Absolutely fine

The sun was dazzling; the rays seemed to stroke my face saying “it’s going to be a beautiful life.” I had stopped checking the letterbox to see if Keanu Reeves had responded to my letter. I had not yet stopped laughing at myself for sending the letter.

I fell asleep at 2am, considering how to repurpose the kid’s bedroom, the kid that would never arrive. The stork was drinking piña coladas somewhere in Haiti thinking ‘didn’t I have somewhere to be?’

The room was large enough for two bunk beds; perhaps I could put a divider there? I searched for beds on facebook, ebay, amazon, which of course led to the vortex of Keanu Reeves. Google served up an old video of his motorbike being love-tapped by a car and paparazzi swarming over him. It was like a David Attenborough episode where you close your eyes hoping the prey will make a spectacular escape as it painfully flounders. Maybe I had escaped, dodged a bullet.

I live close to the hospital where I spent so much of my childhood and adult life. I understood better than most the value of what I would offer; a free place to stay whilst caring for a child or adult in hospital. Farming families, families living in remote areas, travelled ten or more hours to see their relative. Many children would only see parents on weekends if at all.

I remember being a child in hospital, remember going to school there and making a red felt toy mouse with bright pink stitching. I remember children with no hair and no visitors. I remember a child being brought in, in the middle of the night. A dirty girl with dirty blonde hair. Something was terribly wrong. She was crying and screaming. She wasn’t sick like the rest of us. The crying had too much energy. She sat up in a cot and I tip toed out of bed, in the dim halo of light spread by the nurse’s station. I had just turned eight. I remember thinking that the girl had been the sole survivor of a car accident. There were no cuts, no bandages. Didn’t I remember police, a serious hushed conversation? Now I think she was removed from her family, a survivor.

I tried to talk to her but she was inconsolable. I went to my bed, retrieved my dear friend Teddy and passed him over the bars. Teddy, as was his way, made her happy. He was a 3 foot fully articulated bear when standing up and I loved him. In the morning the girl and Teddy were gone. There are other memories, darker memories that remain shadowed and blurry.

Yes, I would make the kid’s room a room for families. Families should be there to watch over their children, to speak for them when they couldn’t speak for themselves. I will listen when they need to talk, comfort them when they need to cry. It was a purpose for an empty room.

That being settled, it was time to go to Gertrude and Alice, my favourite bookshop-cum-café. I walked past the upmarket burger joint, the wine bar, watched the Bondi Beach locals sitting on stools in the back street drinking piccolos. I caught myself unconsciously skipping and singing. That’s when I know I’m really happy. I turned my face to the sun and spread my arms like a sunflower and laughed. The model/actors of Bondi Beach looked over their sunglasses at me and I didn’t care.

I could see my life ahead. I was free to finish my book, drown in a sea of time and three-quarter double-shot lattes. No cooking spaghetti, no play dates, no compromises.

Perhaps I had the heart for one more great love. Yes, I had one more great love in me. It had been years since I had considered the possibility. I had reconfigured my life for a child. Now that possibility was gone there was room for something else, maybe someone else.

I finally put the weight of the world, the weight of longing, yearning, down. I felt lighter, as if I would float off untethered into the cloudless bright blue sky.

I sat in Gertude and Alice, in one of the two red velvet chairs. I read my book, looked around the room, listened to an exchange between strangers. I looked over at K reading his book in the chair next to me. We traded smirks over the impassioned dialogue about horoscopes. K leaned back heavily into the velvet, making it sigh.

Without a word we agreed. It was two more weeks ‘til my birthday. I had a weekend planned with the girls. I had Serena flying over to write with me for a week in Palm Beach. I would reset, retune, redefine myself. I would travel to places you could not take a child, perhaps work in a war zone. All the old crew was in Syria.

‘I don’t know, I’ll figure it out, it’s all going to be great’ I thought loudly. I could get on a plane and go whenever, wherever I goddamned wanted. I would not be a mother and that was just absolutely fine.

Next: Part 10 Fate and other fuckery

Wishing you love and all good things x