My heart aches for the young Linda...

Linda is my lover. She is a couple of years older than I am, and she has had a much more difficult and harsh life than mine. We are as different as our lives have been, but she is the most genuine, sweet person I have ever known. There is no pretence in her. She is simply a gentle, loving woman.

I have heard her stories - usually well seasoned with humour - of being one of eight hungry children, of a depressed mother, an alcoholic father and a stoic grandmother. Tales of life lived with the nuns, things that she and her sister did when they were growing feral around Albert Park in the 1960s. A story she told me yesterday of her first love broke my heart.

I think I may have known Jayne. She was at Lowther Hall in 1974 when I was there, and I believe that she was my friend. We were 12 or 13. I didn't stay in touch with anyone from that school when my family moved out of Victoria. But by the late 1970s or early 1980s Jayne was an impressive lesbian artist, in a band, attractive, charasmatic and popular. And she was Linda's first serious love.

Like most alternative creative people of her time Jayne experimented with drugs. She smoked dope, dropped tabs and mainlined speed and heroin. Linda was always a quiet woman, shy and retiring by nature. Being swept up into the circle of the 'interesting' people, and being the lover of the sparkling Jayne must have been a heady mix for Linda at 20. They had a room in a share house that was well-known in the lesbian community as the place for drugs. When the police finally raided the house, Linda was the only person without tracks. I knew this story. I had heard it before, and so I thought she had only smoked or taken tabs.

So when she told me that yes, she had mainlined - twice - I was shocked to my core. She just didn't seem to be the 'experimental' type. All her young exploits had been choreographed by her sister, she just went along for the ride; the picture of her choosing to try such a thing was so out of character... I had serious trouble aligning this idea with the woman in my arms. It didn't fit. She went on to explain that she just wanted to be part of the group - drawn up by Jayne, wanting to be like her. But she couldn't inject herself.

So Jayne did it for her. She just held out her arm and a needle (was it clean? was it new? who cut the drugs? was the water sterile?) broke her skin, punctured her vein. Her blood flowing back into the syringe, mixing with the drug, and then forced into her virgin vein.

The image of my Linda acquiescing to that violation - by someone she trusted and loved - hurts me for reasons I can't clearly explain. Even though it was over 25 years ago, I ache to think of my love betrayed like that. Hurt by someone who thought it was nothing more than a good time.

She's lucky - I'm lucky - that she chose to leave the house and Jayne, and walk away from the interesting people. But I still see my lover, my gentle, trusting lover wanting to be in Jayne's world, and offering her own blood in exchange for a part of it.

Genesis

Well, it's a beginning, so it's a genesis - but I'm nervous of being misunderstood. The title of my blog is 'Still Evolving' because I am. I'm a very different creature now than I was even three years ago ...two and a half years ago...one year. So it's only a genesis of sorts - I'm now an identifiably different species, but my evolutionary path is pretty clear to anyone who chooses to look.

Farne isn't my name, it's my Avatar's name on Second Life. I spent alot of time choosing that name, and I like it, so that's what I'm running with. The name comes from Lindisfarne - known as Holy Island - off the North English coast. I was there last March, and I'd like to visit again one day.

I used to be married, and I've got two kids. My son is 20, is working, and has now moved out of home. He worries me 'cos he rides a motorbike, and like a lot of young men, his confidence in his abilities far outstrips any objective assessment of them. He's a good kid, and I hope he can continue to grow and develop, and keep showing the resiliance that has brought him safe thus far. Well, fairly safe, anyway.

My daughter is 18, and works, too. Next year she wants to study again after leaving school 2 years ago. She wants to be a stage manager. Since her father left she has bloomed, and I'm beginning to believe that she can realise her ambition.

I was married for 20-something years. My husband suffered from major depression for at least the last 15. Finally he left because he said he could no longer live with the kids. I never left him, or even asked him to leave when things were bad because I thought that if he'd had cancer, or diabetes or something, I wouldn't leave just because times were hard. It was the wrong thing to do. I should have left, and taken the kids. They had a much harder life than was needed. Sadly, it's easy to see all that in retrospect, but I couldn't do it to him at the time.

When he left all I felt was relief. I was rather surprised to find that I didn't actually love him, he was a habit. I do care about him, and I wish him well. But, without him I am a better person, a happier person, and I'm not sure that if me-minus-3years met me-today that I'd recognise myself.

I'm earning about 40% more, I have a lesbian lover, my house has had all the work it needs finally done (except painting the fence - that's on the list for next weekend), and I'm happy. My heart is at peace. Next I sell the house and divide the money with the ex. Then I buy a new house, and the transition from 'married' to 'me' is over. I think.

Cheers