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These are the days of our lives. We are the bold and the beautiful, the young and the restless. We are all having sex in the city, want an entourage and usually end up sitting on a one tree hill. I call the Gold Coast The G.C and the connotation is no accident. If you are in your twenties in ’08, your life is playing out like a soap opera. If it isn’t…well…you are boring and that is why we are not friends.

I often think, if my so called life was on DVD, where in Blockbuster would it be situated? Comedy? Drama? Tragedy? Japanese animation?

Right now, my DVD would be nestled in the coming-of-age section. A quirky little comedy/drama that could be watched on the same night as “Stranger Than Fiction”, “Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind” or “Die Hard”. Because you know, I am my own action hero.

My screenplay currently begins with a break-up. Because this is the story I want to tell: How brilliant a single person can feel when they have had an individual self-realization.

FADE IN.

The Johnny (The Teen, The Stick, The Asshole, The Whatever-You-Want-To-Call-Him) is no more. He isn’t, like, dead, but he is dead to me. After months of deliberation, procrastination and, honestly, self-loathing, it has taken just one day for me to finally have an epiphany that has enabled me to realize my guilt and essentially start liking myself again in the process.

The Johnny, however, did not fare well in my self-discovery and so I have farewelled him.

Like how Aaron Spelling wrote Brenda Walsh off “90210″, The Johnny’s contract has not been renewed in the episodic version of my life.

 

EXT. Horrible Bar I Will Never Go To Again – Far Too Late On A Tuesday Night. 

SALL, a blonde and bubbly twenty-three-old is drinking with FRIENDS. Bourbon may or may not be spilt down her shirt.

An INCREDIBLY UNATTRACTIVE GIRL walks up to Sall and interrupts –

                    INCREDIBLY UNATTRACTIVE GIRL

          Stay away from [The Johnny]. He is back

          together with [Crackwhore]. Just leave

          them alone.

Sall doesn’t speak.

END SCENE. (Because Sall wants to drink alone).

 

I was surprised. Only twenty minutes earlier, The Asshole was serenading me with text messages. I questioned The Wanker about this “revelation”. And he yelled at me. He yelled at me for the last time.

I reluctantly came back to the GC from London in October and met The Johnny just days later. He existed in my life as a fantasy and I admit that I used him as a bandaid to cover the pain of being in a location I didn’t want to be in. I had spent months in London with no intimacy so the alternative was attractive for the immediate setting. Right or wrong, I constructed The Johnny to exist for a particular reason, and for three months he played his part perfectly.

Now, however, in what could be called Season Two of The Johnny And I, we have fallen apart – both together and separately. 

My own mental breakdown stemmed from unacknowledged anxiety, my patience disappearing and the absence of initiative. My pain was (and is always) internal and a direct result of my fantasies falling apart. None of this is his fault, I know this. 

The Johnny continued to have a reoccurring role in my drama. However, while he had no problem in helping write the script, he would rarely come to set when I needed him to perform.

He yelled a lot (Best Actor In A Drama Series?). He told me I was/am selfish, stupid, immature, an idiot, insane and uninspiring. And he was right about at least one thing: I was stupid enough to believe him, the end result being that I felt worthless. When someone is telling you that everything you think is wrong, you can begin to question that and very quickly become overwhelmed by the push-pull of different opinions Yours. His. Theirs.

That is why you have supporting players in your life – your friends and family. These people can sometimes just be extras but they will always have a speaking role when you need it the most. My friends all told me to stay away from The Teen. But I didn’t listen. Just like how the Lead Virgin will run back into the house where we all know the serial killer is hiding, I ran back into my fantasy
because the story I was writing at the time needed the drama. And the comedy. Oh, and I was bored.

But now it is time for a spin off. I have looked at my grey anatomy and found black and white. Right and wrong. Good and bad. Call me selfish (or insane, stupid or immature), but it is about Me. 

EXT. Byron Bay Blues Festival – NIGHT.

Sall is making out with THE ADULT, a 29-year-old surfer from America. “Maybe they made them differently in the 70s?” She wonders.

                    THE ADULT

          (In awe0like surprise)

          You’re something else. Where did you

          Come from?

              

                    Sall    

          The stork brought me.

Sall and The Adult go back to kissing. Later, Sall will sleep in his tent [insert pitching a tent joke here] but that is a story for another episode.

END SCENE. (Because Sall needs privacy).

Sometimes we need to listen to the nice people in our lives. It is so easy to believe the bad tings people say – because why say them if they are not true? But, occasionally, people have negative opinions of us as a deflection of their own insecurities. Case in point: The Johnny belittled my experience and knowledge that I have spent years learning and understanding because he has not yet lived it. He can’t possibly have lived it, and that is in no way his fault or a flaw. But we all criticise what we don’t understand.

But, in the cold hard light of day, it is important to remember that it can be just as hard to say something nice.

The cast of characters in my life is going through an arrested development. There are some who will no longer be needed to put on their armour and come and fight with me. There are some who will always have a main part, when I am home and away, and there are others who I would love to offer a bigger role to – but that all comes down to timing.

Plus, for some in particular, I need to be able to offer them a brilliant package deal to join this ensemble and I am still learning and working out elementary details about myself. It would be like asking Brad Pitt to join the cast of Dawson’s Creek. It isn’t going to happen until the material gets a little better. 

 EXT. Starbucks – NIGHT.

Sall is sitting with her THREE FAVORITE PEOPLE. DTM, Jac, Luke and Sall all sip a variety of beverages, offering a taste to each other. They are all a little bit broken. But either from the mass-produced caffeine or each other, they are smiling

Sall sits back and thinks: She has no law and order in her life, no eight simple rules, no love, actually. But what she does know is that, at the end of each episode or era, all you need are good neighbours who become good friends.

FADE OUT.

But not, The End.