Daily Life

My 10-year high school reunion was on the weekend. I didn’t go – I’ve lived in a different city to the one I grew up in for the last four years, I know what everyone’s up to these days because I’m an expert Facebook stalker (please, someone endorse me for this skill on LinkedIn) and, most importantly, there probably wasn’t a Romy and Michele-style three-way dance routine featuring a teenage dweeb admirer turned dreamy millionaire, so really, what’s the point?

Last week, I saw photos of my high school crush, who I spent two tragic years trying to impress over MSN with pretentious conversations about Radiohead and poetry, getting married.

At 17, I thought that by 27 I’d have it pretty figured out. Long-term relationship, if not married. With kids. And a house. That I owned. Stable job (to afford the mortgage for the house that I owned). Maybe a book or two under my belt. Definitely a dog.

The reality? I often say jokingly (but not really) that I’m going through my quarter-life crisis. My life is pretty much the Friends theme song, if Friends was about a girl whose love life is less stable than the imaginary child of Bridget Jones and Taylor Swift. I don’t have kids or own property. I’ve only recently started working in a job I love after years of career uncertainty, and make a little extra on the side doing the freelance writing hustle. I’ve got 99 problems and mental health is definitely one. No dog, just a demonic cat I adopted on a whim after being unceremoniously dumped last year.

And honestly, I’ve never been happier.

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I first started taking antidepressants when I was seven. I couldn’t stop thinking about terrible things, and pressing my eyeballs until they hurt, and touching the floor three times before I could sleep, convinced something horrible would happen if I didn’t. A strange man asked me to tell him all about it, and he showed me a picture book about an octopus with something called Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and I swallowed little pills daily to make the bad thoughts go away.

At 14, moody and withdrawn, I was once again carted off to the psychiatrist, who said I was depressed, like I didn’t already know. I kept swallowing the pills.

One day I was taking the pills, and the next day I wasn’t, though I don’t remember when I stopped. For over 10 years, they were not in my life, and I thought I was okay.

Two months ago, I started taking them again. Looking back, I should have done it years ago.

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There was the guy I dated briefly who told me, when we met, that it was so cool I was a feminist – that he’d never date a girl who wasn’t. After it ended, he bitterly spat, “I felt like I could never be myself around you because I had to watch what I said about race or gender.” Dudebro translation: “How dare you stop me from being racist and sexist!”

There was the boyfriend who charmed me on our first date with his extensive knowledge of riot grrl bands and told me some of his best friends were feminists. As our relationship continued, though, it became littered with gaslightingand contrarian arguments on feminism, gender and race. He would bait me, wind me up until I exploded, and then accuse me of misrepresenting his opinions and overreacting.

There was my friend’s ex, who proclaimed that he was no longer a feminist when accused of mansplaining.

The more feminist friends I asked, the more similar stories I heard.

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Recently, I received a message from someone I hadn’t spoken to in years.

He wrote: “Many years ago, I made a rape joke on Facebook. You commented on it letting me know how distasteful and terrible it was. I just wanted to thank you for that.

“At the time I thought not being a rapist was enough. It is not. The idea I would always try to stop rape if I saw it in person was enough. It is not. I thought a rape joke is just a joke. It is not. I’m ashamed of myself for once believing those things. It was a bitter pill at the time, but I really needed to take it. Thank you for always putting yourself out there and stopping/teaching ignorant people like me. I don’t know if you ever get discouraged, but I know personally you helped at least one boy to grow up a better person.”

It felt like a breath of fresh air.

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Last weekend, I was wearing my favourite novelty tee – a Taylor Swift shirt parodying the cover of Sonic Youth’s 1990 album, Goo, combining my love for both artists.

The shirt always sparks conversations, and I was discussing it with a passer-by wearing a similar shirt with a picture of Sonic the Hedgehog. “Mine’s Taylor Swift,” I said.

At this, a middle-aged man walking past stopped and said, “ACTUALLY, it’s Sonic Youth.”

I laughed before I realised he wasn’t kidding.

“I know,” I replied. “Oh, I’m sure you do,” he drawled condescendingly.

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We’d chat all day online while we both worked, then as soon as we got home we’d cook together, marathon TV shows, have mates over. We went on adventures every weekend, cycling to the pub and passing out drunk in each other’s beds at the end of the night. Living with one of my best friends was so much fun.

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A few weeks ago, my mother called me to tell me that my Bà Nội – paternal grandmother – had stopped eating and drinking. There wasn’t much doctors could do.

Several days later, I woke up to a text: “Bà passed away last night at 2:30am.”

Bà Nội was my last living grandparent. She was 94 when she died after battling severe dementia for years. I hadn’t seen her since 2012 – she lived in Canada, 16,000km away. I’d guess I met her less than 10 times in my life. Three years old, then four, then eight, 11, 13, 16, 21, 23. I was always changing, a different version of myself each time, but she stayed the same – gentle, soft, only ever half-smiling.

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Last week, British band Coldplay courted controversy with the video for their latest single, ‘Hymn for the Weekend’. Shot in India, the clip shows the band performing on the streets, backdropped by dancing Indians, the colourful paint splashes of Holi, religious iconography and a beautiful Bollywood actress, played by the very un-Indian Beyoncé.

Immediately they were slammed with accusations of cultural appropriation, and rightfully so – exoticising a nation in a gross Eat Pray Love-esque, white-people-finding-themselves-in-brown-people-places move, is a tasteless, lazy and one-dimensional representation of a diverse culture.

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For as long as I can remember, I have had issues with my body.

As a chubby child, I hid in the bathroom with snacks, eating them secretly so no one could reprimand me.

As a teenager, I grew beyond what I was raised to see as ideal. Though I recognise my privilege in never being what is generally considered “fat”, to my family I was – the Perfect Vietnamese Girl is slim and flat chested, wearing the traditional áo dài with grace. My breasts grew large and low as soon as puberty hit, and I was born with a butt that wouldn’t quit and certainly didn’t fit into restrictive traditional clothing. Physically, I was “flawed” – and I was reminded constantly.

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At nine years old, I had it bad for a boy in my class. He’d moved to Sydney from a northern surfer town, evident by his tanned, freckled skin, and his fringe swooped over his dreamy brown eyes. In a bid to win him over, I befriended his sister, who had a name I loved – Ebony. I decided it was my new middle name, and I wrote it all over my belongings.

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