Like I said, I’ve always had a strange affinity with cats, and I am certain I have toxo. It’s more than a suspicion—it’s a deep, unsettling knowing. If I don’t have it… I honestly don’t know what that means for me. It feels like so much of my identity would suddenly collapse, like I’d literally be nothing.
It’s 12:21am on Sunday morning, 3 August. I can hear the next door neighbours having a party. They’re making a lot of noise—screaming and laughing. It’s the adult children of the owners of the house; they’d have to be in their early 20s, I think. The noise doesn’t bother me—on the contrary, I actually like it. It’s comforting knowing that there are other people awake at this hour, even though it’s still relatively early.
Hearing them reminds me of some of the parties I used to have at Mum and Dad’s house, which is one street over from my brother’s house, where we are now. Mum and Dad’s was a big, beautiful house in Wattle Park. I think I’ve mentioned before that I had such low self-esteem as a young adult that I would do almost anything to be considered cool. I never took drugs—aside from the odd puff of marijuana, which I haven’t touched in close to 20 years and never will again—but I used to drink, and worst of all, I smoked.
When I was 16 or 17, I had these townie friends who were just awful. Some of them were homeless—not that I judge anyone for that—but I’m certain they were involved in all sorts of criminal activity. I know one of the guys used to prostitute himself at Veale Gardens. On one hand, people like me thought they were cool. On the other, they were absolute trouble. One of them was even caught for armed robbery—that’s just the tip of the iceberg. But at the time, I was incredibly naive to it all.
I had those people over to my parents’ house. They stole Dad’s alcohol. He used to keep cash in his room, and they took hundreds of dollars. They smashed beer bottles and threw the glass into the bottom of the swimming pool. God knows what else they did. And yet, back then, I remember thinking I’d hosted a cool party.
Now, I wouldn’t even consider associating with people like that. Never, ever.
The other week I was at the hairdresser, and an old friend’s mother came in. She used to live on the same street as us when I was growing up. She reminded me that at one of those parties, my parents had called her and her husband, asking them to go check on the house. She said they went—and were confronted by absolute thugs. They left immediately. I felt so deeply ashamed hearing that. Sometimes I honestly don’t know how to function, knowing how I behaved when I was younger.
And it spirals even further back—to when I was a kid. I feel so ashamed of all my hypersexualised behaviours. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, and I feel like there has to come a point in a person’s life when you say: fuck it. I’ve done these things. I can’t change them. But I can change how I (a) react to them, and (b) act moving forward.
It all comes down to my low self-esteem. And not just the kind of low self-esteem people casually mention—it was, and in many ways still is, embedded in me like a second skin.
I think I’ve mentioned in this blog before the night I went out with two friends of mine who were absolutely gorgeous. We ended up at a backpackers bar and met three British men. Two of them went off to their rooms with my friends, but the third—who was also beautiful—didn’t want to be with me. So he disappeared somewhere, and I sat alone at the reception desk of the hotel, waiting for them to come back. It’s a humiliation that’s difficult to explain. I think I almost suppress memories like that because if I were to really sit down and feel them—it would be too sad. Too heavy.
I also remember walking down Rundle Street one night with my friend Russell. He was one of the beautiful ones too—tall, lean, charming, and he had a twin. There were three of us walking together, though I don’t remember where we were going. The third person was a rough, homeless man who’d somehow joined us. At one point, he looked at Russell—right in front of me—and said, “God mate, I think you can do better than her.”
Meaning me.
I wanted to cry. Instead, I quietly slipped away and went home.
I don’t even remember how I got home during that period of my life. I didn’t drive. I didn’t have much money. I think I must have caught the bus.
So things like that contributed to my low self-esteem. What also didn’t help was my father and my brother.
My dad was a good man. I need to say that. But as I’ve said before, I think you can be good and bad at the same time—it doesn’t have to be one or the other. He hated fat people. So much so that he actually banned one of my cousins—who’s a larger woman—from coming to the house. During these times in my life when people were calling me ugly or fat—well, the truth is, I actually wasn’t fat. I would’ve been about a size 14, and that’s not fat by any reasonable standard. But somehow, that’s how I was made to feel.
I remember once, when I was a kid, I went with Mum and Dad to a function. I grabbed a piece of food from a platter and walked over to Dad while he was talking to a woman. He looked at the food, then at me, and without being asked, said to the woman, “We’re taking her to a dietician in the next couple of weeks.” She hadn’t even said anything. He was always going on about how fat I was.
One morning, when I was still living at home, he said something so awful to me that I went to work and told a couple of friends. They were disgusted. I came home and told Mum what they’d said—and she responded, “How could you do that to your father?” As if exposing his cruelty was the real sin.
Even when Dad was deep in dementia and had no idea who I was, I’d visit him in the nursing home and he’d still make comments about my weight. It was like a reflex. I also secretly believe he didn’t think I was very good looking. I remember once, when we were in Cambodia, a man at a restaurant came up to me and told me I was beautiful. Dad looked at me and said, “You’ll never be as good looking as your mother.” Ha! He could be very harsh.
My brother was the same. He always told me how fat and ugly I was. When people say things to you enough times—especially the people who are meant to love you—it gets into your bones. It becomes a belief system.
The thing is, I’m now 43 years old. I’ll be 44 in two weeks. I think back on all that negativity, and it’s dark. Like I said earlier, if I think about it too much, it becomes deeply upsetting. But this isn’t an ugly duckling story. I didn’t grow up and become beautiful.
I became something better.
I know myself now. I know my limitations—and honestly, they’re few. I could do anything I want to do. And I’m going to start doing it. I don’t think I’m ugly. I think I’m a combination of both of my parents, and I’m proud of that. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Now I just need to find a way to truly move on from all this, and spend the rest of my life making discoveries about parasites that infect us and make us love cats.
About two weeks ago, I took my oath letters to a place in Daw Park to be professionally scanned at 1200dpi and saved onto a USB. I don’t fully understand the technical side — only that 1200dpi is an incredibly high resolution, suitable for printing onto materials like acrylic or wood. I picked them up yesterday, and it felt a little surreal. Exciting, too.
Originally, I thought I might use the scans to create artworks — printing them onto objects and transforming them into something new. But I’ve changed my mind. I just want to let it all go now, and move on to something else.
The next step is to send the original oaths to Melbourne to be professionally bound for the Chief Justice. I decided not to iron the creases in the pages. I don’t want to risk damaging them — and in truth, I’ve come to like the creases. Some arrived flat in A4 envelopes, but others were folded. The folds feel like scars: proof that someone, somewhere, took the time to fold the page, slip it into an envelope, and send it to me.
It feels good knowing it’s all coming together now.
