Last Tuesday, March 4, I had a routine mammogram at BreastScreen. It's now 1:43am on Thursday, March 13, and I’m not going to lie—over the past week, the results of that mammogram have been in the back of my mind. But deep down I know that if there were a problem, they would have contacted me within a few days, so now I’m just waiting for that letter in the mail, giving me the all-clear.
I had my first mammogram four years ago when I turned 40. Apparently, they don’t start strongly encouraging screenings until you turn 50, but you can start getting them at 40. I started straight away. I think it is so important, and I don’t know why anyone wouldn’t get it done if they can. Although it’s a little uncomfortable, it’s free—and it could save your life.
I have one girlfriend who just turned 50 and has yet to have her first one, and another friend who didn’t start until her late 50s. On the flip side, my 20-year-old hairdresser told me she has been having mammograms for years because breast cancer runs heavily in her family.
Throughout this blog, I’ve sometimes talked about the way I look. As I’ve said before, I don’t have low self-esteem—I’m just realistic about who I am and how I look. My appearance defies society’s conventional standards of beauty. I am okay with this now, and I think there is a place in this world for a beautiful woman, and there is also a place for an ugly one. I am the latter.
Today, I want to show you some photos of myself when I was a child. Although this is an anonymous blog, I’ve decided to share these photos because, first of all, it is close to impossible for anyone to find this blog, let alone read it or identify me. But more importantly, if you have taken the time to read some of my posts, I want to share a little bit of my younger self with you.
I wanted to start with this photo purely because if you look carefully, you will see a gollywog—a racist toy that is considered offensive today. I may have had a racist toy back then, but I grew up to be the least racist person you could meet. I celebrate all people and cultures, and I would be extremely upset if I saw a child with a gollywog today.
Below is another photo of me. I’m dressed as a witch, possibly for a Halloween celebration—though I’m not entirely sure. Whatever the occasion, one thing is clear: I look like a deranged and highly disturbed child.
Our family used to travel to Canberra a lot for my dad's job. My mother even bought a house there, which we would share with other people in my dad's line of work. I want that house. I want to buy it back from the current owners. Mum thinks it would have been knocked down and turned into some sort of development, but I have to believe it's still there. I want it so badly. Somehow, in my lifetime, I want to earn enough money so I can knock on the door of that house — which was in a suburb of Canberra called Narrabundah — and say to the owners, "I'll give you whatever you want for your house." Because that's where the only innocence I had as a child lay.
I remember eating custard in that house. Slightly warmed up. I remember eating pistachio nuts with the kids next door and playing hopscotch. My brother and I shared a room, and the curtains were green with dairy cows and potentially other farmyard animals on them — I just can't quite remember.
It was a biggish house, which is how it could accommodate so many people when they were needed in Canberra, and it’s for that reason that I loved to explore it. Behind the back fence, there was an oval, and my brother and I used to go there. I actually don't know what for — there was no playground equipment — but we did go to the oval.
I love that house. I don't want to live there permanently. I just want it for me. I want the house, and I also want our alien God to give me a chance to go back to those days and let me do my whole life again. I would give anything just to adjust a few small wrong decisions, which in turn would adjust the entire trajectory of my life.
I admire the way he seems to be standing up for Europe in the face of an unprecedented situation with Donald Trump. And it's almost like he is preparing France for the possibility that they might not always have such a good relationship with America. .
Emmanuel Macron is 47 years old, and his wife, Brigitte Macron, is 71—making her 24 years older than him. I’ve heard of relationships with this kind of age gap when the man is older, but not often when it’s the woman. Brigitte is gorgeous, youthful, and fashionable, and I absolutely love the way he loves her.
He doesn’t care what anyone says about their relationship—he just wants to be with her.
They met when he was 15, and she was 39, married with three children. She was his drama teacher. Apparently, their relationship didn’t start until he was older—17 or 18 years old. Who knows how accurate that is?
When Emmanuel Macron became President of France in 2017, he made it clear that Brigitte Macron would have a public and active role as First Lady.
During his victory speech at the Louvre in May 2017, Emmanuel Macron said:
"She will be there, with her role, by my side as she has always been. But she will not be hidden, because she shares my life, and because her opinion is important."
He is proud of her, he loves her, and all I have to say to Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron is:
"L'amour Triomphe De Tout"
Love triumphs over everything.
The current President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has been having a rough time. He got absolutely annihilated by President Trump and Vice President Vance. They ganged up on him, and they were ruthless in making him look weak. I think they were wrong to do that to him, and I admire the way European leaders like Emmanuel Macron have come forward and publicly supported Zelenskyy.
The thing that annoys me about Zelenskyy, though, is that he wears super casual clothes when attending diplomatic meetings. When he met with Trump and Vance, he just wore a casual black sweater—and I actually find that disrespectful and rude.
I’ve also seen him wearing the same thing when meeting European leaders, while everyone else is in suits and ties, yet he chooses the casual approach.
I support Ukraine in every way possible, and I personally don’t think it would hurt Australia to send peacekeeping troops if it comes to that.
But for me, he should read the room and stop being so sloppy and unprofessional.
