The Jacket I Wear

The salt splatters onto my lips as the waves push against the boat’s silhouette. I wore a bright coloured jacket today just to impress my child self. When I was a kid, I would sport a bright red adidas shirt that would get squid guts on it from baiting. I called it my fishing shirt. It was also the only shirt I wore. I really loved the idea of having a hobby that no one could tell me I was bad at. My hometown, Emerald, only had a dam as brown as the grass. There’s no fish to catch in dams, only crabs and anyone can cast out a net. I could wear this shirt as a gesture that I’m doing things, doing them well. You just couldn’t see it.

 On the holidays we would drive far out to the Cold Coast. My entertainment was a pack of Hubba Bubba gum and a window. The landscape was simply dirt, sometimes trees and every few hours, a speckle of a town. Over time these towns would become my highlight. As we passed through, I’d carefully take note of the slight differences they had to my own home. Some had bigger playgrounds with green grass and ducks. Some towns had gendered their public toilets in a ‘witty’ way. My favourite was getting closer to bigger fuel stations. I would watch truck drivers gaze into the hot box of fried food, the golden booth of delights. Their faces became peachy as they leant over the warm glow, ordering with so much thought. I’d sit far away from them, watching them gnaw through a Chiko Roll and slowly ease their bodies into recline. As they stared out into their office, I stared out to them. It was a breakfast was so foreign to mine.

 My abnormal amount of curiosity with them shifted, as I started to understand the words that some of them would speak. I would still watch them from a distance but for different reasons. One road trip back home, I was sixteen with four wisdom teeth out and a home to get back to that was flooded. I had just awoken in hospital when my dad, understandably fragile, proposed that we’d begin the two-day drive back. I nodded as I reached for my cup of water, aiming for a mouth I no longer felt. I continued to hold eye contact as I drooled. The nurse seemed entertained by his strategy and kindly suggested that he’d at least give me the night. I was quietly relieved that staying in the city one more night was not a bratty choice but recommended. To be looked after as a stranger by a stranger felt refreshing.

 59 Shakespeare St, Alpha. We were almost home. I was lightly touching my swollen face as I got out of the car. I soon craved the way I once saw these towns. How I would romanticize pure bleakness. I began to wonder what snacks they had inside and if the love of my life was waiting for me in the steel bathrooms. As I drifted, a truck driver was walking out of the store. I started to feel bad that I grew so critical of these men. Before I could dive deeper into this guilt, I noticed he was charging towards me. “I don’t think he can see me.” I immediately shut down the thought, there’s no way. His literal job is to use his eyes. I look at him to see if maybe he’s high or secretly a robot malfunctioning. He reaches the closest he could get to me before passing when, he burps right into my face.

 Confusion somehow moved into shame as I melted into this confirmed invisibility. It was a welcoming of home I forgot. I knew that in retelling this encounter to someone, it would only bring more embarrassment on my behalf. I knew that I was now in a place where tomorrow I might be yelled at for my weight. That Friday night might be an awkward encounter about my sexuality. Where I dance with homophobia like an old friend, because they are. The feelings I hold are so foreign to the people around me that they almost don’t exist. Clearly, I don’t.

 There is an extreme amount of sadness when you realize the child in you had idealized your surroundings, simply so that you would survive. It breaks my heart knowing my younger self needed to make their own hope. Now. When I sit out in the ocean. I can feel my child-self sitting with me.

She’s in awe of where she can go.