about my days, but my clients have been quiet so there was little work on to distract me, so I've spent hours sitting at my desk, staring at the screen, occasionally clicking on Bridget's icon in my Messenger to see if that status had changed.
It hasn't.
I had one more irrelevant thing of hers I'd forgotten to give back - I'd said I'd drop it in her letterbox or something, but after that I didn't feel comfortable going round so I decided to post it. The spare QuadLock mount really didn't matter, but it was an excuse, so I ripped a page out of a notebook and hand-wrote a letter saying why I was posting it, not delivering it, how much being Blocked hurt after how adamant she'd been that I reach out, that I didn't think I deserved to be abandoned and please could we talk? and please, help me. I applied some double-sided gel-tape to the back of the mount, taped it to the page along with a random doodle she'd left on a PostIt note, folded it and sent it via Regular Post (no tracking, no signature, just a stamp and a postmark).
A couple of days later I said something similar in an email, and sent it to both of the email addresses she has that I know about (one of which she'd probably have difficulty Blocking me on), from three different email addresses (one of which I'm pretty sure she didn't know about to block).
Eventually I bit the bullet and decided to try calling her, but it went straight to voicemail so I switched off my CallerID and tried again, only for it to ring out. I tried a bunch more times over the next few days, but she never answered.
I didn't bother trying to leave a message.
Eventually I gave up.
Later that evening Dave came round for a Meet & Greet with Beckett to see how well they got along. I told him how our relationship had broken down, discussed the changes I'd made to Beckett's feeding and litter schedule and how the acts of piss-vandalism had diminished, then exiled myself to the balcony and had him close the blinds to remove my influence whilst they played. Half an hour later I came back in and they were getting along amazingly, so I packed Beckett into his cat carrier along with his favourite toys, grabbed the bags of kibble and kitty litter, and loaded them into Dave's car.
Standing in a space which had barely changed, but felt almost as empty as my heart, I poured a glass of whisky, took a Friday-style photo from my chair on the balcony and posted it to Facebook with the caption:
"Peter Raven is taking a moment to reflect, and get used to how eerily quiet his flat is now that Beckett has gone to a better place..."
followed immediately by the comment
"No, he's not dead.
"He's just gone to live with Dave."
and watched the shocked messages roll in.
One of those messages was an SMS from Smeghead asking what had happened, was I OK? It turns out he doesn't read Comments, but he still invited me out to dinner on Saturday.
On Friday 15/08/2025 I reached out to our only really mutual friend, my 2022 Padawan, and managed to catch an hour of his time. He obviously wasn't going to relay messages, or intercede, but he did offer me what little perspective he had - she hadn't told him much, it turned out. Still, I thanked him for sharing what he was comfortable with, and his time, and went home.
I spent a fair amount of the rest of my afternoon sitting at my desk, staring at a virgin box-cutter blade I'd pulled out and sat on my desk. I must have picked it up and put it down a dozen times before deciding not to use it. Instead, I got changed into "going for a Friday Night Wander" clothes, loaded up my laptop and general Go Bag odds and ends, and just before heading out the door I <did something I'm not going to commit to writing> with the expectation that it would cause me to collapse in the next half-hour or so, and went for a walk around Garema Place.
An hour and a half later I was still vertical, and feeling nothing more than an escalation of the despair I'd felt growing all afternoon, when New Friend Lou messaged to see if I wanted to meet up at Peacemaker for Happy Hour.
Why the fuck not?
So we sat and I griefed at her until we went our separate ways for dinner.
Back at home I poured myself a glass of whisky and sat on the balcony for a while, listened to the new Twenty One Pilots song which had been released a handful of hours earlier, and mused about how if at first you don't succeed, try, try again, so I picked up the box cutter blade again, put my right arm on the coffee table and slashed it as hard as I could from most of the way to my elbow down to my wrist.
I realised later that it was was precisely one year beforehand that I'd posted It's not you (I'm giving up on) it's me...
I stared at it for a few seconds whilst nothing happened, until eventually the gash filled with red, a small trickle flowed, and a couple of small drops fell onto the white tabletop. In disbelief, I sent New Friend Lou a photo, saying
"Turns out this shit is way harder than they say it is.
"Seriously, the fuck? Down the road and everything."
Seconds later my phone rang:
"Mandalay Bus.
"Now."
I still hadn't eaten, so fuck it. I went, shouted Onion Rings and Quesadillas, and she yelled at me for a while, then told me to come round hers the next day so she could clean and dress it; she used to be an ED Nurse.
Early on it was becoming increasingly apparent that we were going to be having some frank, and grief-driven conversations, and the previous Saturday after being comprehensively dumped I'd said to her:
"Look, I really need to be able to say some things, but I need to know that you're not going to freak out and go calling the men with white coats and butterfly nets. Please. Is that cool?"
"Yeah, of course.
"This is a Safe Space."
"Fucking thank you..."
A week later I rescinded that request, caught up with Scott for a cup of tea, then went to dinner with Smeghead. He could tell I was already on the wrong-side of the abyss, and whilst I was sure to wear long-sleeves I'm pretty sure he noticed the damage to my arm, but carefully kept it in his peripheral and didn't comment on it. I was terrible company, but he kept the conversation going for me; he talked about his twins' choices of vocation now they're coming to the end of High School, his CO's new stressful posting, softball, investments, and how dysfunctional public service recruitment is these days. He came up to the balcony after feeding me some really-very-nice gyoza and donburi, but I was running out of non-miserable things to say so I made my excuses. He reminded me that he doesn't live all that far away, I took more painkillers and passed out early.
On Sunday 12/08/2025 New Friend Lou made a bunch of phone calls to ex-colleagues and other contacts whilst I sat at home with my Go Bag and Waited For Instructions. She'd spoken of streamlining me through ED, but that turned out to be a bust. I had a routine appointment booked with my GP already to get new prescriptions, so she told me to ask for a referral to Community Mental Health Services. I was sitting there, gazing idly out the balcony door at 4:47PM at the glorious day outside. The sun was shining golden through a rich texture of clouds, the air was warm, and I could taste how dry the roads were, and how good my motorcycle tyres' grip would be if I was out amongst it. I knew in that moment that Bridget would have been out there, hooning around with her friends, and that I would never get to do that with her again.
Then I curled up on the couch and spent the next two hours crying.
I got up, ate... something, looked up some diagrams of the major blood vessels in your arm and stabbed at them for a while until I gave up and found a bandaid. Then I slept some more.
The next day I went to the quack, got my prescriptions, then a referral to the Endocrinologist to sort out my drivers' license medical, then asked for the other one. When he asked why I just showed him, and watched him fumble for his phone.
I'd barely arrived home when I got a call from the Home Assessment and Acute Response Team saying they were about to arrive, so I had them follow me down to Visitor Parking, then brought them upstairs for a chat. I hadn't got much through my cup of tea before they were loading me into the back of their ACT Government-plated Kia EV for a ride to Canberra Hospital, where a nice lady with kind eyes told me I'd be spending the night, but had the option of it to being 'voluntarily'.
I told her sadly that I had nowhere better to be, and I'd brought my book.
Mental Health Ward 12b is not the worst accommodation I've spent the night in, and it definitely improved once they sedated the screaming middle-aged Turkish lady. They locked away my Go Bag, but let me hold onto my laptop and earplugs, fed me another sandwich and a couple of Temazepam which didn't help me sleep. A little while later a nurse came to my room with a couple of Quetiapine and a Melatonin which knocked me the fuck out so hard that when I woke up to pee later that night I was so disoriented I fell, hitting my head and hip on who the fuck knows what so hard my roommate had to help me back up. I made it back to bed and slept for 11 hours.
The next day I managed not to think about how badly I missed Bridget, but that was mostly because it was being overridden by how badly I wanted to not be locked in a room surrounded by nurses and security guards with "Orderly" written on their shirts. The rejection email from the interview I bombed arrived around lunchtime; I was honestly shocked they'd taken so long. I replied politely asking for feedback, but it seems that never receiving a reply is just a part of my life these days I need to get used to. I waited for my turn with the psychs reading my book, trying to not pay attention to the massive lump on my head or the drugged-out misery around me. When they called me in I told my story again whilst they nodded, agreed to take some more pills each day, promised to attend the post-suicide support program when they called, and that I Wouldn't Do It Again, and I made goddamn-sure I sounded sincere because it meant I could get the fuck out of there.
I had to wait a while for the paperwork, and for them to dispense some drugs, and food arrived at 5:00PM on the dot, just as I was told I could go, so I wolfed down the free feed whilst Isobel, the pretty redhead sitting down the table from me, cried and wailed at the nurse that she couldn't do this again, she couldn't be here another night, no one could do this another night, and pleaded they not make her.
<Fuck...>
<No, OK, no, I can do this, I can do this, just give me a sec...>
Monday 25/08/2025 00:45
The lights on the other side of the balcony rail are soft and sparkly halo'd points, and my lack of depth-perception makes it feel like someone tried to paint a mashup of Monet's Waterlily's with a Van Gogh nightscape, but I'm not wearing my glasses so that tracks.
Fuck I'm so sick of bursting into tears all the time, crying myself to sleep, forcing myself to engage in friendly banter when the pretty auburn-haired barmaid with the lovely smile who reminds me of Bridget, but isn't, is pouring me another pint at Peacemaker, knowing that my own isn't getting anywhere near my eyes.
I couldn't take that feeling away for Isobel. I also couldn't wolf down the vacuum-sealed cups of fruit salad and custard without feeling ill, nor did I want to delay leaving a minute longer than necessary, so I walked down the table, standing on the far-side of it from her and asked if she wanted them. She looked up, and stuttered
"Y-y-y-y-es p-p-please?"
I placed them down on the near-side of her tray in as non-threatening a way as a lean 6'3" tall man wearing head-to-toe black can manage, backed away a step, gave her a small wave saying
"Enjoy.
I hope you get out soon."
In a small voice, she replied, "thank you."
I gave her a half-smile, which was all the smile I had to offer, and I fled.
Screw it, have some music: Twenty One Pilots - Drum Show
I had this strange feeling of Shawshank Redemption-style surreality as I stood outside waiting for my Uber, which seemed disproportionate seeing as I'd been in for all of a day. I pinged New Friend Lou once we were underway saying I was out, and seeing if she wanted to catch the tail-end of Happy Hour at Peacemaker. I was enjoying the feeling of relief until moments later when we were cruising up Adelaide Ave and I had a sudden memory of the last time I travelled that road later at night, trading the lead back and forth with Bridget as we jinked around cars at 120kph, and the sinking, inevitable knowledge that I would never get to do that with her again.
When my driver dropped me off I ducked upstairs, dumped my Go Bag, grabbed a coat. It felt like a special occasion, so I grabbed my fancy Lagerfeld coat from Berlin instead of the more worn Ted Baker I usually knock about in, and just managed to snag a round as Happy Hour was ending. New Friend Lou arrived when I was half-way through my pint. I told her about my night-and-a-day, that it had been a small slice of hell which I never wanted to experience again, and I thanked her.
It rained whilst we were sitting there sinking pints, and it was a wonderful feeling to hear it fall on the roof over the street-side seating, and breathe in the petrichor-scented air.
Fuck I wish it would rain, and I could just sit here with Bridget watching it fall, but it isn't raining now, and I know I'll never get to do that with her again.
Sleeping drugs left me in a daze through Tuesday. On Wednesday afternoon I found myself hitting a wall of tears, so I forced myself to hit the street and pick up some supplies from Coles. I emptied my backpack into the freezer, but couldn't stare at my pretty blue wall anymore, so I went back out and started walking randomly through Braddon, then Civic, with Bloc Party in my ears, not looking or breaking stride when I had to cross the road. After an hour or so things were getting stupid, and I knew I needed to talk to Someone, but I felt I needed to impose on Someone Other Than Lou. I also didn't want to call... any of my friends; I wasn't going to make any sense. Then I remembered something I'd been told about a walk-in place called Safe Haven in Belconnen where you could just... go, so I went home, grabbed the key for the Triumph, and rode there Very Fast... because when you have that sort of hooligan bike what other way is there?
When I got there I found the door had a laminated A4 page tacked to it saying they were at capacity, but to ring the bell and they'd say hello and offer you something to drink. I stared at it and cried for a while, then eventually got up and pressed the button before taking a couple of steps back and waited all of 8 seconds before a woman with kind eyes named Tori opened it.
"I... I got out of the hospital yesterday and they said... they said this was a place you could... go?" and burst into tears again. She ushered me in, pointed me to a couch, fetched some water and a glass whilst the waterfall carried me away.
She sat down opposite and I remember her saying, "take as long as you need," so I did.
Over the next two hours we had a nice chat, and I told my story again. Some of the things she said were reassuring, some of them weren't, but none of them felt insincere.
At one point she suggested that my repeated failures were a sign that the universe was looking out for me.
I suggested that it felt a lot more like the universe was just keeping me around so it could keep putting the boot in, and I was living in an Ignition-era Offspring song.
She reassured me that I could come back any time I needed between 3PM and 10PM, and I left feeling... maybe not 'better', but certainly not 'worse'. Then I rode home Very Fast, occasionally with both wheels touching the ground. I ate food, took more drugs, and slept again.
I rode the 'busa Very Fast Indeed when I went back on Friday because for the longest time Friday has been my Sabbath, and it was the one night that Bridget would always come round and spend night with me, and I'll never get to do that with her again. I spent a couple of hours telling my story again to a nice middle-aged man with kind eyes named Glenn. There were more drugs when I got home, and I slept all the way through to 1:37PM which meant that I missed helping New Friend Lou clean up her friend's apartment, which I'd promised to do as a Thank You for just a little bit of the help she's given me.
I went back again on Saturday night to speak with Tori again, because I really wanted to have Part 2 of a conversation instead of having to tell my story from the start again, because I was miserable, and lonely, because I'd usually spend Saturdays with Bridget, and I still had nowhere better to be than where she was, but I couldn't be there anymore, and I'd never get to do that with her again. After I left, I took New Friend Lou out for a fang on the 'busa as an apology for missing my obligation, stopping at Kita for Teh Tarik, then on to Peacemaker for a nightcap where she tried to wingman for me with the pretty auburn-haired barmaid with the lovely smile.
It was nice of her try.
I couldn't sleep last night - I didn't want to take more drugs because they leave me in a daze which makes one day fade into the next, so I spent a lot of time reading a book, then another book. Not taking them isn't much better tho, because when I can't sleep I wind up in a different sort of daze which makes it hard to know what day it is. I know I got my Monthly Server Maintenance tasks done today... or was it yesterday? No, I did bits on both days. I swear one of those was today... or was it the daze before?
What day is it today again? The clock says it's Monday, but I haven't slept in... a while so it's all got a bit grey.
I think I need to take another break for... some time. Probably take some more drugs; that seems to be my life now, if you want to call it that.
I'll come back to this if and when I can... unless I don't.
Monday 25/08/2025 19:06
It's important to remember at times these that...
I don't even know what I thought was going to come after that. There's no lesson here, no moral to take away, just me sitting here laying out the entrails of the lowest point in my life for you to read. Let me start that again.
My last week hasn't all been pub -> home -> sleep -> repeat, and it's not just been New Friend Lou and professional strangers with kind eyes I've been talking to. Over the last few days I've slowly been calling the various members of my sanity committee - folks like Sandra, Ricky, Binky and Ian, as time's presented itself to have a decent-length, proper conversation. Events like these aren't the sort of thing you want to drip-feed, or post to InstaTwitTock:
"soz hey guess what tried to slit my wrists lol 😜 #YOLO"
I've not been speaking to them much recently... not so much because I didn't want to burden them, but because the events leading up to last week weren't something I wanted to talk about, and nothing they could help with. My life has been so desperately miserable for so long it's stopped being noteworthy, but also beyond where anyone could really offer me solace. What's worse is that they're all doing pretty OK - Ricky's got a great groove going on, Sandra's been visiting family in Brisbane and Darwin, and Ian... Ian's been winning so hard I'd actually been avoiding talking to him. I've been pleased for him, sincerely, but the universe seems to be raining sunshine and winning lotto tickets on him, and all I've been able to do is mumble vague congratulations around a mouthful of sour grapes. I don't want to be that guy, he doesn't deserve that. He deserves every happiness he's received, and every success he's achieved. The idea that the same is true for me is... far less pleasant.
We had a long call yesterday, the first we've had in quite a while, right before I sat down to start writing this. He had questions, he said, but one of the few we had time for him to ask was
"So... you've had breakups before and I know they've all hit you to one degree or another, but... what was different about Bridget? Why has this one hit you so much... existentially harder?"
There are a lot of pieces to the answer I gave him. Simple things, like
How... right it felt whenever she walked into the room.
How it made me feel whenever she smiled, and how much better still it was when she smiled at me.
The way she'd murmur contentedly when she curled up around my shoulder in her sleep.
How wherever she was, being there felt like Home.
Or how wonderful it felt to wake up next to her which, bearing in mind how many times I'd wake up in the night, I got to do A Lot.
Other things were more profound, like
How she helped me reconnect with that joy I used to take from riding motorcycles, when for the longest time it's just been a fun way of getting around.
She made doing the most boring, banal things, like shopping for groceries, or going to Ikea, or walking her dog, all of those things which are usually chores you need to do so you can do the things you actually want to do... fun.
And how smooth and fluidly we moved together on our bikes, talking away on helmet comm's, gliding around the vehicles in our way 20 or 30kph faster than anything else around us, as if they didn't even exist.
How she inspired me to create things like the Phase Shifting Tshirt, and the mini-Art Project collage I made from pictures she'd generated in ChatGPT I made to fit into a picture frame I found in the dumpster downstairs, and gave her because she wanted to add some of her own personality to her home:
The caption came from the prompt she'd used for the picture on the top-right, with strikethru's added as a reference to the original Art Project. She'd told me once that she'd been in awe of that mirror mirror on my wall, even a little jealous that I'd been inspired to do something like that for someone who wasn't her.
It was the smallest thing, an order of magnitude less effort than I'd put into the previous one, but it was the one inch I had to give and I wanted her to have it.
I spoke of the "who can make a better mixtape" contest we had when we first got together, how you could hear how much thought and effort we each put into them, and how well the two complemented each other.
And how glorious her remake of my Deadman blog post had been, and how magical it had felt to see my own creation reflected back at me in a way which both a tribute to mine, and a reply that was completely her own.
She took my thing and gave it back to me in a way which no one ever had before, and now I think about it I realise I'm terrified that no one will ever do for me again.
How she reminded me of what joy felt like and made life, even the gutted ruin it felt mine had become, absolutely worth fighting for.
But more than anything else, thinking back it struck me that ever since that first morning I sat in a meeting with her, then went over and introduced myself in the office later, I've felt drawn to her; gently, softly, but inexorably, in a way which has never faded even since she slammed this mirrored glass wall down between us in the fishbowl I've been drowning in, and even now I've run out of the Continue to keep swimming I'm still bumping against it whilst the giant pacific tiny octopus drags me down.
And how now I've found her, knowing that she's out there but that I can never be with her again feels like anything that comes after will be a poor, pale reflection of a life that used to be worth living.
<It's OK. Breathe, Pete, breathe.>
<Just take a minute.>
<You can do this.>
Tuesday 26/08/2025 11:48
New Friend Lou was hanging shit on me a little while back for being dramatic about all this:
"You can't go moping around - you're not going to go winning her back like that. You've got to show her that you're out there getting on with life. That's so much more attractive."
"Seriously man, I was just being accused of being manipulative 5 mi... day... fucking... recently. Not really interested in putting on a brave face for appearances. This is me, this is my Home now.
"And 'sif 'winning her back' is even on the cards; she Blocked me, I don't exist for her anymore. She's never gonna know either way, but I'd rather not pretend."
For the last few days I've been filling my time in with things I'm told I should do.
Go to Safe Haven when it feels overwhelming.
Book in for the Way Back Recovery Program.
Sign up for an intro session with The Men's Table.
Look for things I can do for me, not connected to her, which bring me meaning and fulfilment.
Go back to writing this pointless, self-indulgent, motherfailing blog.
I'm about to take more fucking drugs so I can sleep, because last night I lay awake until 8AM and only managed to sleep until 10 or 11, just like the night before, then drag myself up to do it all again and sweet silent Charon I need to sleep so that tomorrow I can get my fucking head on in a direction which looks vaguely straight and try to finish this thing I started. If I make it to Wednesday I get to go talk to another kind-eyed stranger with a name I'll have to force myself to remember, then sit around eating that night's ready-meal in front of my webcam with a bunch of other lonely blokes.
And I don't even care
And it all seems like a never-ending maze designed to keep me on this fucking wheel getting older, going nowhere, for other people's comfort, and none of my own, so my friends won't be sad for the hour or two it takes for them to drink their way through the bar tab before they get up and go on with their infinitely more satisfying lives and I'm tired and my body and my heart ache like the gaping hole in the back of my mind that she used to live in but now she's gone and I'm done and I'm done and I'm done and I'm SO FUCKING DONE.
Fuck this.
Drugs.
Bed.
Tuesday 26/08/2025 19:98
I could try to address last night's spiral, but... fuck it. It is what it is, and it's honest, and for many of my waking hours for weeks now it's been very, very real.
Ian sent me another question this morning which dovetails nicely into the next thing I was going to discuss:
"What would you say you were living for when you were with Kat, or in the time after her?"
The direct answer to that is... that happened at a very different time in my life. She'd nursed me through the recovery I'd needed after finishing my MBA, which had been the pinnacle of my personal achievement, which was only surpassed later when I delivered The Impossible Project. My world was lonely, yes, but still had potential; I'd proven that I could do things, as opposed to now when I've been pelted with bricks which say I can't. Kat leaving was a relief - the end had already happened a long time beforehand, she just hadn't... gone. I'm convinced that she stayed as long as she did to make sure I got out the other side of studying, then it was just a case of finding somewhere else to go. I've been told that I should have shown her the door a year sooner, but I never felt that I could; she had nowhere else to go as far as I was aware, and I was never going to cast her adrift when she was that reliant on me, let alone make her homeless. I stand by the choices I made back then; I don't think I could have lived with myself any other way.
For all that she did an amazing job of keeping my body functioning through study, multiple surgeries, and workaholism, Kat was never the inspiration for the efforts which consumed me so thoroughly that I needed that support, she just kept me alive whilst I pursued them; to this day I'm grateful to her for that.
To answer the undertone I'm inferring here... my relationships with Kat, and Jenna before her, had run their respective courses well and truly before they actually ended. We'd gone through the good to the bad, worked on it, done everything we could to make things work, long before our ways parted. They meant no less to me for that; I still miss them both, and I'll fight anyone who dares suggest I loved them any less, or with anything less everything I had. Right until the end I left room for things to change, or situations to improve, or stars to realign, and both of them left in their own time.
Whether it was because I'd not fallen as far as I have now, or because I never felt that I could, I never became anywhere near as reliant on either of them as I've come to be on Bridget. Make of that what you will. Nonetheless, when things started to spiral I put the work in and... I sincerely feel that she didn't. I'd like to think that I'm worth more than that, even if it's been a while since I actually believed that was the case.
Because it's not like I've been perfect, or even particularly good.
I've been snarky, and cynical, and indecisive.
I've been far less available than I feel I should have been.
Some Fridays when she'd come round, during the period we were 'casual', and arrive to find me blacked-out on the couch, once I'd fallen out of my chair on the balcony, because she'd been unresponsive and I had no idea whether she was still coming or not, and that was my way of Not Coping.
There've been so many times that, in hindsight, I wish I'd gone round for that hour-or-two window I could have spent with her.
Nights I should have stayed, even though I knew I was going to spend hours not sleeping, but would have got to spend them next to her.
Days I slept through, or never managed to get myself started, when we could have been out having fun doing things.
I've been hard work, and there's been less and less sign that I was going to get any better.
I'd like to think I was worth the effort, but it's been a while since either of us actually believed that was the case.
Wednesday 27/08/2025 00:18
Here, have one last song for the road: Twenty One Pilots - The Line
So how does this end?
Is this the end?
I still haven't decided how to answer either of those questions.
I know I don't want to keep living like this, but I can't tell you with certainty that I actively want the alternative.
I just want to show up on her doorstep on my knees with a bunch of flowers.
Saying that I feel like I have any faith in my being able to improve things, or even give enough of a fuck about myself to try, would be a lie; if there's ever been a time for honesty it's now.
I'm in freefall.
I barely know which way is up and which is down anymore.
I've passed through shame and come out the other side; I don't think there's anyone more I can disappoint.
Just this mirrored-glass wall through which I'd much rather see the fairest of them all, but stubbornly only shows me myself.
And I really don't like what I see.
I've finally remembered how to write again, and... for why? I think I've finally run out of things to say.
So now's probably the right time to Stop.
