Catherine Deveny - True North: A Memoir

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.

SREN KIERKEGAARD

I T WAS DEEP winter by the time Marz finally found a house he loved, just around the corner.

He applied. They said yes.

So that was it. Time for me to make like Shakespeare and screw my courage to the sticking place.

* * *

Six months earlier it had been me whod declared I was moving out.

In high summer, Id woken in a room flooded with sunshine, lace curtains blowing in the sea breeze. We could hear the kids watching cartoons and eating Coco Pops in the next room, sunburned and wearing the board shorts and rashies theyd slept in. For no apparent reason and without warning, I felt as clear as the blue sky. My heart was soft, my mind calm and I was certain. The constant stream of what ifs that had roared inside my head like a siren non-stop for the past three years had suddenly fallen away. I imagined this was what dying felt like. Transcendent.

Hey, Marz, I said, rolling onto the side of the bed, swinging my legs over and pulling on the sundress Id left sprawled on the floor the night before. When we get home, Im moving out. Weve tried everything a million times and were just getting sicker and sicker. There has to be something better than this. Im exhausted. I surrender.

The clarity of that moment was in stark contrast to the past three years of jagged pain, panic and confusion. My sudden resolution came from nowhere and everywhere. Like puzzle pieces falling into place. A lock and key. About bloody time and not a second too soon.

We were in Cunjurong Point, a small beach town on the NSW South Coast, holidaying with mates as we had every January for the last few years. It was not going well. This would be our final holiday together as a couple.

Emotionally, we were both unwell. The pain of broken dreams is hard to contain, particularly when youre exhausted by the effort of holding it together. Trying to repair yourself and your relationship while deciding whether to hold or fold and walk away is a Herculean task. Throw working and raising kids into the mix and you have a clusterfuck of extreme adulting.

I dont know how people do it. I dont know how we did it.

Emotional pain lacerated me, while I processed high-speed in my head, on paper and with others, hoping to nut out a solution. The more external Marzs response to the situation became, the more internal mine became. These were our natural coping mechanisms heavily, but not entirely, influenced by gender.

We were at our very worst doing our absolute best, which often looked like barely holding it together one day and totally dropping the ball the next.

Cunjurong is a sleepy collection of fibro shacks, with no fences or footpaths, that hasnt changed since the 1950s. I pushed the floaty white curtains aside and poked my head out the window. Teenagers wandered lazily down the middle of the road, towels slung over their shoulders, thonged feet flopping towards the beach, hoping for some perving and banter, their beautiful, strong bodies belying their adolescent phlegmatism. Young parents loaded down with inflatable toys, nutritious snacks and all manner of potential solutions to possible problems trudged towards the glittering promise of the beach. Two of their kids skipped and weaved ahead joyfully and a third grizzled in the beach pram purchased specifically to make this holiday easier. The parents looked as if they were wondering why the fuck they drank so much last night. They were already exhausted and it wasnt even 9 am. But they were determined to make holiday memories: otherwise, what the hell was all the work for? Wasnt this meant to be fun? Wasnt this why we had kids? I imagined them asking themselves. Later, there would be a moment of complete happiness and love, and their exhaustion, boredom and disappointment would evaporate. Theyd capture this moment in a snap and on seeing it, other friends would ask themselves, with a pinch of jealousy, Why dont we ever go on holidays like that? The kids would love it.