#25.01.2016

Wednesday 25th Jan - 7:35 a.m.

So Ikaros came over yesterday, from about 3 till maybe 7. He had just come from seeing Jacob and a friend of his. They have this social tactic where they just approach girls on the street and talk to them, trying to pick them up or make friends. Jacob invited Ikaros to try that out, and Ikaros quite definitely did not because it sounded very very weird to him, and also a little out of line. Of course, a lot of the people Jacob and his mate talked to didn’t want to be approached by a random person on the street because that’s how most people tend to be on any given day. Especially in the city, I mean you have your guard up around men in the city because everyone’s in such close proximity. Anyway, I think this taste of the urban single life got Ikaros in a bit of a sorry state, because he decided to get curry tofu and then hop on the train and come and see me. I met him at Northcote station where we shared an intensely passionate kiss on the railings of the path leading from platform two to platform one, the place that flooded (or floods). He lifted me up and just kissed me, held me, for a very long time. When he finally let go, I realised that my earphones had snapped in my iPod and were irreparably damaged. Sweet, but such is the price of love.

He gave me a piggy-back down three streets just because he felt like it, and also maybe because he wanted to show me what he’s capable of now that he’s been going to the gym. I will say he’s gotten stronger, fitter, and he’s looking really well. Really fine. Goodness, if he weren’t such a dickhead, he’d literally be my perfect partner. In a perfect world, I’d just marry him. I would, in a heartbeat.

We had a conversation I’ve lately only mostly been having with myself today. I told him that during my writing of these pages, I’ve come to realise that we’re not going to end up together, and if we do try to end up together, it’ll implode and we won’t even be in each other’s lives anymore. And I didn’t want that. I want him to be happy, and I don’t want to hold him back. And I want myself to be happy too, and vice versa. So, I told him that what I wanted from him was an ‘open break-up’, in the sense that we’d still get to see each other; we’d still get to hang-out, maybe even have sex, we’d still get to talk, we’d be in each other’s lives because we love each other. We just won’t hold each other back by shackling ourselves to each other, because even if it is willingly now, there are certain aspects of our relationship that will overtake or overpower our love in the near future. I told him that I needed to be with somebody who could support me as a writer, who could let me know that what I’m doing is good so that I can drown out all the professional rejection I am yet to experience. And I didn’t say this to him, but I secretly thought that he needed somebody who wouldn’t ever belittle him for not being a confident reader. See, I thought that would be me. I thought that the fact that he couldn’t read my work would be a good thing, because I could write about him. It occurred to me over the past few days that I will need somebody to critique me who loves me, not just strangers. Ikaros has never given me adequate feedback, because he and the written word don’t get along. However, he is still an immensely interesting subject and I am going to write so much about him. I’m going to write about him all the time.

What happened when he came over was I tried on my new dresses for him and he isolated the blue one as his favourite. We had very passionate non-penetrative sex (at his request, I sat on his face), had a shower together, got fish and chips at the Northcote Fish and Chippery, and some beers from IGA, and then came back to the apartment and watched The I.T. Crowd. I let him try some of my mango and toasted coconut ice cream, and then I walked him back to the station. We’ve made a date to go to Gong De Lin on Sunday, the day after my show runs.

It’s 7:49 a.m. now and I am roaring through these morning pages. I think I’m finally feeling good about writing these at a rapid pace, because I’ve stopped having to write hard truths, or write things that I’m secretly ashamed of. I still haven’t told Ikaros that I’d already seen Evan before all this had happened. As far as he knows, I haven’t seen Evan since I met Evan on Friday the 13th. I think it won’t be of any issue, however, from this point onwards. But I am a little worried about Evan asking me about Ikaros, not that I should be though. I’ll just say he’s my ex, and that we had a good relationship but foresaw a very inevitable eventual end, so we just nipped it in the bud so that we could stay friends. Ikaros is most definitely one of the most important people in my life, and I don’t see that changing any time soon. Of course, anything could happen. I don’t see Marcus that often anymore, but I still love him from afar. Malith is most definitely my best friend. I could still end up marrying Ikaros, growing old with him, once we’ve achieved everything we’ve set out to achieve. Anything can happen.

I posted three photos on Facebook last night, after he left. The first one was of one I took during this peculiar day he spent at mine, where he just decided to hide under the bed in mock terror of me. I captioned it ‘ded’. The other two photos were taken on the train this day I went to the beach with Isaac and he went out to meet Melike: 12th of December, 2016. I captioned it ‘thanks for tolerating//matching my boundless ‘sass’’. My brother liked it. I feel really good about everything that’s been happening in my life right now. I just hope that Evan doesn’t feel threatened by Ikaros’ web presence on my Facebook. I feel like the main reason I waited so long to add him was because of Ikaros. It’s not that it’s complicated between Ikaros and I, it’s just that it’s complicated to anyone outside of us. I’m fairly certain Nick and Lucas are also really curious about how close Ikaros and I still are. I don’t know, to be honest I don’t even care what they think. I care what Evan thinks though. I really really like him, and I just feel like we could really have something. Not that I’m looking for something else right away. I don’t know! I’m a firm believer in the idea that you meet people and you learn things the MINUTE you’re supposed to, and for cosmic reasons that have all been predetermined, prewritten, predestined.

I was talking to Lauren about this the day I first met her, in the Royal Botanic Gardens. She was talking about the idea of free will in relation to determinism, and I felt like it aligned fairly well with my own beliefs regarding the set path of human life: faith in fate. I also told her about my ideas regarding soul mates, and how sometimes people are meant to meet each other, for either romantic or platonic reasons. You just have something to gain and something to give that will aid in both your personal growth. I feel like I was destined to meet and fall in love with Ikaros, and that that love would grant me things I wouldn’t have otherwise found at my young age: self-confidence, and the principles of self-love. I feel like if I hadn’t met Ikaros, I’d have let myself be walked all over professionally for a long time to come, maybe even into my mid-thirties. But Ikaros has taught me the power of determination and tenacity. He’s also taught me about the benefits of light-heartedness. This was such an easy relationship to be in. We were kids, we were having fun, hell we ARE having fun. This relationship, like him, has been incredibly hedonistic and in that way, it’s been pure. We had few roadblocks and so we were able to love deeply, and I got to experience what that is like without watching it die away, although it did falter from late October till maybe early January.

I’m actually nearly done with my morning pages for the day. I think I’ve only got about half a page left to go, which is ideal because it’s six minutes past eight and I should feed the cats before 8:30 a.m., and I’m fairly certain I’ll be able to do that. I think that this morning, I would like to have some of the canned spaghetti for breakfast, with some chickpeas? Ikaros used to make me that sometimes. He’d get canned spaghetti or baked beans, heat them up on the stove. I’d put some bread in the toaster, and maybe fry up some eggs if we had time, and then we’d put it all on a plate and eat with a knife and fork. He always made me crack eggs for him because he was very unconfident with them. I thought for ages that he just couldn’t do it, but honestly he just wanted me to do it for him. It’s like the way he wants me to check his back for pimples, or brush his hair: it just makes him feel loved.

Douglas: But it’s still early

Trainer: Early? It’s 8:30 already, move it!