Goodbye 812
On asking for help, the fear of being saved, unconditional love and a fresh start
It’s Sunday night, 8pm and I am sat on the floor of my empty apartment. I am wedged between my bed and my wardrobe, the bumps of my spine curved familiarly into the doors, a tiny space my body often finds itself crumpled into. I stare ahead at the window in-front of me reflecting my bedroom in the pink lamplight, bare except for my bed and the box of chocolate cereal sat next to me, the rustling of the plastic echoing through the space as I absentmindedly take handfuls out— the kind of eating you don’t even realise you’re doing. Not tasting much, I crunch away listening to my friend down the phone line— she sits on loudspeaker perched on my bare knee, skin a little sticky from cleaning products and a dried cold sweat. We have spent the last six hours on the phone as friends who live halfway across the country often do. A few hours earlier she sobbed as she told me about the man who has broken her heart and how tiring dating in this world is. As I scrubbed my refrigerator, bleach dripping down my ungloved hands and rusting away the fake tan at my elbows I cried along with her, hurting to hear her hurt, and furious that I was unable to take away her pain. “Just take a holiday,” I suggested, “come stay with me for a bit.” She sighed half in agreement half in resignation, and confessed her sheer exhaustion. Let me help I wanted to scream, let me take care of you. “Do you want me to get on a plane? You know I’ll do it.” Laughing through her tears she told me to be serious— she didn’t seem to understand that I was, I would do anything for her. But instead of booking a flight, we talked more, alternating between rehashing the same situation (in hopes of a new point of view), and the familiar babble of nonsense that comes with the comfort of a 22 year friendship.
After another hour of sitting on the floor, I gingerly I lift myself up— body protesting the strange angle and the hours of lifting before it, and shuffle to the bathroom. Water running as hot as it will go, I sit in my beloved bathtub one final time and wash away the grime of the last three days worth of cleaning with lavender scented sweat and soap. I think of how many times I have cried in this tub, the porcelain stained with the streaks of my tears, as the water ran as salty as the oceans I once called home. I think of the photos and videos shot provocatively, the sighs and moans, the sound of the water lapping at my skin. I think of all the times I’ve slipped stepping out of its ridiculously high ledge, the curses when my phone would go for an unplanned swim and the squealing of my friends and I rushing to get ready for an event we would no doubt be late for, showering together to save time.
The home I built has slowly been unravelling from poor ventilation and mould— delightful and in two days I finally escape. The few belongings I have decided to take with me are now bleached and cling wrapped in airtight containers waiting in anticipation for fresher air. As I soak, I send my friend— still on the phone, photos of furniture I want to buy for my new home and we laugh at Facebook market place culture and dream of a new life. She doesn’t know it, but her company— despite the distance is, keeping me sane. Laughter hasn’t felt possible the last few days as I binned and sold everything I own.
Eventually we hang up and I am left alone again in the eerie quiet of an empty “home.” Two years, I think to myself as I drain the tub and go about the motions before bed; moisturise, brush teeth, eyelash serum, lamps off and hot water bottle waiting— two years, and nothing left but medical bills and two lonely appliances. Isn’t it strange how you can hate and love something so much at once, how you know you can’t stay but will miss it anyway.
Monday is a blur of loads of washing, garbage bags and more phone calls. At 11am I sit in my car in front of the laundromat and eat greasy Greek food, the oil dripping from the meat into three napkins arranged strategically on my lap— what I wouldn’t give for a home cooked meal. A boiled potato sounds better than another bloody takeaway sandwich.
I feel like my ducks are in somewhat of a row later that night as I sit in bed writing my plan of attack for the move in the morning; Airtasker booked? check; building manager warned? check; alarm set for 4am? check; gym clothes packed? check check check. Since moving to Melbourne in 2019 I have moved house a total of eight times— I know just how to pack my life up into boxes and start again, what could possibly go wrong I think as I switch off my lamp to sleep.
A lot could go wrong.
At 5am I get to the gym, determined to squeeze in a session before I am stuck shuffling boxes back and forth all day. Except I can’t seem to lift anything, and all I can think about is how bad the traffic will be on the way to the real estate agent. So instead of finishing off with triceps I trudge across the road to the local Coles and miserably eat two protein bars walking through the rain back to my car.
I arrive at the office to collect my keys at 9am on the dot, except no one is there, the lights are off and my agent won’t answer her phone. The keys are in a lockbox outside the property I am told 45 minutes later by a girl in head office who can’t be far out of high-school and clearly could not care less that I have been standing outside in the pouring rain waiting for someone to show up. Perhaps we could arrange another time, you could come back tomorrow?, she says. I explain to her through gritted teeth that I cannot come back tomorrow as this is the last day I have off work, and I have people booked for the move- perhaps she could just do her job?
At 10:30am I walk through the front doors of my new house, bucket of cleaning supplies in hand. I take three steps into the living room, drop to the floor and immediately begin to sob— the brand new carpet is soft beneath my bare knees.
What the fuck have I done. I am alone, in an unfamiliar suburb, with none of my belongings and no one to help me tackle the monster task of scrubbing this little seventies pad to a more modern standard.
I’m not sure I can do this alone. For 90 slow seconds my guilt battles with my panic before I reach for my phone and call my friend who lives nearby— she doesn’t answer, and I hesitate before leaving a wobbly voicemail. I know she’s busy, she doesn’t have time for my nonsense.
Still on hands and knees I crawl to the windows start to dust the skirting boards and windowsills but can’t see through my tears, I call another friend and she answers on the second ring.
“I’ve made a huge mistake,” I sob when she asks what’s happened, “I don’t even know where to begin and I am so sick of doing this shit alone, I don’t want to be independent anymore. I have nothing left, and I am so so tired.”
Patiently she reassures me, I have done this so many times before, its just baby steps— she wishes she could be there to help me. And despite her guilt for not being able to help me, she does, she stays on the phone for two hours whilst I scrub and rearrange. I can breathe again.
At 11:30am I have bleached, clove oiled, disinfected and dusted every visible surface and I hang up the phone now laughing and feeling confident that this will be an easy jog to the finish line. I walk the damp path back to my car, unloading box after box of dinner plates, new towels and toiletries into the freezing cold house. At least it’s stopped raining.
At 2pm I make it back to my old apartment to bin the last of my old junk and devour some room temperature rice and beef before meeting the Airtasker who will take the remaining items to my new place. I check the time, 30 minutes until he arrives— enough time for a quick shower. Perfect, I think, I will rinse off, bin the last contaminated towel, and be done here.
At 3:10pm I message my Airtasker, hey mate, ETA please? I only have the lifts booked until 4pm”
At 3:30pm I call him, six times.
At 3:45pm I realise he isn’t coming.
Standing in the middle of my apartment, now empty save for a fridge, washing machine, dining table and three bags of rubbish I begin to cry— again. Okay Courtney, what do you need to do first? Call your building manager and tell him that he may need to hold the lifts longer until you find help. No sooner have I said my teary hello he is in my apartment holding me as I sob and tell him what’s happened, he offers me a small packet of crumpled tissues and tells me we will fix this. Together. I shake my head and try to compose myself— this isn’t your responsibility to fix, I insist. But he is already calling a removalist he knows and extending my hold on the lifts— it’s unlikely we can move my furniture tonight, but his colleague could move my belongings tomorrow, we can place it all in storage downstairs? But my bed here was pulled apart hours ago by a Russian guy who spoke barely any English— except for the few words we exchanged about his A Day to Remember t-shirt, and I don’t have a bed in my new house yet, where will I sleep tonight? My building manager keeps talking away on the phone, trying his best to negotiate a miracle. Staring down at my own phone, barely hearing what he is saying I type out a message to my boyfriend who I had hoped to keep blissfully unaware of the difficulty I was having; I’ve been left stranded, I don’t know what to do. Immediately he calls me, it’s going to be okay he says, he will help me find an emergency removalist, he will pick up my new bed, and we will meet at my new house and do this together. I choke back more tears, hating how pathetic I seem— I have never liked playing damsel in distress and certainly not the victim. I’m an adult for god’s sake, surely I can handle this on my own. How many more people can I rope into my mess?
The last minute moving team arrives and as my building manager, still working two hours after he was supposed to leave, stoically directs the truck into the loading dock my phone rings, and rings and rings and rings— my friend got my voicemail from earlier and is worried. I can’t talk, I text back, but I am okay. I love you x.
Five minutes and about a 17 point turn later the truck is in and I throw the driver my apartment keys, “just lock the door behind you when you leave.” I turn my back on my old apartment, nearly two years of memories. A final scene plays before me; dancing in the tiny kitchen morning, noon and night, final goodbyes from a lifetime ago, baths at 2am, dinners on the floor, hungover phone calls, a first kiss that changed my life as I know it, champagne and shitty red wine, i love you’s, burnt steaks and fire alarms, heartbreak screamed into pillows, old friends and new friends piled on my couch and in my bed, and solitude— a place that was completely my own.
I exit the building and wind my way down the 7.5 story driveway— on the first day I moved in it took me five minutes, today, only two.
In the pitch black nearly two hours later I pull up to my new house— on the opposite side of the city to where I have been for the last 18 months, and angrily pull in the garbage bin that is blocking the driveway. I am freezing, exhausted and so utterly frustrated by how defeated I feel. The truck pulls up promptly behind me, its headlights shinning through the drizzle. My boyfriend walks up the driveway and greets the two young removalists with a firm handshake and an easy swagger— already I feel more at ease as he jokes with us and gets to work, seemingly unbothered by the cold and the dark. I feel a twinge in my heart caught somewhere between guilt and love as he assures me that he doesn’t mind helping, that it really is okay, and I feel myself fall a little harder as I realise that he means it— I have found someone who doesn’t find my humanness a burden.
With all my furniture in, we stand shivering in the doorway and write a Google review for the guys who won’t leave until we have posted our gratitude publicly. They ask if they can film us for their website and I feel my boyfriend finally become as agitated as me— lets just get this over with hey. Alone at last, we sit in my bedroom in silence, him battling with an IKEA bed-frame and me trying to keep my hands busy with a new lamp so I don’t spiral again. I try to lighten the mood, guilt still curdled in my stomach like sour milk, “you know they say the true test of a relationship is putting together an IKEA flatpack,” my boyfriend is unimpressed and continues to flip between the instruction pages and the assorted pieces of MDF he holds.
For what feels like the thousandth time that day I begin to cry, and this time I am worried I won’t stop. My boyfriend through his own exhaustion holds me and tells me that its okay, we will make this place a home, it won’t be like this forever. But what he doesn’t realise is it isn’t just the emptiness that is shaking me, its how weak I feel, how hopeless that I needed so many people today when I pride myself on my independence. How every time I show vulnerability I feel like a burden. But instead of voicing this I just nod against his chest and allow him to soothe me. We go back to work in silence and he tells me to order food and just sit down for a minute, and for once, rather than argue I let him takeover. Forty minutes later my food arrives and I give him a wobbly smile and a reassurance that I will be okay. The door closes behind him and with no energy left to cry I sit on the carpet in the lounge-room under the heater and eat with my hands, too tired to search the kitchen for a fork.
At 11pm I sit in my new bed— a little too creaky and firm, with the hot water bottle I ran to Woolworths for at 9pm and text my best friend, I’m in… everything is okay xx.
Its 8:23pm and I am writing this from my new laundromat. The lights are offensively fluorescent and the torn up orange leather couches and 60s memorabilia makes me feel like I am in another world, but its clean and warm and I can sit quietly and think whilst my clothes hum and whir away in the background. It’s the first time I have really stopped.
It has been three weeks since I moved out of my old apartment and I am slowly finding my feet. The air out here is much colder than the city— cleaner, and I can do 70km on most roads. The people say hello when they walk past you, and the nights smell like leaves and wood-fires. At night I hear the train rattle and screech its arrival and this morning I learnt that my front rooms are bathed in light between 7am-2pm. Sunrise and sunset are like watercolours and the hot water never runs out. I think I will learn to love it here.
As the dust settles I realise that my greatest fear has highlighted my greatest assets— my loved ones.
I want so badly to be ‘need-less,’ low maintenance and independent. I am so afraid to be a burden— that if I am less than perfect, and god forbid have a need, that the people in my life will leave me. I have this fear of needing— I would rather stab my eyes with a fork than ask for help, yet I preach love, compassion and community, I am endlessly patient, generous and forgiving. Isn’t it strange how when the roles are reversed we can rarely ever hand ourselves the same kindness. It makes little sense, I know, but I don’t make the rules.
But this experience has reminded me that it is okay to ask for help, and through the patience of our loved ones and the kindness of strangers we can get by a little easier. You don’t have to do everything alone, and you don’t need to suffer by yourself to succeed.
So, to my boyfriend who did not suddenly despise me for needing his help, thank you. Thank you for showing up for me in a way I didn’t know I needed, for coming to my rescue when I was so scared to ask for help. Thank you for your humour and your patience, you remind me constantly that not everything is life or death, and that in most cases it is a simple fix, or a joke away from seeming okay. Thank you for showing me that I am not hard to love and for making me laugh. I hope I can show you the same.
To my best friend who lives nine hours away and still showed up for me every second of the ordeal— from binning my belongings, to elbow deep in cleaning products and opinions on budget furniture options (I chose a different tv unit, sorry), thank you for ensuring I never feel alone. Thank you for loving me unconditionally, even when I am an utter mess and have no idea how to put one foot in front of the other. I admire you much more than you know. Your bed is set up here whenever you are ready to come visit.
To my parents, who will absolutely not read this— in fact I hope they never find my Substack, thank you for your generosity and for raising me to be resilient. You brought me up to be fiercely independent but always seem to catch me when I fall, even when you live five hours away. I am proud to call you my family.
And lastly to my old building manager who let me cry on his shoulder in the middle of an empty apartment full of garbage bags, thank you for your tireless effort and your compassion. You of all people were the first to the scene and reminded me that there is some faith left to have in humanity.
Despite my fear of being seen as less than perfect, despite my fear of needing, I still have people in my life ready to stand by my side when I can no longer do it alone.
How lucky am I.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you— I love you.
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