On my 42nd birthday, I found myself thinking about three fucking bowls. CONTENT NOTE: Relationships, emotional manipulation, sex, loss and rebuilding. Not metaphorical bowls. Actual bowls. Three matching bowls. Three matching placemats. Fetch gave them to me for my 41st birthday, September last year.
There were three of us living together, and our existing cereal bowls weren’t big enough for the dinners I used to make that we would all eat together. So he bought three. For my Birthday Present. One for my husband, Big D. One for me. And one for him. 3 New Placemats to go with them too.
Except he’d already signed the lease on another house. He already hated me. He already knew he was leaving. I didn’t. Thats Sadistic as Fuck. TWO WEEKS EARLIER We’d gone away together. Big D and I have always done little trips around September for our wedding anniversary and my birthday, and this time Fetch came too.
We stayed in a tiny home buried in the bush with an outdoor bath. It should have been fucking idyllic. And parts of it were. Big D and I hooked up while Fetch watched. He didn’t join us. At the time, I didn’t understand why. So we basically put on a show for him and carried on.
I can look back now and invent explanations for what was going through his head, but I don’t actually know. That’s something I’ve learned this year too. Stop writing other people’s internal dialogue for them. Watch what they actually do. Because while I was lying there thinking we were three people sharing a weekend away together, one of those people knew something I didn’t.
He knew he was leaving. Then we came home. Two weeks later, he gave me three fucking bowls. OCTOBER 3RD Ten days after my birthday, Fetch moved out. And I thought it was my fault. Actually, that’s too gentle. I thought I was a piece of shit. I thought I’d fucked everything up.
I thought there was something fundamentally wrong with me. So while he packed his shit and left my house, I did what the version of me back then was exceptionally good at doing. I helped. I even let him use my fucking van to move his stuff. For free. Because even while somebody was walking out of my life, I was still trying to make their life easier.
That’s almost funny to me now. Almost. ONE YEAR LATER Here’s what I couldn’t see on 3 October 2025: Nothing I did ever felt like enough. What I gave wasn’t enough. What I said wasn’t enough. Who I was wasn’t enough. So I kept giving. And giving.
And adjusting. And questioning myself. Until eventually I couldn’t tell whether I was responding to what was actually happening or to the version of reality I’d been convinced was true. A year later, I see that relationship very differently. I felt used. And that’s uncomfortable as fuck to admit because admitting you were used requires admitting all the moments you participated in your own abandonment.
The moments your stomach said something isn’t right and your brain replied: Don’t be dramatic. The moments your intuition whispered something and you explained it away. The moments you knew. I fucking knew things. I just didn’t trust myself enough to believe them.
Your intuition doesn’t always scream. Sometimes it whispers once and waits a fucking year for you to admit you heard it. LET THEM There’s another thing I’ve learned. You have to let people be who they are. Not who you think they could be. Not who they tell you they’re going to become.
Not the person you can imagine underneath everything. Just… Let them. And then let me be me. That’s the bit I was missing. Because I’ve spent a lot of my life looking outside myself for confirmation that what I thought, felt or wanted was acceptable. I’m not interested in doing that anymore.
And this is where I’m going to get a little woo-woo, pups. Because I believe you create your own reality. Not in the Instagram-quote sense where you stick something on a vision board and wait for the universe to Amazon Prime it to your fucking doorstep. I mean something deeper.
What you believe about yourself changes what you tolerate. What you believe changes what you notice. It changes what you pursue. It changes what you walk away from. It changes what you think you’re allowed to have. And eventually those beliefs start building the world around you.
That’s manifestation to me. And I’ve just watched it happen. THE MICROPHONE Only 2 weeks ago, I wrote down that I wanted to be interviewed on a podcast or radio show. And just like that, I was sitting behind a microphone. In my mask. As Woulf. Talking publicly about male sex workers, sexual violence, stigma and the things men aren’t supposed to talk about.
Six months earlier, Woulf didn’t even exist. And there I fucking was. The interview airs on 7 October 2026 . That date fucks with me. Because on 7 October 2025 , four days after Fetch moved out, a real-estate agent came through my home. The house had to be sold. Everything I thought my life was supposed to look like was disappearing.
One year later, on 7 October 2026, my voice is going out over the radio. Masked. Visible. Talking about something I actually give a fuck about. That’s the kind of synchronicity I pay attention to now. Not because I need everybody else to believe the universe arranged it.
Because I do. I don’t think the lesson of the last year is that I should trust nobody. It’s almost the opposite. I should trust myself. Judge my life by my experience of it. Own my shadow instead of hiding it. Say the uncomfortable thing. Wear the fucking mask.
Write the story. Get behind the microphone. Let people misunderstand me. Let them leave. Let them think whatever the fuck they want. And let me be me. Because the more of my shadow I’ve exposed and actually owned, the more life seems to have opened up. Maybe you call that manifestation.
Maybe you call it psychology. Maybe you call it God. Maybe you call it the universe. I don’t particularly care what you call it. I know what it feels like. Fuck it. Make the thing. Say the thing. Become the thing. Create your own fucking reality. There is, however, one small administrative problem with my magnificent spiritual awakening.
The bowls. They’re still here. Packed away somewhere amongst what remains of my old life in the attic at my parents’ house. Three matching bowls. Three matching placemats. I haven’t decided what I’m going to do with them yet. Maybe I’ll use them.
Maybe I’ll smash them. Maybe I’ll sacrifice the fucking things. I’ll work it out. After all… I’ve only had a year. Arwooooo 🐺