My Filipino Gemini friend hugs me goodbye at the corner shop knowing i won’t be around for a while. “I’ll text you” she says. “I’ll send you pictures,” I say. Qantas reminds me I have to check in.
He said “Europe will gorgeous this time of year.” We hadn’t spoken for five years and I honestly thought we never would in this lifetime. When he texted me back, I started balling cause I could feel all of his emotions and mine. I said “you know when you left and we had that big fight it felt like someone ripped out my heart and threw it over a river.” And he said “I didn’t mean to dip out completely, it triggered my trauma too much.” I said “do you think we broke up because of distance?” & he said “I think I was giving you too much anxiety.”
I text the woman who’s subletting off me, “it’s all yours” when I leave my house. The Australian sun burns into my neck as I drive back to Brisbane and I’m wearing my grandmas earrings knowing I’m going to my homeland.
I have three different currencies in my wallet and as I unpack my bag, I pull scripts for Canesten cream for my thrush cause I’m always randomly getting diseased and now that I’m 30, I have a fresh passport with unlimited potential but I hate the photo because I look like a darkworker.
My mum wakes me up at 4:44 and says “it’s time to go to the airport.” I’m wearing my favourite bra which used to be for special occasions but now has become my go to. I say “do you want a tic tac?’ And she’s like “why did you get orange?”
When I get to Melbourne I forget how aggressive everyone is and I don’t know if I love or hate it. He said “you were very blunt.” And I said “there were two people being blunt the last time I recall” because in our final fight, no one dropped the sword. A man in Noosa said to me “you must not run from the shadow, you must run AT it.” My kinesiology colleague holds clears the energy and as she’s holding my forehead says “the energy of twin flame is demonic but it always gets you closer to God.” My teacher calls me a Carrie for texting my ex but my higher self told me that when I meet my husband, I want to clear this karma out and have this closure.
I miss my flight because I went to the wrong gate cause I’m under-slept and exhausted. I thought i could do it all but I can’t. Qantas calls me on a private number and I have a fight with the guy who called for not calling off a Quantas number and not addressing himself. I get to the gate and its just me and him. “Mam there’s nothing we can do!” he says. “Please sir let me on!” I beg. “We tried calling you.” “You didn’t address yourself- you said where is your location?” I retort. “We will have to escort you out & take your bags off the plane. I said “I’m not a fucking dog to be escorted.” We get into a huge fight about communication and by the time they take my stuff on the plane, they could have let me on. After they do nothing to help me to get on another flight, I sit there crying until a guy sits next to me and starts telling me his life story. I tell him I’m a healer and he gets my card and wonder who needs more healing. Missing an international flight is literally my worst nightmare but I knew it was happening for a reason. I had a foresight I’d be stuck in Melbourne because I’ve been avoiding it.
Emirates helps me rebook another flight. My friend says “you needed to rest.” And I said “a rest that costs 1500 dollars.”
When I get to Melbourne, I realize the things I missed like the smell of cut grass and the flowers that smell like Europe. A group of teenage girls sit next to me across from the train and I analyze where I went wrong. Is it because I’m constantly fighting every fight myself? I realize the reason I didn’t pick up the private number was cause all of the psychic attack that happened in covid. I promised myself I would never pick up a private number again because I’ve always been too open but now my evasiveness was costing me. “You keep calling but this time I’m not picking up” my song rings out. I cry for my past self, the psychological trigger and everything I went through. I try to forgive myself. Everything in Melbourne just got too political. Love isn’t political. And I thought that’s one of the reasons we broke up.
He said ‘having a baby really isn’t in my plan right now’ and I thought “this information would have been good 5 years ago!” And I realize I’ve compromised my needs for a man again. Maybe I was a fucking Carrie. Cause my Pisces placements are like “I’ll forgive you even if you’re a monster.” My friend says “you’re not a Carrie – a Carrie would stay” and my brother said “being a milf isn’t a goal” and I said “it is for me.”
My best friend and I have a convo in her lounge about her ex dying of cancer. She said “just say all of the things because you might never have another chance!” I start crying for her. She said “I drive around the corner of his house and realize he’s not there and then I pulled over and burst into tears.” I said “he loved you so much, he was selfless.” And she said “every guy I’ve been with has been completely selfish and before he died, he said “I’m sad i won’t be able to do more beautiful things for you.
I go to a bar in Brunswick and the bartender is from Brisbane and gives me a book and a drink for missing my flight. He has a fun name and says “I think you’ll like the book” and gives me his number. I spend the next 24 hours wondering if he’s my soulmate cause he’s the first man to give me a book, rather than take one from me.
The next day, I get into my Didi and my Indian driver and I talk about arranged marriages. “Is yours arranged?” I ask. “No love marriage.” I said “I don’t know if I believe in arranged marriages but then my taste isn’t good so maybe someone should arrange one for me!” and he laughs. He says “I will never forget you’ and I said “I get that a lot.”
When I get on my flight, the guy in front of my reclines and I wonder does he think of anyone other than himself. I sit next to two African guys. One is a priest in Zambia. I say “are you allowed to have a wife? I know some priests are.” And he said “no.” He tells me about polygamous societies in Africa and that men have many wives to keep the matriage line. I say “what do you think of it? I could never do it cause I don’t want to be second best.” He laughs and agrees he’s not into it but tells me why they do it. We talk about demonic possessions and that he says “demon go now!” and I told him what I do to clear it too. He says I’m doing good work and I tell him I’m worried about my brother. “I’ll pray for him.” “Thank you,” I say.
When I get to Singapore I go to a cactus garden full of smokers and a girl sings a religious song. I can’t work out how to make the bidet work and I didn’t realize how much I needed a booty wash.
“Why didn’t we have sex? Were you not attracted me? ” I ask. “No” he says “I was under the impression you didn’t want to. He was right. For someone who was accused of sexual harassment, he always respected my sexual boundaries. By the time he was ready, I gave up. I tell my psychic and she says “that’s cause you have a crown chakra relationship. You could spend your entire life in this in the astral plane’ and I said “I know but I want something physical in this lifetime.” I say “I know you said you don’t want kids but smoking weed lowers your sperm count by 28 percent.” And now I think he wasn’t fertile enough to procreate with. If I’m attracted to my father, then he’s really not a good fuck.
“I just gave you too much anxiety.” Anxiety is how I was raised. Anxiety is what I knew but I wanted to feel secure. I wanted to know that he wouldn’t leave like my father but he did. Time and time again. In kinesi my teacher says “but your parents can never truly abandon you cause they had you” and there’s some truth to it. He prepped me for seeing my dad. When he tries to help me find good headphones I want to cry because Tauruses show love by getting you nice things.
My dad said “I bought you the best glasses as a kid!” and I didn’t understand the concept of material possessions as love until I got older. It’s how earth signs show love. The girl on the plane next to me looks uncomfortable that I’m crying next to her cause this is grief I thought I had processed but clearly not.
He inadvertently said “I was just one of your healing projects” which felt horrible. “I was in a really bad place when we met.” I don’t understand why I break my own heart. Was I the only person holding onto the past? He never promised me a future, he only promised me the present. He still talks about anxiety and trauma 5 years later. I don’t want anxiety and trauma. I want linen sheets, and breakfast in bed and morning sex and babies. The only good thing about this Quantas flight has been the tit tams.
When I arrive to London, the cab driver blasts music from Congo and is beeping at everyone even though he’s in the wrong. There is a protest about a woman who got shot for not wearing a hijab in trafalgar square. “Women, life, freedom” they shout which makes me wonder if we are ever truly free. A guy in the middle of Picadilly square does back flips and has a giant tattoo of a native American woman on his right arm. A guy yells about Jesus, men vape in my face, people mutter in French, a homeless man gets no money, there are so many wannabes and black people are cooler here.
I go into the bookstore to buy an Abbey road shirt. The guy behind the counter tells me he’s from Australia too and has to go back to deal with his dead friends estate. I said “I hope you get something out of it” and he said “well it’s being contested actually.” “Ex wife?” “Gardner if you can believe.” I open my mouth. “I can’t.” It starts raining on the second day and we go on a double decker bus. I hate the taste of green tea here. A man plays accordion in the tube, A hard punk guy operates a pez shop, and I immediately get sick from the weather change.
A lot of people sleep on my Harry Potter tour bus group but I’m too restless. I ask an 8 year old girl what house she’s in. “Gryffindor, you?” “Slytherin i say” and she looks awkward. “I guess we can’t be friends then.” She pretends to turn her back on me and we laugh. I show her the Gryffindor wand I like which I end up buying. That night I retract my love spell because if you have to manipulate someone into loving you, they’re not the one.
We get tea on the flight to Copenhagen but we have to leave the aircraft cause it’s falling apart. There is a woman who looks like a man but isn’t a transvestite and when men look at me and have a girlfriend, I know they settled. A little Indian girl wears a pink aristocrats jumpsuit and says to her mum “you’re peeing first!”
In Copenhagen, a man rips me off in my taxi, a guy laughs at me for being lost on the street cause I always visibly look like a tourist when I’m wearing a hot pink 80s jacket. The guy in my hostel and I had the most intense attraction but then he spent the whole night talking to a fugly girl and I sat alone crying and eating a panini. The escalator to the metro line doesn’t work and there is random graffiti everywhere and one that says “racists not welcome” like they are immune to racism. I have vertigo from travelling and being sick. I’ve wanted to throw up but I’ve kept it in and the only way to embrace the bleed, is to surrender to it.
Why can’t I find a rich Polish husband? My nose is peeling cause the only way you can know if someone loves you is when they see you sick. When I had my surgery he drained my energy instead of giving it to me, which is how I know he’s not a lightworker.
The canals are beautiful and in the royal queens room I learn about Leonora Christina a woman who plotted the revenge of the main queen cause she hated her. “What a crazy bitch, I really like her” I tell the guy at the desk and he looks uncomfortable. She got sentenced to the blue tower for 22 years. I talk to the woman at the desk Sophie and I can’t tell if she’s flirting with me cause she’s a libra and friendly and I know that’s how people feel about me.
I see an amazing art gallery and walk into it and a French woman is getting ready to do an exhibition in a few hours. I help her set up for the exhibition. She married a Danish man and lives in Copenhagen. I tell her how I liked a French man and she says “French men are dangerous” and I couldn’t agree more. I said “it’s OK he’s not the one” and she said “you gotta tell yourself that.” She says “thank you for helping me- I was stuck on this for half an hour” and I said “the universe delivered. I’m your guardian angel today.”
I said “I love the way you paint with this brush stroke- a lot of people do it but it’s random, it doesn’t have intention” and she said “I like to have a purpose” which is how I feel about my own art.
Everyone rides bikes here and I can only afford baguettes cause I want to spend my money on art. An Indian guy is checking me out in my hostel and I asked to be moved to an all female dorm. The guy at the hostel wants to charge me and I say “I don’t think it’s fair” and he drops it. I have never wanted to be with my family and in my own country more in my life.
A Muslim woman walks past with a top that says “Girls Girls Girls.” I go into a church with a sign that reads “Please turn off your mobile phones or you won’t hear the call of God.” The call of God is definitely not the Samsung ringtone. The insight I get is that I am going through another spiritual test. “When will it stop God?” And he said “never for you.”
I go to Rosenborg castle and there’s a statue of Hans Christian Anderson. I get sad cause my mum used to read me him when I was a kid and he’s an Aries and it makes sense why I liked him. He looks wise and like he’s delivering knowledge. Kids run through a park that looks super adventurous, the guard at the front smiles at me and I didn’t even know I was into women with guns.
I sit at a wok place and I’m annoyed that they don’t give free water in Europe. There’s a man sitting across from me and he doesn’t notice me until we lock eyes at one point. He has brown hair and a moustache and is muscular and tattoos on both of his arms which I find attractive. He’s carrying a Sony camera and eating his wontons like an Italian. “It happens when you least expect it.” Everyone says. Well I guess it’ll never happen to me cause I’m always expecting it.
Women dress in dresses and sneakers here and men have at least one ear piercing. The only men that are staring at me are the ones watching me eat my chicken shawarma. This is clearly when I’m at my most attractive. I get on my plane and it’s nice to hear Serbian spoken again. Most people don’t even know where my country is or think it’s Siberia. I always like going to a right wing place after I’ve been in a left wing place for a while. The guys from Denmark are unexpectedly on my Serbia flight.
I told him about my book and he said “what’s your book about?” And I thought “everything that preceded you.” But it somehow felt like nothing had changed 5 years later. “You don’t follow each other on Instagram” stares back at me.
When my dad gets me at the airport, I say “you don’t seem happy to see me” and he says “I’m just thinking about the parking meter.” Driving in unknown places was not his specialty. He parks in a truck zone and I want to get changed and he says “just get changed in the back.” “I’m not a man” I say. I end up changing in the back and some truck driver probably stares at me and I’m mortified when I see another man changing in his car. He can’t find his smokes and I say “maybe it’s the universe telling you to stop.” When we talk about relationships, he says “it’s not about how someone looks, it’s about how they think” which I like.
He gets annoyed with me for wasting all the toilet paper and I say “I’m on my period.” “So?” “You wouldn’t understand you’re not a woman” and I’m annoyed that he has no empathy for my feminine energy.
When I go to get an ID card, his name is on my paper and I say “why is your name in brackets?” “She would erase me from her life if she could.” “It’s a bit emotional for the depot” I say and they laugh. “She’s not from here, she’s from Australia” and once again I feel like an outsider in my own country. I was born here – how was I not from here?
We listen to James Brown and it’s weird spending time with another Gemini cause when they have another person around, they keep them up all night and normally start with “can I ask you a question?” The next day, a gypsy bothers us and my dad firmly says “no” until he goes to bother some other women who are softer. A man leaves a woman waiting on a date, and the beauty of having time to wander around a bookshop and browse through the words is a luxury. I go to a hamam the next day which is like an orgasm but without doing the work! The masseuse emotionally supports me after I tell her about everything that’s happening. My dads like “I can’t believe you weren’t born in Paris- you act like royalty” and I said “just because you wear Tommy Hilfiger doesn’t mean you’re better than me!”
A guy on an Uber bike sits next to me and exhales and I can feel his pain. I got my parents to talk after 3 years and I’ve helped a lot of people break up, but breaking up my parents was by far the hardest. This trip has triggered every part of me feeling like a child and once again being the mediator in my parents’ marriage. I wanted to say to my mum “as your mediator, I would advise not speaking to dad until the divorce.” They both complain about how neither one of them has called each other to ask how the others doing. And I said “that’s what happens in a break up.” My cousin triggered me by implying we were broken and my brother said “we are not broken.” Samo sloga srbina spasava. Only uniting saves a Serbian. We’ve had a lot of betrayal in our family cause it’s a Cain and Abel situation but I’m not the one that’s going to die.
My psychic said “your parents didn’t work because they have very different values.” And I know my dad doesn’t want to divorce because it means failure and that’s something my dad never wanted to be. We go to an op shop and the woman says “the dress it’s like it was made for you.” She asks my dad where he’s from and the stay stand out the front smoking and talking about life and I imagine his life would be different if he married her and not my mother. Maybe he just needed a Virgo. I realize this is a wog divorce and will never be a white person divorce.
The next day he attacks my clothes and says “if I wanted to attract a woman I would need to dress well” and I said “oh are you looking to attract a woman?” And he said “what’s it to you?” And I’m like “I’m not worried judging by the way you treat women” and stab one in. He’s like “I give you everything- what do I need to do to please you?” and I think “you’re not the first man who’s asked this question.”
When I take the bus to Bosnia, he says “I’ll miss you” and I say “I’ll miss you too” cause Aries rising never hesitate to express their feelings. When we stop at a pitstop, I ask the guy how much a coke is and he says “250 dinars, a brandy is cheaper” and we laugh. Everyone smokes inside in cafes in Eastern Europe and that will never stop being a thing. The public toilets are my worst nightmare. When I was 18, a woman walked in on me pissing into a hole and saw my vagina and I never lived it down.
The bus driver takes his time eating his goulash and I watch him cause I have nothing else to do. They play somewhat traditional folk music of pretty women and men doing the traditional dance and the restaurant looks like it hasn’t been renovated since the 1980s.
My dad calls me and asks me where I am. “At the border.” “OK I won’t distract you.” They stamp my passport with roman numerals. A dog crosses the street, and I see a dome like orthodox church. The guy at border control makes fun of me which reminds me favourite thing about Bosnians is that they don’t take themselves too seriously. “Where are you going Maja?” I wish I could answer that question. The guy who has sat behind me smells homeless. When we cross the border, I am reminded by the differences between the Muslims and orthodox through the mosques. The stretch of water that goes through Bosnia and Serbia is my favourite and is always unforgettable. The woman carrying cekere or her bags reminds me of every time my grandma would take the bus with the cekere.
When I get to my uncle’s house, I tell my 5 year old cousin that a woman I spoke to, her brother died and he says “like baba Nena.” And I said “yes.” I said “are you afraid of that word?” and he said “no I’m not afraid of the word, but I don’t want to die. I want to live forever.” I said “it’s not your time now” but am mortified at how much he emotionally understands about life at five.
My uncle says “when do you wanna go to the grave? Tomorrow or Sunday?” and that’s the first time we’ve spoken about my grandma passing. I said “I was thinking Sunday.” I’m surprised he’s given me a choice. Normally I’m just told what to do. There are old bags near her bed cause she always used to reuse gifts but in this moment, I really need one. And her practical Capricorn sun is helping me. In her diary she just has dates of who she’s seen and what she’s done but no emotions attached to it. I find it weirdly comforting that she just wrote facts. She was never one to express her emotions which is what I always struggled with her.
When we go to the grave, my uncle and I sage it and I cry. I want to point out the tombstone doesn’t look like her but it doesn’t seem like an appropriate time to bring it up. We are surrounded by mountains in a quiet place and I think it’s a good place to bury my grandparents.
On the way back my uncle says “people are jealous of me cause I have all this stuff but I work hard, look at my hands.” And I said “it’s good you fight for your family” and he said “I will never stop.” When I go to see my dad’s family, they say “how’s your brother?” We had a fight before I left so it’s hard to answer that question. My dads aunty tells me his dad cheated on his mum, my grandmother and I am mortified. I’ve been asking myself the question “why do men cheat and betray me over and over again?” What did I do to deserve this? I’d gone through every facet of my memory trying to retrace this in my family history. I said to my dad “my whole life is a lie.” And “I asked you about your dad and you never said anything! Were you ever gonna tell me?” He said “it happened and I was a child but what am I supposed to do about that? ” He still doesn’t how family patterns can repeat when they remain unhealed and how he’s hurting me.
After I heard about the betrayal, I go to see my God mother who I was named after who has had clinical depression. When she sees me, she says “Maja…” And we both start crying and embrace. I do some kinesiology on her until I show her a picture of her kids and she says “that’s enough for now” which feels like therapy.
She said “I’ve been struggling to beat this for 8 years and I feel like an autistic child.” I said “I know depression feels like a pit you can’t get out of” cause when my parents broke up that’s what happened to me. She said “exactly.” I said “therapy is not a weakness, I get it all the time” and she looks comforted knowing I also go to therapy regularly. I’m well aware that mental health in Serbia is nowhere near as evolved as Australia and I think about how half of Melbourne is on pills.
She let’s me read her tea cup and I say “you need to let go of the devil and find what freedom means to you.” The devil was her husband who randomly left her for art. She says “I just keep going through different scenarios and trying to find ways it could be different.” And I said “it’s in the past for a reason now” even though I’m still hurt from my family betrayal. She says “music saved you” and I said “it did.” Her mum said “wow you came right when we needed you” and I said “I’m your angel for today.”
I go back to Serbia and my dad get into another fight. He starts caring about what other people think of me and I say “you should worry about your own name.” I drop the keys in front of him and storm out. He’s just happy he’s regained his sense of power but I still feel annoyed he’s not doing what he said he’d do it. I walk around for an hour and go cry and pray in a church which is my go to in Europe. He calls me back and we somehow move on, but I still have distrust. I don’t know how this shit show of a family situation will resolve itself. I can deal with divorce and property but not cheating on top of it.
In my convo to my ex he said “let’s talk when you get back from Europe” and I said “why?” and he said “I just have such good conservations with you” and I knew he loved me in that moment cause he always used to say “I’ve never met anyone like you – I could talk to you about anything.” I said “you know what I learnt from covid? I learnt that I want to have a baby.”
He takes it. When we hang up, I feel pissed off. The next day I text him “I love you but I love me more. I can’t let a man not giving me what I want again.. I deserve it all” and then I block him.
On the flight back, I stare at the Chinese woman next to me cause she got vegetarian and it looks better than chicken. She randomly eats an egg and starts peeling a mandarin and I’m fascinated by her. She rolls over on the two seater and she just doesn’t give a fuck. At one point, I ask her to move so I can go to the toilet.
When I get back to Queensland, I thought I had gotten over him but all I can think of is I wouldn’t mind that phone call. I never stopped loving him, I just suppressed it. He was the only man who I trusted wouldn’t cheat on me. When I used to drive to Bendigo for gigs, we’d talk on the phone for hours and it made me feel better just knowing he was there. As we arrive into Brisbane, I don’t know how this story will end but it doesn’t end with me not getting what I want!
