7a.

2018, a journal entry

I am somewhat shaky.

three weeks ago
We were climbing an extensive spider web. Two flickering steel giraffes moonlighting as lamps highlighted the right side of her warm face more than they did the frayed, blue cord of the playground. I smiled at her, she smiled back. With my slightly nervous right hand sensing a moment, I pulled out my phone and started playing something, a symphony that had felt like ours. A significant portion of the song’s outro is quiet. Not empty, but quiet. The space between the emotions on the track were where we built our relationship.

We hummed together in that web, occasionally vocalising the piano parts, as we often did, this time perhaps me more than her. She paused the music, and said “OK.” There were 7 seconds left in the song. It was not an OK of presence, it was one of movement. I shifted my eyes, but she was already looking at the carpark. She wanted to arrive on time for drinks with some uni friends, my parents were taking me to a pub. Walking across the dimly lit park, she talked, smilingly, about the merits of another song on the same album. This was when the shakiness began. That song is beautiful, but it never belonged to us.

I thought, atypically, of what my brother might do. Two years ago, I was eating a caramel sundae on the train, and brother was upset after Joyce sent him a message saying, “I wonder if sometimes our feelings for each other are asymmetric.” He grabbed my sundae, crushed the plastic cup - bursting the sundae’s sweet remnants onto the floor - and he motioned to throw it. Another patron, sitting in the corner of the carriage working on their laptop, flinched and raised their hands in front of their face. Brother dropped the sundae. My conclusion from that episode was that responding with emotion is unreasoned and financially irresponsible. In that park, drifting behind J. as she quickened her steps, I saw the bigger story: Joyce and brother are engaged. I ought to apologise to you, my journal, for not sharing that news sooner.

January
I remember shopping for groceries with J. at 9pm on a Tuesday in Summer, well before any of this. We talked about how using a slow cooker was akin to delegating and we wondered if maybe everything we did that wasn’t face to face interaction with another human being was delegating and we were laughing and I thought maybe the best relationships are the ones that feel like you’re in on a secret.

three weeks ago
She got in her car, and I was standing in the car park, hand twitching more than it usually does after one coffee, no longer hungry. J. and I didn’t have to be the same person to be together (sister often talks about other couples not keeping the boundaries between their identities: J. and I didn't want to be that way), but in that moment I felt acutely J. and I weren’t the same person.

two days ago
I was reticent to categorise those shakes as prescient. I read something by a respected statistician suggesting anytime anyone ever says, “I knew that was going to happen,” you can lower your opinion of that person - which seems harsh. Brother talked about his wedding speech at family dinner. They aren’t getting married for five months but he “really” wants to “nail it”, especially after how bad he thought Rico’s wedding speech was. Mum said it was “typical” of a politician to not be able communicate a love story in an emotive way. Brother is struggling to draw a straight line between three different stories which he describes as “Moments I Knew”, when he had some kind of predictive certainty about where he and Joyce would end up. Our parents were enamoured with these stories, dad saying “you’ll work it out, like you always do,” and mum “those stories are so fitting for your love story.” Sister suggested maybe his relationship with Joyce was more complex than a specific trait. I didn’t say much that evening.

Yesterday
J. took me to a café. We sat in. And it was over. We were in on different secrets.

7b.

sometime around the present

My eyes jump between the paper and my 2018 box, still grasping for what my parents were fighting about.

I pick up a different list, one that J. & I created. 'Why we love CDs'. On that list:
• all the way through

• reality

• booklets

• authenticity

• beauty

• sharing

I don't remember what exactly we were referring to here - especially what J. had in mind with ‘sharing’. I can’t remember at what point after this I gave up on CDs. I can no longer remember the first time I sat in a friend’s car and realised it didn’t have a CD slot. I thought I would always want to play an album all the way through. We received lyrics from the source, not the internet. Classmates thought I didn’t download music because I was compliant. But why would you download music when you could own it? The only illegal music I had was a mix-CD with my name on it. The streaming era at first intensified these feelings. What did being a listener mean when you could hear everything? Everyone allowed themselves to borrow the company of a song without dwelling in it.

I wonder if J. still uses her CDs. She gave me one when we broke up, as she was leaving the café.

I slowly pull everything out of the 2018 box.

I realise what “you knew first” is.

7c.

2018, real life

We get gelato. She pays. She seems miffed I am not responding to her wit. I wonder if my value to her all these years has been a willingness to attempt to engage.

She taps me on the shoulder. She stops walking. “You seem melancholic.”


“Yep.”


“You’re not providing anything more than ‘yep’?”

I nod.

“I…” she pauses. “OK that’s cool, we can continue walking.”

She tells me about university and a friend who people were judgemental towards because they were wearing non-matching shoes to class. About skipping a lecture for the first time last week, because one of the students in her tutorial beforehand asked how old she was, and she lied to conceal she was doing her second undergraduate degree. About the feeling that entire relationships hang in the balance the first time you meet someone; the reality that all the datapoints you have about another person when you see them are exactly that - what you can see, and how those early datapoints might shape the interpretation of all future datapoints. About the different projects, both paid and volunteer, she’s been part of, if she actually wants to do them, or if she is doing them because of what she wants to be able to do. I ask questions such as “can you tell me more about that?”, “do you feel like you can reverse the impact of those early datapoints?“, and “why does it matter to you that they said that?”

We sit down on some steps by the water.


“Ummm… J. & I broke up.”

She puts her hand on my right shoulder.

I tell her, slowly. About J.’s realisation maybe three months ago she didn’t want to have to work so hard for me to say the things that I so readily write when I’m alone. About J. once thinking things might change. About getting lost on this discussion regarding how long you stay in something before you can unambiguously say things won’t change. About how during that discussion I thought - ‘I love that we have these conversations together, that we’re human beings who are so able to work to understand one another’ - and yet the fact that I was having those thoughts, that discussion with J. as she was breaking up with me, rather than telling her what I felt, or if I actually wanted to keep going, was only further confirmation of what she was saying. About believing in the fairness of what J. was saying, but also I did want to keep going. About J. having to leave: we had been in the café for three hours - we both said it had felt like less time than that. About the CD.

Eventually, she says “I feel like this one is going to hurt.”

“When mum found out we were dating she asked ‘does she make you happy?’ I don’t think I’ve told anyone this, but there was this day in Ashbury. We got coffees in...”



“In Ashfield. I know what you’re referencing, you made a google doc about it.”

We both laugh. “Yeah. But I never told you how it made me feel. I think it was listening to each other as the lights came on, and then listening to music as the lights went out. To do that with another person. I was happy, or joyful, or something more than that. So yeah, it will hurt.”

She smiles. It flashes across my mind that I could tell her about the letters I’ve never sent her.


I notice her smartwatch, pulling the future into the present. “What time is it?” I ask. “I need to drop mum & dad off at some concert.”


“I can do that?” she offers somewhat convincingly.


“But your time is so precious these days…”

She laughs “That doesn’t make me sound condescending. No, I can do it, it would be worthwhile.”


“No… I guess I don’t want them to be suspicious something is up.”

She nods slowly, wearing the mild frown our father does when he thinks he knows what is best for us.

“I know that face.”

“I’m sorry. I understand you don’t want to process your feelings whilst navigating their questions.”

“I can’t think of many scarier things.”

She laughs. 
I laugh at her laughter. 
“You always were the worst at sharing with our parents.”

I stand. “I think I want that to change.”

“One day it could.” She stands and puts her hand on my shoulder. “You are truly good at sharing with me. It is significant to me.”

I hug her. “Thanks sis.”

7d.

2018, real life

I hear dad shout “have you got everything?” towards the house. I press the eject button a second time, fully aware the second action makes no impact on the speed of operation. I hear the front door slam. My right hand, holding the case of the mildly emotional break-up CD, is shaking. Mum yells “let’s go.” The CD starts moving out of the slot. I peek through the passenger window. They are a few steps away from the kerb. I push the CD back into the slot, move the case under another in the centre console, and change to radio. I exhale.

The doors open.

“Hi son.” Dad jumps in the front seat, slapping the centre console. I take a deep breath.

“Do you know the route?” Mum says from the back left.

“Yeah, I was just looking it up, but I don’t know if it’s the fastest.”

“Let’s play some good music.” Dad asserts.

I breathe in. “All the CDs are still in mum’s car” I say with my hand now over the console.

We both look back to see mum still searching directions on her phone.

“Oh yeah.” Dad says sheepishly. He pulls out his phone and plays something mum likes.

They’re singing. Mum’s off-pitch. Dad is loud.

I should tell my parents. It will be quick, and there’s a clear endpoint to the conversation. I wait, thinking of a singer-songwriter whose career has just gotten to the point where they could leave their job as an insurance sales person. Sister respects their music too, we went to one of their concerts, back when we both had free evenings. They did an interview about the first time they ever shared their music with anyone. It was with their mother, whose hearing was quite poor at that point, so the stakes in some sense were low. Still, there was something about the movement from sounds that had only ever touched their ears, to music that existed in the world, even just to one other person. In that retirement home, with their mother and their mother’s dying dog, was the most nervous they had ever been.

As I open my mouth I glance across at my parents and see mum’s open right palm turn into a fist.


“Hang on a minute, you knew first, and you lied about it?” Mum pokes her head around the seat and squints at dad. My mouth stays open. Nothing comes out. I look at the road.


“What?”


“The other day when you were talking about our son’s proposal story with our friends, you said you had picked out the ring. But all those months ago when they first told us you had asked them question after question about the ring. Stupid questions too. But you knew. And you tried to cover up that you knew first.”

“Hang on a second. I…”


All the oxygen in the car is taken up by their anger. I roll the window down, effortfully. Dad bought this car only three months ago and yet it has window cranks. Dad has almost crashed whilst rolling down the window. “Three times” mum would want to add. It’s… a bit of a point of contention between them. I feel the air come through.


At a red light, mum prods me on the shoulder and says “who do you think is right boy?”

“Ummm…” OK… I breathe in. “I haven’t been listening. But neither of you are right… you shouldn’t keep putting your children in these positions.”


No one says anything. Dad only now turns the volume down.


“Where do you want me to let you out?”


“You’re right son. Try to find a park. Sorry.”

We hop out of the car.

“Thanks for the lift. We love you and don't want you to get caught in the middle of our stuff.” Dad.


“How are you and J. going?” Mum.


“Yeah, we’re going alright.”


Both parents give me a hug, dad longer than mum, and they walk off towards the pub, holding hands. I sigh.

At home I open my journal and wonder if my parents are destined to be themselves, and if they and I will always relate to one another like this.