Soulmate – Oil on Canvas gloss glaze finished tba (square)
I started this painting a while ago, just before I moved houses, I then put it to the side. Started painting it again the week these events took place. Ultimately I foiled it and only re-started painting it again for the third time on a new canvas with more context almost exactly a year later (present time) Visually it is in-fact of a myself (what a surprise) laying backwards naked in the ocean, a common description I refer too, exposed in a wider sense. A scene that could be interpreted as either peaceful or chaotic, the water level is just above eye-hight, this sets the scenario of the oceans content ‘cry me a river’ or in this case an ocean ‘Head under water and they tell me to breathe easy for a while’. The lighter, washed out version of the figure above represents the soul, I often refer to myself as soulless these days, the words just escape me naturally. I was trying to think of a way to represent the soul and kept coming back to this one episode on The Simpsons where Bart sells his soul to Milhouse for five dollars. He later sees them rowing in a boat which requires two people to manoeuvre, his soul is represented as a transparent ghost like replication of himself.
This is where I met him..
It was a cold night, a girlfriend had picked me up to go to a mutual friends birthday party after convincing me to go over the phone, it was a backyard style event held around a small fire. Naturally everyone knows everyone, a group of people I’d known some of them my whole youth. There was something about him that drew me in, before we’d even spoken, we kept making eye contact from across the backyard, it felt like we were seeking each-other out, he was probably the only guy there I didn’t know and I was more than curious, I’d asked others there that night about him. Eventually we started talking, mostly about art which he just as interested in, talking led to kissing, by the end of the night we were making out around the side of the house like high-school kids. He came to find me when he was leaving and asked me to go home with him we spent the night sleeping next to each other and nothing more he dropped me home the next day and the rest is history.
A year later we’d both decided to move in together, I chose the house, something close to his work. Two bedroom, study, wooden floor boards, white walls, renovated bathroom nothing special but neat enough. We only planned to stay here for a year, to work abroad the next.
(Disclaimer) I have an ongoing issue with accepting smoking marijuana and doing other ‘party drugs’ regularly to be a healthy normal ultimately this affected my content-ness gradually over time as it had always done for me in past relationships (this is probably an important note for me to keep in mind)
Fast forward to the last day of work for the year of 2017, December.
He had a half day scheduled and was planning on having some work friends over for drinks before they went out in the city, they would have been leaving before I’d get home from work.. unfortunately I’d received a phone call from him saying that one of the guys had smashed our front window in a fit of rage, he’d stated that ‘It was all cool though and they were still going out’ he was intoxicated to many degrees and I asked him to put his work friend whom I’d met many times on the phone so I could have a legible conversation about what was currently taking place back home.
After building up anxiety over the matter, talking to a colleague I’d decided to leave work early to ensure my possessions would not be left exposed (the window was smashed opened and they were all leaving for the night) I was the only one who cared about those type of things, probably because all the furniture was mine anyway. When I got in the front door he was standing there on the phone, laughing, not a single care in the world. Cans and bottles everywhere, two plates with drug residue on the coffee table, I cracked it and I’ll admit it I walked up to him and pushed him on the chest ‘What the fuck is going on here?’ he fell to the ground because lets face it he was off his face. I stepped backwards away from him, what happened next I would never have expected.
He charged at me, like a bull seeing red, grabbed me by the throat and forced me against the wall, in front of his five friends. He proceeded to smash my head against the wall until I passed out. I fell to the ground that hard I had a bruise the size of a mango on the side of my arse cheek. When I came too he was still standing over me. It takes one second to loose all respect for someone and that’s exactly what happened for me, I punched him square in the face, he was still ready to go, he’d even spat directly in my face. By this stage his friends were doing their best to keep us separated as we attempted to punch and push each-other between them. I recall biting his finger so hard I had to stop myself, Unanimous objects were thrown, many of them, he threw the kettle that hard at me that it smashed the splash back on our oven, he even tried to throw my drum-kit at me in the lounge room and one point I hid in my wardrobe. He eventually left, leaving me in the house with his friends who came into my bedroom and sat/stood around my bed while i wept, they even tried to convince me to go out in the city with them instead of taking him.
When they left I laid in the bath-tube feeling sorry for myself for a long period of time, feeling numb, eventually putting myself to sleep I didn’t speak to anyone. The next morning.. It took one great fuck up in my life to bring me down, to make me feel actually depressed and this was not it, this wasn’t going to be the thing I suffered in silence. He’d looked right though me with empty eyes and proceeded to leave me in such a state of disaster, I’m sure I’d had a concussion, you’re already dead to me wether I’d admit it now or later.
I reached out, calling my best-friend who didn’t pick up, I’d proceeded to call one of my other best-friend, she came straight over took one look at me and told me to get in the car, I was worried feeling numb, I couldn’t think for myself at this point, I was relying on them to think for me. The other friend ended up meeting us at the police station. I made a statement, they took photos and by this point he’d called me ‘Hey where are you?’ like nothing had even happened. I’d answer the phone as prompted by the officer (possibly on loudspeaker) I asked ‘Where are you?’ The officers left the station to go and picked him up and then I went back home.
Restraining Order
This led me to spend Christmas on my own, I did not confine in anybody other than my two life long best-friends. Christmas day was already painful inside my head before it had even began, long sleeve dress, make-up, made the cheese-board I’d promised, model child. I’d called my Mother prior to tell her he would not be coming, and to not ask me about it or I would go home – we can’t all read between the lines can we?. I took my main squeeze, therapy/compassion dog Levi with me instead, He can read me like a book, if you don’t already know it, dogs are amazing comforters. Over the course of this week he was very attentive, I’d lay on the couch and he’d laid down with his head on mine which he’d never done before. We spent the holidays just the two of us, lots of walks to the local football oval where I’d just lay in the middle blasting Marilyn Manson’s new album ‘Heaven upside down’ I feel like laying in the middle of the oval to be equivalent of laying in the ocean.. I suppose. I’d spent many days walking to the oval crying on the phone. While walking back from one of these walks I’d gotten groped by a random on the footpath, two guys were walking towards me… I had Levi with me and had moved off the path to let them pass, one of the guys lunged towards me quickly and cupped my vagina, this was in the middle of the day, Ironically I was walking past a school of god. I swear they’d planned it and were talking about doing it as they approached me because as I threw my water bottle at him and started yelling at the perpetrator he continued to power walk off like nothing had happened but his friend, he came at me saying ‘He didn’t mean it’ if he didn’t mean it you wouldn’t have even know what happened in that split second. Well… I called my boyfriend.. to be on the phone with me while i scrambled to get back home, I decided I wasn’t ready to take on all these feelings and responsibility, the lease, loneliness, not all at once. He stayed on the phone with me until I made it back home, we didn’t speak again until we saw each-other in court.
Court Day
Considering only two people knew about what was going on and they’d made me feel pressured to go to the police I was feeling a little resentment, at some points a lot of resentment as if they were the reason I spent the holidays alone, isolating myself further. This wasn’t the case I clearly needed the tough love but couldn’t see it at the time.
I was feeling okay that morning, I’d decided to go it alone, like I do with almost everything important and significant where someone should have a support network. Feeling okay… until he walked past me, suited, tight stirn faced, brief to little eye-contact, it felt like we were at each-others funeral.
The girl in front of me in the check in line alone was on the phone briefly, I’d overheard her explain an almost identical situation to somebody on the other end of the phone, she’d also decided to go alone, I could see her pain and didn’t want her to feel a remote amount of anything that was running through my brain so I called her over to sit with me, I felt like focusing on her suffering would distract me from my own. The councillor wanted to speak to me and had sent a police officer to find and direct me to her office, soon as I got up and started walking with him i broke down, I started crying so much I couldn’t see straight, worse than that time in the waiting room alone at the doctors, It’s rough when you lead yourself to public break-downs.
The councillors sole purpose was to drill into me that he would never change, the typical ‘If he can do it once he will do it again’, the cycle of domestic violence on a pie chart, temporary homing solutions, five pamphlets later and I’m more confused than before, I asked to speak to him before we got into the court room. He reluctantly agreed and wouldn’t give me much in the councillor supervised meeting, there was no sympathy or remorse for what had occurred so in that moment I agreed to a full restraining order I was a choppy hot mess when they asked me further I just kept saying I guess, I guess. Next thing I know they’re calling my name over the loud-speaker, directing me to the elicited court room as I walked in he was already standing up the front speaking, I wasn’t sure what i was required to do and sat down the back where I had entered. I didn’t do anything but witness, I sat there for a while, even listened to the next case.. not moving until somebody told me I could go. I wasn’t sure what was happening, I moved myself to the seat outside the courtroom as I saw him standing near the exit and did not want to have another intense walk by situation. I looked down and waited for the world to finish crashing down around me, he came over to me ‘Are you sure you’re allowed to do that?’ He’d apparently asked if he could, now he wanted to talk to me,(this is hard as we live together) we went out the front and he pretty much just sat next to me while I sobbed, we walked over to the shopping centre to get lunch, which I didn’t want to eat.
Ultimately we stayed together after this all went down, he came back home to opened arms, we continued our lives together but mentally apart. We spent that New Years Eve playing monopoly at the kitchen table as he’d agreed to stop doing drugs and getting wasted to make the relationship work. Those actions took a toll on me more than I should have allowed it, we’d bicker, I’d get out of the car and walk home.. I’d go for walks all the time with or without Levi, I’d literally leave the house just to cry, I cried almost everyday for a long time, with or without him being home. I’d call my best-friend every-time I was feeling my lowest, I’d tell her I was going to leave him, mentally I already had but physically I was still. I’d decided to use the money I’d been saving to travel with him to to buy myself a new car instead, I was defiantly not planning on going with him anymore. ‘Twisting and turning your feelings are burning’ I feel like staying together had a lot to do with the fact we lived together, we spoke about the resentment getting too much, you can’t move past these things no matter how hard you try. He blamed me for the court case claiming it made me untrustworthy and I blamed him for the well, physical abuse.
Let’s talk about this over some espresso martini’s..
On this night, as he was back on whatever bandwagon he was prior to the incident despite our agreement to change the behaviour, one of his friends from interstate was staying with us and I’d offered to take his friend out for the night while he lay in bed feeling sorry for himself.
We drank and danced at one of my favourite bars, went onto random clubs and danced some more, over all I had a great time, we stayed out most of the night and I confined in him about everything that had happened and he did the same about his own life. He was the only person to tell me how it is, brutal honesty and pure guidance, what is worth enduring and if he was really the one for me, we came to the conclusion together that he was not.
I broke up with him the next night, last day of March.
The thing is there are beautiful people in this word, you just can’t expect to be opened to finding them while you’re busy playing with a spreading fire that’s ultimately leaves a cloud of ash in front of your face.
Placebo – Song to say goodbye