This is the last post i’m putting up before surgery, which is tomorrow morning. The next update will probably be when i’m out of hospital in a week or 2… so I figured i’d write up a particularly big post to entertain you all while i’m gone!

This isn’t the credits, because this isn’t the end. This is just the summary of who was involved so that it’s down on virtual paper. As hard as it is to admit, it’s unavoidably there: We just don’t know what’s going to happen, or how long i’ll be here now. So, I figured this was a good thing to do.

This piece of writing all stemmed from a valium-induced dream. I haven’t been sleeping well for understandable reasons: I’ve got just a wee little bit on my mind lately (heh), so my doc gave me some valium to help me get some well-needed sleep. I’ve never had any form of sleeping tablets or medication like this before, so it just knocks me out (8-10hrs a night), but it also results in some scarily realistic and detailed dreams. The sort’ve dreams that you get “lost” in, and almost feel like you’re actually inside them, living through an alternative strand of your own reality. In this case, it was almost like I was taken through a “This is your life” type situation, with a whole bunch of people, places, and moments of my life paraded in front of me. I woke up with this urgent feeling that I needed to write it all down, as it accurately summed up the important aspects of my life, and some of the iconic people and moments that made me the who I am today.

The typical disclaimer when doing any list of people: This isn’t everyone. I’m not even attempting to list everyone, as that would end up being novel-length. This is just a few people that were in my dream, mostly related to my past and my growing up. It’s also why there is the glaring omission of my gorgeous wife. It’s not that she’s not important to me, it’s just that she doesn’t appear in nostalgic dreams, as she wasn’t in my past. Plus, if I had to write about how amazing she is, it’d end up being a 40-page plus Hallmark card, and would get my man-card revoked

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The Family

Summary: Parents split when I was young, so I got to live 2 separate lives. This had it’s good and it’s bad, but mostly I think it was good. Dad moved around lots, so I got to experience a lot of amazing places, meeting amazing people, eat amazing foods, and see amazing things. Mum set up shop in the Blue Mountains, and gave me the stable “family home”, the local friends that I still know today, the local places that are still there for nostalgic trips, and the comfortable feeling of having a place to depend on. 108 represent (private joke).

Mum

The stability in every aspect of my life. Mum is the only person I know who not only still has a home phone number, but when you call it she’s actually there and answers. In a world of wireless connections and playing phone-tag with someone’s mobile, having a mum who still lives in the same place I grew up in, with the same phone number I grew up with, and who still dotes over me like I was a kid, is awesome (well, mostly!). Mum is the one who anchors everything to reality, by cooking my favourite desserts when I find out I have cancer, or making sure that when I visit, my bedroom from when I was a kid is still there and ready for me. It might sound corny, but when you’ve moved around as much as I have (see “Dad”, below ), having these things is something I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world.

Dad

Dad creates the spice in life, and is the infinite source of logic and wisdom. Thanks to dad i’ve lived in crazy places like on-site at RAAF (Air Force) bases while going on holidays in the back of Hercules cargo planes. I’ve lived in squats while he chained himself to nuclear submarines as a peace activist. I’ve travelled the world before I hit puberty, lived in Amsterdam, and been to boarding school in the Swiss Alps. I’ve lived in converted churches in Sydney, and been to some of the coolest schools and most interesting places on earth. Dad is also the one who answers questions. Whether it’s typical father-son type stuff, or complex scientific musings about sustainability and the way the planet works. He was wikipedia before the internet existed… and is still more trust-worthy than the real wikipedia. He’s also one of my best friends, and the first person I call when I need a bro-chat.

Asher

It’s funny how brothers work. When we were growing up, you couldn’t put us in the same room without one of us ending up in hospital Ok, it wasn’t quite that bad, but it was pretty bad. We couldn’t be any more different. He’s artsy, creative, musically talented, and extremely resourceful. I’m a computer in comparison. I’m logical but hopeless at anything that requires creativity or artistic dexterity. We liked the opposite music, we liked the opposite sports, I reckon we couldn’t have been more different if we’d been forced to at gun-point. But then, somehow, we grew up to be best friends. Now, he’s pretty much the first person I tell anything too, and the first person I turn to when I need an opinion. He’s my favourite person to hang out with, and one of my favourite people to talk to.

Poppa

My poppa was the stereo-typical “Grandfather role-model” type figure in my life. He was the one who made us laugh, the one who snapped us into line, the one who taught us our bad habits and the one who spoiled us when mum wasn’t looking. He was everything you wanted in a pops. He had amazing stories that you could listen to for hours, and he could make you laugh no matter how bad things were, and he could make you realise that life has good and bad sides, with a single anecdote. A huge amount of my life wisdom comes from stories my poppa told me, and a lot of my fondest memories are of trips with him when I was young. Fishing with spear-guns, road-trips in his campervan, and home-made honey on home-made damper. If I could be half the man poppa was, i’d be 4 times the man most men are today.

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The Friends

Summary: I haven’t had many friends in life. It’s been one of the sore-points, in a way. Partly due to the moving around so much, partly I guess due to my personality (i’m not good with strangers, socialising, etc). It’s very hard for me to meet new people. Very very hard. Due to this, the friends i’ve had, have been truly amazing.

Ed

Probably the most influential and iconic friend i’ve ever had. When I came back from Europe with no friends, and no social skills, Ed was the guy who didn’t judge me on the fact that I didn’t fit in, and didn’t judge me on the fact that I liked different things to most kids. He didn’t care, and that sparked the closest platonic friendship (bro-ship?) i’ve had with anyone in my life. We lived together, we worked together, we had some of the most amazing life-experiences together. People say they have friends as close as brothers, but in some aspects Ed was closer than my brother, due to not having that conflict that “family” brings into the equation. Eventually, we parted ways, for reasons i’m not even sure of (I guess it just happens eventually), but he’s my most-missed friend of all.

Tinu

Martin (or Tinu) was one of the few people in Switzerland that I really clicked with. Boarding school is a very cliquey place. You need to fit into a social group to survive, and I didn’t fit into any. He spanned social groups, and was one of the iconic friends that teach you a life-lessons: Social cliques are stupid. Yeah they might be a necessary part of high school, but for people like me who just don’t fit in, it can be a painful period of your life. Martin taught me to escape into hobbies, and helped me really absorb In-line skating (this was back in the 90s kids, when it was still ok to rollerblade ). The times I spent skating with Tinu are some of my fondest memories from that era of my life, and i’ll never forget him. RIP Tinu.

Justin

Everyone needs someones they can cut loose with. If you’re a guy, it’s usually whoever can keep up with you on a drinking night out Justin is most definitely this guy for me. He’s the only guy that could keep up with me on a night out, or in an argument, or when eating, or when playing a video game, or… well… with anything, really. If life was a game made up of 2-man teams, Justin would be my team-mate, and we’d kick life’s ass. He’s also another source of wisdom and inspiration for me, and it’s really scary how little there is in life that he DOESN’T know about. The technical details of digitally encrypted audio? Check. The intricate characteristics of fine foods and drinks? Check. Various traits of different cultures? Check. String theory? Check. Complexities of the finance world and interest rates? Check.

Duff

While one of my “newer” friends in the scheme of things, Duff is someone who knows me better than most people, due to our extreme similarities (mostly our good looks!). From tastes in music, bikes, food, and drinks… to our approach to life: “Bugger it, let’s just eat until the problem goes away”. Duff had the pleasure of being my housemate for a while in Newtown (one of Sydney’s pub/night-life hubs), and from what we both remember of that period of our lives, it was apparently pretty good. He has also been a major contributing factor into my motorcycle obsession, and while i’ve liked bikes since before he was pretty much born, his without-doubt superior skills has always motivated me to ride better, and ride bigger.

Tim & Sam

These 2 brothers get similar praise to mum, in the sense that they’re another sign of stability or the turmoil of my life. While I don’t see them as much these days as i’d like to, just the fact that i’ve known them longer than i’ve known any other non-family person, is a huge deal to me. From playing on trampoline as kids together, to going to the pub as we became of legal age. Tim & Sam are the closest thing I have to child-hood friends, and I really hope that they end up being guys that I know well into my old age.

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The Places

When you’ve lived in 40+ houses and gone to 13 schools in 30 years (and that’s while still managing to drop out by Year 11), you look at “places” in a whole new way. I very rarely settle in anywhere, and am quite known for living out of boxes even if i’ve been at a place for 6 months or more. At the same time, the few places that I did settle in at, are extremely important to me, and serve as iconic landmarks in a constantly moving (pun intended) life. In my eyes, i’ve lived 2 lives… a city life (usually with dad, or on my own as an adult), and my mountains life (mostly with mum, or my time in Europe). Each of these lives has it’s own hobbies, interests and memories, and both existed simultaneously as I bounced around in life.

Hazelbrook

The infamous 108. Hazelbrook. Such an iconic address, I ended up getting “CVIII” tattooed on my arm. This has been the stability in a life as stable as a tectonic fault. I could write a book based purely on my life’s various intersections with this place, and it’s absolutely my favourite of all the homes i’ve ever had. Thankfully, it’s still my home (away from home)… as mum has been living there for the last 20 plus years. This is the basis for my love of the country, love of the mountains, and love of all things related. Camping, bush-fires and BBQs, long walks in the bush and swimming in waterholes. No matter how bad life is, a simple trip up there is better than any meditation for me. I still visit as much as I can, and my few months recovery after this next surgery will mostly be spent up there. Hazelbrook (and the Blue Mountains in general) is the place I go when I need some solid ground. My favourite foods, my favourite shops, my favourite roads to ride my motorcycle on, all my favourites are up there.

St Peters

I’m not even sure how long we lived in this house, but it’s a significant memory in my past, so it must’ve been at least more than the usual 6 months Most of my child-hood memories are based around this house or Hazelbrook. St Peters was a house I lived at with Dad and my step-mum Michelle, and my bro Asher. It kick-started my love of the city, and my city-kid personality (although ironically, lately i’ve been craving the country again). St Peters let me live the stereotypical city-kid life. Playing in local playgrounds until the sun went down, which of course meant pushing the limits of daylight savings time until we got yelled at. Collecting trolleys at Marrickville Metro to get the 20c deposits by returning them, and then spending the couple dollars we made on lollies and making ourselves sick. Climbing on the roof of our house, and using it to jump to the roofs of the houses next door. Playing tag in the streets, and thinking nothing of the fact that our street was off a very busy main road with lots of semi-trailer traffic. Fun times.

Holland

What Australian kid wouldn’t want to live in Europe? Walking to school on frozen canals, and sliding down snow-covered hills in the park. Living in a strange place with strange customs and strange language and strange foods (but what amazingly delicious foods they were!). That feeling of being an international kid in a new country, is a special feeling that i’ve never matched again in my life. It can’t be put into words, it’s just a feeling. It felt awesome.

Switzerland

Wow, where do I start. I think this one is best summed up with a simple description of where I actually lived, to put it all in perspective: The school I went to was called Ecole D’Humanite, and it was situated high up in the Swiss Alps, in a town called Hasliberg-Goldern. To say this was a picturesque place, would be like saying Everest is a “bit of a hill”. Our school was a grouping of buildings on the side of a mountain, looking across a valley, at snow-capped mountains with glaciers coming down the side. I spent my day playing basketball on an outdoor court with those same mountains in the background. In winter we got more snow than i’ve ever seen in my life (including on TV or in movies), sometimes in big enough amounts that you could jump off the 2nd floor balcony and land in the soft powder snow below. The school had an alternative view on education, and we spent our days concentrating on subjects that we actually enjoyed (for me it was pretty much all of the sciences, and multiple languages), and in winter it was compulsory to go skiing and snowboarding all day when the weather was perfect. We lived in houses with small groups of students, where you shared a room with a friend, and had “house parents” that were also your teachers. There are no adjectives in the english language that sufficiently summarise my time there, and I could write a post 4 times the length of this one purely on my experiences there.

Newtown

While it might seem insignificant in comparison to the previous place I just mentioned, Newtown is the place i’ve spent more of my life in than any other place, so it’s probably the one “area” that I feel closest to. The catch is, it wasn’t while living at a single house. This means that the area itself feels like home to me, but i’ve got no ties to any individual street or house (Hazelbrook still wins the top spot due to this). I’ve lived in Newtown (or the surrounding few suburbs such as Erskineville and Camperdown, usually still collectively referred to a Newtown by most people) about 8 times so far in my life. This has created a collective of experiences, memories, and friendships that compile into a single feeling of this area being a home for me. It’s the culmination and end-product of my city-kid child-hood. I still visit the same bakery I went to after school as an 8 year old, and I still order the same sausage rolls and vanilla slices. I still go sit in the same parks I played in as a kid, but this time it’s usually with friends and beer, instead of friends and a soccer ball. I still walk up and down the same shopping strip that I walked down after school, but now i’m visiting pubs and shopping for dinner, instead of visiting video game arcades and shopping for lollies (ok ok, I admit i’d still visit the arcades if they still existed!). It’s also interesting that this area has some of my earliest memories from when we lived in St Peters (right next to Newtown), and then I live here again now with my wife, in our first home together as a couple. Newtown is my favourite place in Sydney, and if I couldn’t live here, I wouldn’t live in Sydney at all.

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So, that’s it. That’s pretty much the dream I had, expanded with new memories that arose as I typed it all out. This has been another “non-stop rant-style type-fest”, with no planning or thinking (mainly because memories are painful when dwelled on)… so excuse any typos or errors, and I hope you enjoyed the read. Now it’s time to get some rest, and get ready for surgery tomorrow morning.

Next update: Me minus a few kilos of body parts.