I saved the best for last
Without Prejudice
I hope he has a great relax this year, and thinks about what he wants and what he is prepared to do about it. he doesn't have to work on his career skills he has all that.
He strides panther like across a floor, and he saves his vulnerabilities for me. He has a different voice for me, a lower more hesitant tone and to tell you the truth I probably drive him witless.
But I "knew" when I first looked at him, locked eyes with him, I "knew", I have no idea how I knew, but I "knew". And it's always been the same, right from the first instant.
He permeates my brain, my dreams, my thoughts, he's my big Man, and I am not going anywhere else for the rest of my life, only beside him. His helpmeet and best friend, mentor and he loves telling me what to do.
It's all good advice, he told me to give up smoking and I did. Some of his advice tainted with hurt, women hurting him in the past and it's probably a lot his fault. You can't be both a dynamic businessman and a workaholic without something starting to crack under the stain.
He's probably driven ruthless and time poor. Obvious choice for me, probably as I hate needy people hanging off me so I pick the successful ones but with him it was different form the word go.
He lives and works in that environment and its fast paced and driven and I want the man underneath all that chaos, with it's sham drudgery and phony camraderie.
He has a small child with him, that made him more interesting to me. He is immensely proud of her and tells me of her loving him, soooooooooooooo much. He fell in love with her from the moment he knew she was coming into being.
I rejected him at first, wondering why on earth he would be interested in me, or even talking to me.
But I knew he liked me and I have been rejecting males all my life, from the time I could talk, I rejected males.
I don't think I was a stunningly good looking child, my older Sister was that. I was the daggy one, the tomboy that run with "The Brothers", but when I found out I could read and write it opened up a whole new world for me.
I was like a child prodigy, a genius as far as Mum and Dad were concerned and the more I learned the more I wanted to learn. I read voraciuosly and even now no one can give me a better present than a book.
But my braininess attracted boys for some reason and they would follow me home from Grade Prep, Douglas Payne at 5 offering me choo choo bars if I would befriend him, I just told him to go away as he gave me a headache.
He didn't and became a pain, this Douglas Payne. And there were others and they would buy me things and I would thank them and then ignore them totally. I had brothers and knew how painful boys could be.
Dirty, smelly, rude.
And that's how I always thought of them, my brothers showing their teeth when I crossed them and I clashed most with Ian, as he was so much older and didn't relate to us girls at all, thinking we were pains and whingey and got our own way.
he mashed a cream bun into my face once and told me to stop whingeing. Or put red hot chili peppers on our tongues. he was mean and closed off and a dead set genius.
I married and married a man who was violent and abusive and I left him so many times and failed my girls by being intimidated by him and one day stood up and told him to get out.
I met an Irish man, who was 12 years younger than me, and had a ten year engagement to him but he was also abusive with his alcohol and his fist twice and I decided I had enough for a while. Enough!
Si when I first the man that was to turn my life around I baulked and ran, and he followed, see what I mean ? And at first I just wanted to dismiss him as I was getting pretty good at that. But he persisted and asked me out and I said a vague yes and my brain said, not a chance.!
He asked me a few times and I was always busy, so he ignored me for a while, and I preferred that at first, then followed him around instead. And then it became a cat and mouse game, him being the cat and me the mouse.
And one day about 3 months after I first met him, he arrived on my front door step and we never looked back after that. I was the big scaredy cat at first, bowed down by humble circumstances and as he said,
"I don't care for all that stuff"
He made pronoucements as soon as he would walk in either through nerves or just basic interest.
"What's that ?, he would point and look,
"That's great, love that". he commented on everything, and I was hard pressed to catch up with his curiosity and keep him amused.
I have an excellent IQ but my brain would go into fog as soon as he entered my abode. And he was going through a divorce and I was going through a breakup.
And we complained to each other and gave part histories. he seemed to have no stop button on his mouth, if he thought something he said it. Straight out.
He had a dim view of females, especially gold digging ones which is what he had been getting he said and I was NOT going to be seeing anyone in the near future. we were both in agreement on that.
But we would talk and talk, he always pressed for time and me having plenty of it. I began to accept him, although I was intinidated by his lifestyle and could not compare it to my world of boys and problem kids and international students.
But he liked me, I could see it in his eyes. And I would banish him or not talk to him or decide in absentia he was a demanding, time poor, arrogant and selfish male and I was NOT having one of those in my life, anymore.
And somehow he got under my radar, my barb vest of hurt and pain and reached the knee knocking shyness underneath. And in certain areas of my life I am never shy, so I had to take control of that as I was far more experienced in certain matters and he bowed to my experience.
I was born to love men. I was born to love people and see the best in them and work with difficult characters, like my Mum. I took on my Dad's characteristics, luckily. He loved women, he totally loved them, finding them much more interesting than men.
And he spoiled his girls rotten. We were "special", we 3 girls to dad. Boys could not hit us or be mean to us as we would run to Dad, he hated vilence, and no Man ever laid a hand on a woman.
His Father had been a brute and clouted his kids with no bother what so ever and one day Dad decided he would never hit his kids when he had them and he never did.
So one time he comes to me with knuckles bleeding from a fight the night before and I laugh and kiss them and he says,
"Thanks Mum"
And after he leaves I freak, OMG
"He's violent, is my first thought" And I don't contact him for ages and go off to Queensland on holidays and meet a lovely young Irishman and spend time on holidays with him but only in a platonic way, jsut bumping off each other at a complex. Bored, hot, long desultory conversations in the hot sun, near the pool.
He asked me up to his unit which he shared with 2 other Irish men, all on a 12 month trip from Ireland. They were all funny and out going and he had no bother at all in also telling it like it is for a Man. He told someone off with quick verbal exchange once and I was amazed he could be so outspokem and not get a smack in the face.
But he told me lots about men in our long lazy afternoons, spent sweating beside the pool and jumping in when it beacme unbearable. He did ask me out and I said no and Yvette was gob smacked.
"He wnats you to go with him, you idiot!, she hissed.
"Don't be stupid, he's your age". I replied,
"He's not after me. he's after you".
I was shocked and wasn't as friendly after that. He was good looking and personable and had a great heart, but I was not interested and only thought of one person while I was away. And I wasn't with him any more. Or near him
So I limped back home after the holidays spent with immediate family and by the time I was back in my house I didn't want to see anyone. But I did send him a message, Mr Big and he rang me and we caught up again and I told him of my fears.
I must have seemed like a mess of them but he had fun when he came around and laughed at silly old clips of music with me. He met Mara around then, the weather hot, scorching and we caught up on our christmases and holidays.
He seemed surprised that I kept contact with my exes family and was still friendly to the 2 women that had been married to my brothers. I was all about family and lots of kids. I was taking care of 3 of my grandsons then.
When he was with me he was 110% with me and when he was gone it was like he had never been. He just disappeared back into the world he saw as soooooo important and I didn't. he told me he loved to play guitar and sing and seemed to have so many responsibilites and hobbies I didn't know how he had time for himself.
I was the same at that time 3 years ago, my kids came first to my detriment. My kids were old enought to not need me and for him business came first, always,
Two very different people, hurt people, who had the abilty to tear strips off each other but didn't. I could have ignited with anger then. I kept my rage hidden but I was not a happy woman and I was out for revenge on all men who had hurt me.
My insipid olf Irish Fiance came around for a vist then too and treated me to a drunken rant and a chase around the kitchen, he was with some other poor woman by then and she rang as he tried to talk me into another go on the old merryground and I thankfully closed the door on that chapter of my life.
He left, muttering he would be back but I knew he wouldn't. the new girlfriend had money and he coveted that more than anything. And he would be exactly the same, him not slowing down his drinking at all and I am surprised he's not dead.
So slowly and painfully but filled with a growing attraction we managed to limp along without really saying how we felt and what was happening. Just enjoying each others company.
He was so misguided. he thought all sort of ridiculous things that I had to straighten him out on. Acting like his Mother, and despairing that he would ever "get it", not everyone lived like him. Protected by status and power and money and I decided to go all Germaine Greer on him.
He asked for the most ridiclulous things, almost demanding them and I told him to not be silly, Not all young children were getting brand TV's for their own lounge room that year. Nor were people I knew thinking about buying another few mill property.
I scolded him like child and he acted like I was his partner in life, one day, sitting at my kitchen table, asking my opinion on everything he was out of touch with. And he was out of touch with reality in a big way.
Women were second class citizens and they were out to "get" men and stop them from doing exactly what they wanted to do. I wondered what that was. I had stayed married for 20 years and would have stayed married longer, not happily, but to see all the girls through school and out the other side.
But fate had stepped in and we had parted when I was 37. A momentous year, 1989, seeing us jet all over the world 3 times and land back to Keysborough and reality, the girls, the business, the new factory. Then everything changed. And we were not together anymore and I can swear I never ever missed him, not for one second.
But this one I missed when I went to Queensland and we began just a casual thing to both of us and it was fine. I wanted more of him of course but had to be happy as I was. Around that time I began to think of permanent housing, not rental. And I had a unit built in one of my daughters backyard.
And I had a permanent home surrounded by kids at last. he came one morning after not getting to bed until 3am, his eyes gritty and red, he looked worn out, a fallen hero. Too much, all too much. And I was like a boundless puppy. Turning into Janette, the child around him.
To be continued
I hope he has a great relax this year, and thinks about what he wants and what he is prepared to do about it. he doesn't have to work on his career skills he has all that.
He strides panther like across a floor, and he saves his vulnerabilities for me. He has a different voice for me, a lower more hesitant tone and to tell you the truth I probably drive him witless.
But I "knew" when I first looked at him, locked eyes with him, I "knew", I have no idea how I knew, but I "knew". And it's always been the same, right from the first instant.
He permeates my brain, my dreams, my thoughts, he's my big Man, and I am not going anywhere else for the rest of my life, only beside him. His helpmeet and best friend, mentor and he loves telling me what to do.
It's all good advice, he told me to give up smoking and I did. Some of his advice tainted with hurt, women hurting him in the past and it's probably a lot his fault. You can't be both a dynamic businessman and a workaholic without something starting to crack under the stain.
He's probably driven ruthless and time poor. Obvious choice for me, probably as I hate needy people hanging off me so I pick the successful ones but with him it was different form the word go.
He lives and works in that environment and its fast paced and driven and I want the man underneath all that chaos, with it's sham drudgery and phony camraderie.
He has a small child with him, that made him more interesting to me. He is immensely proud of her and tells me of her loving him, soooooooooooooo much. He fell in love with her from the moment he knew she was coming into being.
I rejected him at first, wondering why on earth he would be interested in me, or even talking to me.
But I knew he liked me and I have been rejecting males all my life, from the time I could talk, I rejected males.
I don't think I was a stunningly good looking child, my older Sister was that. I was the daggy one, the tomboy that run with "The Brothers", but when I found out I could read and write it opened up a whole new world for me.
I was like a child prodigy, a genius as far as Mum and Dad were concerned and the more I learned the more I wanted to learn. I read voraciuosly and even now no one can give me a better present than a book.
But my braininess attracted boys for some reason and they would follow me home from Grade Prep, Douglas Payne at 5 offering me choo choo bars if I would befriend him, I just told him to go away as he gave me a headache.
He didn't and became a pain, this Douglas Payne. And there were others and they would buy me things and I would thank them and then ignore them totally. I had brothers and knew how painful boys could be.
Dirty, smelly, rude.
And that's how I always thought of them, my brothers showing their teeth when I crossed them and I clashed most with Ian, as he was so much older and didn't relate to us girls at all, thinking we were pains and whingey and got our own way.
he mashed a cream bun into my face once and told me to stop whingeing. Or put red hot chili peppers on our tongues. he was mean and closed off and a dead set genius.
I married and married a man who was violent and abusive and I left him so many times and failed my girls by being intimidated by him and one day stood up and told him to get out.
I met an Irish man, who was 12 years younger than me, and had a ten year engagement to him but he was also abusive with his alcohol and his fist twice and I decided I had enough for a while. Enough!
Si when I first the man that was to turn my life around I baulked and ran, and he followed, see what I mean ? And at first I just wanted to dismiss him as I was getting pretty good at that. But he persisted and asked me out and I said a vague yes and my brain said, not a chance.!
He asked me a few times and I was always busy, so he ignored me for a while, and I preferred that at first, then followed him around instead. And then it became a cat and mouse game, him being the cat and me the mouse.
And one day about 3 months after I first met him, he arrived on my front door step and we never looked back after that. I was the big scaredy cat at first, bowed down by humble circumstances and as he said,
"I don't care for all that stuff"
He made pronoucements as soon as he would walk in either through nerves or just basic interest.
"What's that ?, he would point and look,
"That's great, love that". he commented on everything, and I was hard pressed to catch up with his curiosity and keep him amused.
I have an excellent IQ but my brain would go into fog as soon as he entered my abode. And he was going through a divorce and I was going through a breakup.
And we complained to each other and gave part histories. he seemed to have no stop button on his mouth, if he thought something he said it. Straight out.
He had a dim view of females, especially gold digging ones which is what he had been getting he said and I was NOT going to be seeing anyone in the near future. we were both in agreement on that.
But we would talk and talk, he always pressed for time and me having plenty of it. I began to accept him, although I was intinidated by his lifestyle and could not compare it to my world of boys and problem kids and international students.
But he liked me, I could see it in his eyes. And I would banish him or not talk to him or decide in absentia he was a demanding, time poor, arrogant and selfish male and I was NOT having one of those in my life, anymore.
And somehow he got under my radar, my barb vest of hurt and pain and reached the knee knocking shyness underneath. And in certain areas of my life I am never shy, so I had to take control of that as I was far more experienced in certain matters and he bowed to my experience.
I was born to love men. I was born to love people and see the best in them and work with difficult characters, like my Mum. I took on my Dad's characteristics, luckily. He loved women, he totally loved them, finding them much more interesting than men.
And he spoiled his girls rotten. We were "special", we 3 girls to dad. Boys could not hit us or be mean to us as we would run to Dad, he hated vilence, and no Man ever laid a hand on a woman.
His Father had been a brute and clouted his kids with no bother what so ever and one day Dad decided he would never hit his kids when he had them and he never did.
So one time he comes to me with knuckles bleeding from a fight the night before and I laugh and kiss them and he says,
"Thanks Mum"
And after he leaves I freak, OMG
"He's violent, is my first thought" And I don't contact him for ages and go off to Queensland on holidays and meet a lovely young Irishman and spend time on holidays with him but only in a platonic way, jsut bumping off each other at a complex. Bored, hot, long desultory conversations in the hot sun, near the pool.
He asked me up to his unit which he shared with 2 other Irish men, all on a 12 month trip from Ireland. They were all funny and out going and he had no bother at all in also telling it like it is for a Man. He told someone off with quick verbal exchange once and I was amazed he could be so outspokem and not get a smack in the face.
But he told me lots about men in our long lazy afternoons, spent sweating beside the pool and jumping in when it beacme unbearable. He did ask me out and I said no and Yvette was gob smacked.
"He wnats you to go with him, you idiot!, she hissed.
"Don't be stupid, he's your age". I replied,
"He's not after me. he's after you".
I was shocked and wasn't as friendly after that. He was good looking and personable and had a great heart, but I was not interested and only thought of one person while I was away. And I wasn't with him any more. Or near him
So I limped back home after the holidays spent with immediate family and by the time I was back in my house I didn't want to see anyone. But I did send him a message, Mr Big and he rang me and we caught up again and I told him of my fears.
I must have seemed like a mess of them but he had fun when he came around and laughed at silly old clips of music with me. He met Mara around then, the weather hot, scorching and we caught up on our christmases and holidays.
He seemed surprised that I kept contact with my exes family and was still friendly to the 2 women that had been married to my brothers. I was all about family and lots of kids. I was taking care of 3 of my grandsons then.
When he was with me he was 110% with me and when he was gone it was like he had never been. He just disappeared back into the world he saw as soooooo important and I didn't. he told me he loved to play guitar and sing and seemed to have so many responsibilites and hobbies I didn't know how he had time for himself.
I was the same at that time 3 years ago, my kids came first to my detriment. My kids were old enought to not need me and for him business came first, always,
Two very different people, hurt people, who had the abilty to tear strips off each other but didn't. I could have ignited with anger then. I kept my rage hidden but I was not a happy woman and I was out for revenge on all men who had hurt me.
My insipid olf Irish Fiance came around for a vist then too and treated me to a drunken rant and a chase around the kitchen, he was with some other poor woman by then and she rang as he tried to talk me into another go on the old merryground and I thankfully closed the door on that chapter of my life.
He left, muttering he would be back but I knew he wouldn't. the new girlfriend had money and he coveted that more than anything. And he would be exactly the same, him not slowing down his drinking at all and I am surprised he's not dead.
So slowly and painfully but filled with a growing attraction we managed to limp along without really saying how we felt and what was happening. Just enjoying each others company.
He was so misguided. he thought all sort of ridiculous things that I had to straighten him out on. Acting like his Mother, and despairing that he would ever "get it", not everyone lived like him. Protected by status and power and money and I decided to go all Germaine Greer on him.
He asked for the most ridiclulous things, almost demanding them and I told him to not be silly, Not all young children were getting brand TV's for their own lounge room that year. Nor were people I knew thinking about buying another few mill property.
I scolded him like child and he acted like I was his partner in life, one day, sitting at my kitchen table, asking my opinion on everything he was out of touch with. And he was out of touch with reality in a big way.
Women were second class citizens and they were out to "get" men and stop them from doing exactly what they wanted to do. I wondered what that was. I had stayed married for 20 years and would have stayed married longer, not happily, but to see all the girls through school and out the other side.
But fate had stepped in and we had parted when I was 37. A momentous year, 1989, seeing us jet all over the world 3 times and land back to Keysborough and reality, the girls, the business, the new factory. Then everything changed. And we were not together anymore and I can swear I never ever missed him, not for one second.
But this one I missed when I went to Queensland and we began just a casual thing to both of us and it was fine. I wanted more of him of course but had to be happy as I was. Around that time I began to think of permanent housing, not rental. And I had a unit built in one of my daughters backyard.
And I had a permanent home surrounded by kids at last. he came one morning after not getting to bed until 3am, his eyes gritty and red, he looked worn out, a fallen hero. Too much, all too much. And I was like a boundless puppy. Turning into Janette, the child around him.
To be continued
