Friday 5 April 2013

Waterloo

I will always maintain that no matter shape or size you are ....... ugly on the inside is always ugly on the inside. Anyone can change their appearance by loosing weight but if you are a  negative, ugly, nasty, unkind person .... well that will always remain.

When it's my time to go beyond this life of mine, I want to be remembered as a kind, caring, thoughtful person.  Will they say at my funeral ......  and it's really important for you to know that she currently weighted 88.7kgs and her measurements were ........  well  ...... NO.  It's your overall health that's important not the shape you see in the mirror but geez it's gotta help,  if you are living a healthier and happier lifestyle before your time is up.

I was a very spoilt girl growing up, my father as I have mentioned over compensated by not being there emotionally by giving us money.

I was raised by him with the rule of  ....... rights with responsibilities, we had the right to do anything we wanted as long as we were responsible. At anytime I would have somebody over to sleep, male or female, they were to stay in my bedroom and I had to look after them, feed them, and make them feel welcomed in our house.

At the age of 14 my best friend was Michael, he was my squash partner, we toured around the states playing squash, he was just my friend, no different to a girl ....friend. Michael and I surfed and played squash for years together and not once, was it anything else, my best friend just happened to be a boy. It would take me another 5 years to discover the other meaning of  "boys".

If there was a party I wanted to go to as an underage drinker, I could drink, and my father would buy me my alcoholic beverage, he would buy me 2 UDL's. He would drive me to the party, drop me off and would pick me up at the time I told him. Sometimes I said," there will be drugs smoked here, I might have a cigarette but I won't do anything else, can you pick me up at 12? " Just as I had promised I would only drink the 2 cans for the night, and sometimes I would just give away a can and walk around holding the other because I just never really got drinking, I stayed true to that commitment I made to him and there he would be picking me up at 12.

I was to NEVER go home with someone I didn't know, and if I ever got separated from people I went out with,  I was to call at whatever time it was and get him to pick me up and if my plans changed I was to always call and tell him.

Never did I ever do anything beyond these very wide boundaries ......  I had the right to do anything but I needed to be responsible therefore I never disrespected this great trust he gave in me, I never wanted to disappoint him. Funny how with all this space I was given, I always respected his worries, his thoughts and his opinions too. If he asked something of me, I just did it without question because the communication ran both ways and I always respected he was my father and what he said, went.

I went to an all girls school in Geelong and watched many girls get pregnant, and they would "sneak" out,  then be grounded for a lifetime because they disobeyed their parents. I just didn't get it. Why would I ever piss off my father?
Because of this trust he installed in me, I just never knew how to tell him that one night when I was 7 years old, while he and mum were having their "cards night" after baseball,  I was molested and sexually assaulted by an 18 year old boy, nephew of the people who's house they were in. I figured as long as the adults were o-kay, then I guess this was ..... well whatever it is.  I was 7,  and nothing made sense other than I know this is wrong.

My mum in her madness of the childhood she lived told me, " if anybody interfered with me, we would become retarded'. You have no idea , how many times when I sat in class and I didn't understand a maths equation, I kept thinking, Oh that's because THAT happened , so I told NO ONE !!!!!  For a really long time.

So when we are at high school in a very sexually charged up school girls are talking about boys, I just don't get it. How can that ACT be even remotely nice? Even thinking about it,  I would feel sick in the stomach.

Around about this time in High School, my mother wants to embrace her Aboriginality, and wants to become a performer. So we are dragged into this very well known acting group, who want to act out The William Buckley Story, where we are cast as the Aboriginal tribal people. We went out camping through the bush together and we made huts out of bark and we were taught traditional tribal dancing from elders, which was the most amazing experience. I was cast as a lead actor, as a blind boy and had to work very closely with  the male "actor".

We did many scene together and were alone a lot of the time. We spent months and hours together. For some reason I just felt awful in the guts about this male actor, he would rub me in the most inappropriate places when we were alone and because we wore very little attire I just felt terrible, but again I had this in my head, someone interferes with me, I am stupid.

So I begin a very different type of friendship with another actor, she is the most gentle, caring, beautifully talented person I have ever met. I ask her to come and watch over my performance & rehearsals ( I am actually just asking for another adult to be present because I DO NOT TRUST him ) 

She becomes my everything, it's a lot more than a friendship it's something I have never experienced before, she gives me this amazing strength of okayness, she becomes my protector and she is a lesbian. I totally dote and adore her, and I'm in love with her. Our friendship is just something I still can't explain, it's like she was just there to make me feel loved again. I would often spend week ends at her house, have breakfast and then walked to school as she lived only a couple of blocks away. I would often sit there and just have these amazing conversations about the week end we had just spent in Melbourne with all these famous people, at the set of neighbours, quite often over breakfast with her flatmate Rachel.

It was such a wild time, performing and getting standing ovations , being in awe of another human being and just living in a moment. After the show finished I still saw my girlfriend and we had regular contact but it just all of a sudden stopped and then she packed up and left. I was lost, what on earth has just happened? I was so happy? In a world that made no sense, a family that was sooooo dysfunctional, yet this was my happiness ????? Why oh why was this ripped away from me? Why can't I just have some stability and love in my life?

So back to school I went, not knowing where she went, then we had a performance group come through school and boom there she was, and when I saw her we just hugged and cried but she then explained, " this is it Anth, I have no idea when I will see you again, I said yes to this schools performance because I at least wanted one last time to explain that this is the way it has to be".

Here is Ushers Numb again ..... I only believe in what I feel, and she felt right to me !!!!

I would see her perform on tv show and also regularly on Steve Vizard up late show. She would always sing me Annie Lennox songs and I guess that's another reason why I have such an attachment to Eurthymics.

I somehow muddle through Year 12, with mum going off the rails and my family in a mess, I just didn't seem to have my own place in the world. Still wondering, when this lesbian thing will kick in ???? Surely in an all girls school somebody has to find me attractive. Through this terrible time, I'm finding so much comfort in food, the canteen and a wage goes hand in hand. I pile on the weight, no ones watching, no ones really caring about me and this was my comfort, I also have this truly deep rooted feeling that if I am "attractive" then I might have to explore boys and, yuck, just yuck.  Being fat and unattractive and invisible sits pretty okay with me. I'll leave all that to the popular girls.

Haley is no longer at school so I have a spare seat next to me on the bus, there's a girl with short hair, her name is Danielle and she's just started back at Geelong Grammer, I'm not sure if she remembers me but we use to go horse riding together in primary school and we use to hang out together too, but then she left suddenly for Melbourne. I pray and hope that she sees the vacant seat next to me and she does. From that moment she is my friend, without Haley for the past year I am just lost, but Danielle brings this intelligence and self confidence and finally I think I have found my lesbian crush I have been looking for.

Every week end is spent with Danielle, she is a few months older than me, so she drives the car to school and we hang out together a lot more, I have ZERO confidence, to express an opinion, that's just impossible but we smoked and drank coffee together, I would watch her study, make her coffees and just love being on her farm, just another escape from my messed up family life. Dan goes to nightclubs every week end, and has perfected the hair flick,  god she looked so good when she danced. She taunts me all week after I turn 18, now am I driving you night clubbing? Oh god the thought, terrifies me, public place, I have no confidence and I am soooo overweight and there is nothing attractive about about me !!!

God somehow ......  I have no idea how she did it but I finally go out dancing, and Depeche Mode, Come On Eileen, I just can't get enough seem , to be the songs that drag me onto the dance floor because of her extreme confidence she would pick one guy out in the whole nightclub and usually hands down the most attractive guy and wham work her magic and she would be kissing them by the end of the night. I just couldn't believe the confidence one person could have. 

One night when driving home, she asks, why do you not "pick up Anth?" I reply, "Why would anyone find me attractive?  Besides if something like that happens to me, I'm already damaged goods". "What on earth do you mean?", Then I told her about my molestation, she was dumbfounded, and in a whisper she knew too because she had gone through the same thing, hence why she had to leave for Melbourne, yet it gave her false confidence and she was masking her pain in a whole different way, she choose the rebellious sexual lifestyle, I choose to hide behind food and no confidence.  Eventually I got bored with going clubbing and only watching her go off with ANOTHER new guy. So I would kiss a random guy here gosh maybe 3 in total?  But afterwards, I  would go and vomit in the toilet because I would hate it !!!!!!!  It totally discussed me !!!!! Not only was I discussed, so was she, " Anth, seriously set some goals, these guys are not attractive, you need to start wearing your glasses or buy contacts ". So I met her half way, I bought the contacts and kissed no guys.

So this lifestyle of smoking, drinking, partying, playing enormous amounts of squash, surfing and occasionally working was pretty damn fine when your 18 and legal. Dan ,would see me wear the same clothes every week end and then say," I don't think you realise how much weight you've lost", but I need to get you a make over. So we go into Myer and buy my first pair of Levi's 501's. I remember her bringing in the sizes and I say NA, I'm not a 16, "shut up and put them on", as only Dan could and they are too big on me. So a size 12 , I am, then a body suit, are you kidding me? That's putting it out there, but I guess I just have to trust her.

So I lost 25kgs and a size 12, I felt amazing but I couldn't careless about, "finding" a boyfriend. For all my junior squash years, I saw boys every week end, and competed with them and against them, I was just their team mate.

All of a sudden they wanted to take notice of me, not because I was Anthea, but because I was an "acceptable" shape, all of a sudden I WAS attractive. I felt it so immensely frustrated,  I was good enough to talk to .......... now, they offered to buy me drinks and wanted to "dance" with me at the night clubs, when once the were happy to ignore me at tournaments for years. It just blew my mind, that these same guys who over looked me for YEARS all of a sudden,  change their behaviour because I change my shape?  I'm the same person, I'm the same person on the inside, same heart, same thought process's but I was now "worthy" of THEIR attention ?

I became more confident and begin to go out with different people and not always with Danielle. I begin going out with my new school friends that I was studying childcare with , I had never been out with these girls. We went to The Eureka, which was a great bar with a dance floor. For some reason Alison, whom I was staying with saw a guy she went to school with and he tagged along with all of us girls. then this song came on .



Omg I love this song, and I dump all my stuff, purse, cigarettes on this poor guy, don't know him but yeah, boys don't dance, so he follows us around for the night, he is not over the top confident with the girls, he has nice conversations and he's interesting, and not really that interested in me, which was actually really nice, because in the body suit and enormous boobs, I seemed to attract a lot of attention.

I drove home and thought about that boy, hmmmmm.  I couldn't stop thinking about a guy that I barely knew, but he was polite, and kind and just really interesting and a bit spunky.

So the next night I did something I just never thought I could ever do, I drove back into Geelong, all by myself and I went back to the nightclub I last saw him, with the intention of seeking him out and only him out and  if I did ......  great, if I didn't , gee it was worth the attempt because for the first time I was flying solo on a thought and a feeling that I had never had before. I knew what I wanted and I was going to at least give this confidence thing ago.

I found him and I hoped I could at least read a sign that perhaps it was worth every little bit of instinct. By the end of the night, he walked me out to my car, and for the very first time it had dawned on me, that every boy I had ever kissed, I never enjoyed. I never said no , I just felt because they wanted it, I had to respond, to them because that's what I thought I had to do. ( it's strange how something that happens to you when you are seven can give you such a mental block, even when you can be so smart in other areas of you life and you are now an adult) . I thought I owed everybody everything because I felt so little for myself .

That walk to the car I stood him in the gutter, because he was tall, I looked at him and I said, " You know it's polite to ask a girl if you can kiss them ........ Do you think you,  you might have a question for me?   He asked ever so cheekily ....... May I kiss you?  And I realised he was the first boy I had ever invited and wanted in my world, it was MY CHOICE to ask, and his choice to say yes or no and it was the most beautiful and amazing friendship, that was developed in the gutter. :) and finally a physical love for a male was created with such a tenderness that I still think wow about because he changed my world once again for the better.

I am ever so fortunate to have had that honesty and openness that was ingrained in me from my dad, because it was not easy for me tell that beautiful boy that I was thinking of another boy 18 months later but I think he knew that Michael had more time with me and our paths were moving in different directions, in different towns, me living in Melbourne and he living in Ballarat.  Hardest decision but also the right decision. Nothing had happened with Michael but I was fighting a very strong attraction to Michael too !!!!

I would remain friends with him, even to a point where Michael would play basketball in Ballarat where he was living and we would have lunch together, then I would be watching Michael playing basketball and my previous boyfriend sitting next to me in the grand stand. The most bizarre situation but it just worked.

Again this honesty and trust and always having the good, right, kind intentions but that's also a testament on the type of person those two males were because they loved me, it worked?

I lost contact with the first boy I ever let kiss me .... probably, for about 15 years but we have just reconnected over the past 5 years and I enjoy our conversations, I am so glad his life has turned out so well because he sure has had his fair share of  heartache but I am so glad he is married to the most divine looking girl ...... I would expect nothing less, and he is living in his own beautiful bubble, which makes me ever so happy.

Sometimes I feel like the luckiest person to be able to still have these amazing friendships , especially the one I share with my husband.

With that one other missing love of my life ...... my actress.

When I was 23, we went through another really rough patch as a family.  My sister's ex boyfriend had stalked her and us, for years and finally attempted to kill her. I say finally because  when you are caught in this situation, there's not a great deal you can do, with court orders , unfortunately they can not do anything until they physically hurt you ...... then ....... the police will act. Well that's the position we were put in.

Finally he was sentenced for time in a facility and I even think dad paid money for him to get help. Just to put an end to it all. We were in a pub in Richmond and it was a very serious moment, I thought it was all about Simone and dad and his new partner sat me down and dad had a confession to make to me.

I just had no idea, it felt really serious what had I done wrong ? He then explained how hard he had tried to protect Simone from this creep but felt like he had failed her, yet it was a behaviour that he had repeated and he wanted to apologise to me.

He called my actress all those years ago and told her, hurt Anthea, and I will treat you like a male,  don't hurt her. I was dumbfounded !!!!!!   This kind of talk , I just cant fathom coming from his mouth. I just looked at him, you don't understand dad. I loved her, I needed her, she protected me and she loved me, she was my comfort in a time that nothing made any sense to me .......... all because I didn't know how to tell you that I was molested at 7 years of age.

So finally at 23, I tell him the most awful truth . Not that I was loved by another female, but my innocence and life changed forever over a pack of cards and alcohol for the adults.

His partner just held him as he cried and he apologised but he could have never known because I never told him but once again I am floored at this openness.  He then said, "because I knew this was so wrong, I have found her and I have paid for 4 tickets for us to go to  a performance she is doing Rochford winery, with Linda and Vikka Bull.

So we went, and I knew I had dad's partner, dad and Michael's watching my every move that day. I sat there watching her perform it was gut wrenching and beautiful after she played her set, she moved towards the back of the crowd to sign autographs.  I lined up thinking crap, crap, crap, what If she has no idea who I am?

I didn't even say hi, and she jumped up and wrapped her arms around me, "Oh Anth", she excused herself from signing and yelled, I'm taking a break .......  then she grab my hand and ran me around the back, and she just looked at me. We didn't even say much, but said everything,  it was just a moment of finally putting the pieces together. We sat there holding hands, she had met this most amazing man and was a mum, and was ever so happy. I then filled her in on Dad & Michael then took her out to meet them all.

She panicked when I said, dad was out there,  she looked worried, I said. " No , it's all good,  I know EVERYTHING !!!! Finally my puzzle pieces were together.

It was so important for me to do that, for dad, too. He needed to wish her well !!!

So yes I have lived through some really complicated stuff in my life but somehow I managed to get through them and become even stronger, I trusted my gut instincts, once I knew to listen to them.

I didn't want to be in an alone situation with the male actor because I knew his actions weren't right, that's why I needed my girlfriend - lesson learnt.

I began the most amazing friendship with her, who taught me, you can be loved in the most magical way and it was o-kay to allow that to happen. Love shouldn't have boundaries regardless of your gender.

Dan persisted with me to keep dancing and keep trying new things,  to get out of my comfort zone, get out of the size 20 jeans and wear levi's size 12. She also gave me the confidence to seek that beautiful boy out that night.  When I realised that , I had choices, to say YES to a great boy not  yes to yuck ones and that I had to take the reins of my own life. I had to perhaps make the good things happen.

Dad taught me rights with responsibility and own my own actions. He also taught me, even if you think you made all the decision in that moment it's o-kay to say, I'm sorry , I did the wrong thing.

Those boys from squash, made me see, no matter what size someone is, to look beyond the shape because there are so many other things that make people "attractive" other than a shape and a size and nothing shines more than inner beauty because that will always remain !!!!

But through all of these things,  Ive always hidden behind my weight.  That was my escape from all things real. I think this weight loss process is a WHOLE lot more than just a numbers and formula, and my no means is it that easy.

 It's about EVERYTHING else that has made you who you are and how you choose to cope with things.  I wanted to believe the fat would keep me unattractive for anyone to ever love me, I am always learning about this bigger process of weight gain, weight loss and life, even now I am challenged everyday and my weight.

I have loved 3 times in my life before my 2 boys came into my world.

I hope to teach them all I have learnt and continue to learn, and I just might tell them, the mornings mummy had breakfast with the flatmate of mum's girlfriend ........  Rachel Griffths.















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