Monday, 28 March 1994

Dear S,

Well the bomb dropped and the dust has cleared, and with the benefit of the clarity of this fine Autumn day, I can truly say that I feel I have done the right thing.  It was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be, it really went quite well.  It didn’t actually happen on Thursday, the day I wrote you that rather doomy letter – Leah didn’t come home, she stayed at her Mum’s while I sat in Richmond, my heart pounding so hard plaster was coming off the walls.

On Friday Leah picked Brett and I up from work and Brett went to lay-by a guitar  as soon as we got home.  He didn’t want to be caught in the fall-out.  Since no one was home, I told her downstairs in the lounge room, which was better, the bedroom being a bit emotionally charged and all.  I suppose it only took half an hour from start to finish, and then I took a tram down Bridge Road and then a train back to “Poo Town”.  Leah and I are both a bit better about it than I thought possible.  I went back to Richmond yesterday before Leah’s flight to Queensland and we got along quite well really.  It was a little awkward at first of course, but I really do think we’ll still be friends, which I am very pleased about, we enjoy each other’s company.  Our trip to England is still on for next year, so I guess I’ll use my birthday money for house furnishing for the Flemington house, and keep saving for England.  Tim is OK about it as well, I was worried he’d come out on Leah’s side.  I realize now how much I value his friendship.

I also realise how much of an asshole I have been in so many aspects of this whole parting of ways.  I should never have told other people about it (I told some people who had neither the right nor the need to know, just one or two) and I should never have made light of the situation.  I understand now that I’m not in High School anymore, I’m dealing in grown up stuff, real people, real emotions etcetera.  I have been really insensitive, a rat and I would never want to ever hurt Leah, I still want her friendship.  I’ve been so needlessly double-faced and assumed that because I have no honour, that no one else does either.  I know that it is terribly safe and easy to play the cynic and expect the worst from everyone, but I should have known better of Leah, I really have done her a disservice.  It’s hard enough living with yourself, let alone anyone else.  I don’t think I’ll be having another live-in relationship for a long time, if ever, though I’m sure a fear of dying alone will force me into one somewhere along the line.

I hope you disregard my last letter S, it was written in a mood I care little to recall.  I want to put moods like that behind me forever, it’s such a nice bright day and I feel so good, that letter seems like a missive from the darkest corner of the dingiest cell of misery.  But then I suppose that there are no highs without lows, right?  I really want some time to myself to map them all out and decide where I’m going to go.

And right now, I’d better go to work.