It was 10 months before I realized the man I was dating wasn’t who he appeared to be. — My greatest fear is not that I won’t see him again, but that I will. When I imagine an accidental encounter with him, my stomach tightens into a ball of acid, hot with negative anticipation. My heart is in my throat, beating like the wings of a tiny caged bird…

My truth is that being a mother has been heart-breaking To my darling daughter, You came into the world at 2:07 am on March 24, 1993. It was the happiest, most joyous, wonderful day of my life. When you were born, I held you in my arms — after a…

I knew repatriating would be hard, but I didn’t realise how challenging it would be — I ’m missing Hanoi like crazy. So much so, that when I see pictures, I get quite teary. I have flashbacks where I see myself walking to the supermarket, cycling to Keep Hanoi Clean, strolling to my Vietnamese lessons at Oriberry, chilling in my apartment and waiting for my Vietnammm…

The Prime Minister’s speech brought back memories of sexual assault I’d rather forget — Content warning: this essay talks about sexual assault. Mine. If you need help, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline. I’ve not thought about it often and when I do, it’s not for long, because I’ve buried it. And I want it to stay buried. But now, at this time in…

Shopping for a Mother of the Bride dress is a fraught exercise — Buying a new frock is not an activity I relish. I wish it were. I want to be one of those women who catches a glimpse of a something shiny on a rack on the far side of the store, tries it on, loves it and whips out her credit…

My relationship with my daughter will always be complicated — Being a mother was something I always wanted, despite (or because of?) my own childhood. Let’s just say my own mother was less than nurturing and had a violent, nasty streak that meant my psyche was hammered out on an anvil of fear, forged in survival. I knew I could…

An open letter to the Premier, Steven Marshall South Australia has been in lockdown since 18 November, 2020 apparently because someone, somewhere lied to the contract tracers. I won’t go into how casualisation of the workforce or unwieldy visa conditions may or may not have contributed to the person lying, but suffice it to say that hearing the…

In which people tell me I’m wrong when I write about myself A while back, I posted the following essay to a Facebook group of women writers that I’m in. In a nutshell, this essay is about me — while I was living in Hanoi — dating a much younger…