Happy Days Part 2

You know when you meet an amazing person, and you click, and you just know that you're going to be the best of friends for life? Yeah, well, that didn't happen with Leigh and I. Perhaps that sort of instant thing is just bullshit.

Flatmate Hell, Chippendale

The deep love and friendship between Leigh and I was born in the fiery crucible of the share-home experience. For 6 months we lived in a dire household in Chippendale (Sydney), with a mad drug-addled screaming queen, his depressed punching-bag boyfriend,  a sour vicious goth girl, and 2 naughty kittens.

Leigh and I bonded sitting in one or the others' bedrooms, smoking dope, drinking red goon, watching Star Trek videos and telling each other how much we hated living there.

At the end of the 6 months lease, the household sprang apart and Leigh and I moved into a house in South Newtown together. That was a haven of relative peace (never mind the jumbos flying overhead) and fun.

We became like the older brother and younger sister that neither of us had. We shared secrets at midnight that til this day no-one else knows. She taught me how to hug and cook.

After 18 months, for better or worse we went our separate ways. She eventually moved to Katoomba for years - which was sort of great. I would go up and visit and usually stay the night on the floor, teasing her cat Lucie. Her various homes in the Blue Mountains were like a retreat from the busy life of the city. I continued my busy and somewhat slutty life in Newtown.

When my mother died in 2001, Leigh was the only one of my Sydney friends who came to her funeral. That meant a shitload to me. Later that year I was sick of living alone in Newtown, and Leigh had become bored with the mountains and was ready to re-enter the fast lane again."Are we moving in together again?" I asked her on the phone. "Yep, looks that way." she replied. And so it was.

Come on in, the cocktails are ready & the bong's clean.

We rented a large old 2-storey Terrace House around in Enmore for 18 months. It was a manky old place but a and good space for two people who had lived alone for a long time. When the landlord wanted the property back, the Universe found us a new place, a single storey terrace, almost directly across the road. We hired some stair trolleys and tempted friends with free booze, and moved.

We were housemates again in Enmore for 6 years. We had great parties, and always had spare room or a bed for visiting friends, or plenty of floor-space for the leftover bodies from parties.  We were close to great pubs, and thousands of eateries; next door to a Wiggle, and the ever thumping Enmore Theatre.

"Breakfast at Steve's the morning after,

Leftover people eating leftover pasta."

From a little poem I wrote years back.

I encouraged her career as an I.T. Business Analyst, which hasn't always been easy for her, but the money has allowed her to write a number of Vegan Cookbooks.

Again, with her life changing, she moved out (along with her 2 cats Lucie & Squeak) to get her own space, and lived in Newtown.  I stayed in Enmore.

After the death of my father I moved back to Wollongong to live in the old family home for a while, and when that was sold, I moved in here and did my falling into the bottom of a whiskey bottle routine. As you may have read from an earlier post, this was almost fatal. I lost contact with Leigh (amongst many other wonderful people.)

The Lucie-woo. RIP love.

Soooo ... after all that exposition, you might imagine what it was like to see her again on Sunday. She looked well and happy. Her job was OK and she has another Vegan cookbook on the way. She is somewhat saddened this year with the death of her mother, and her oldest 20 year old cat Lucie. I'm so ashamed that I wasn't there for her.

As soon as she stepped off the train we had a long deep hug - something I don't get much of. We went back to my place & sat about for hours catching up. It was like we'd only seen each other the day before. But at the same time we were both aware that so much time had passed and there was much to discuss.

Friendship runs deep. Especially if you're both silly.

After seeing her off on the train back to Sydney a few hours later, I came home and cried for a while. That's the first time in a looong time. But I felt so much better for the cry, and for her visit in general.

Somewhere deep in my heart I've developed a better understanding of what I would miss should/when I die. (Bloody hell- that last sentence was hard and strange to write.)


[Weird aside about this post. I went to add the labels for it and found that all of them were horrendously depressing, all about hospitals and cancer. It was nice to add some happy labels.]