Extract: Turns Out, I'm Fine by Judith Lucy

Introduction

Towards the end of 2020, an old friend and I went for a walk and reflected on what a motherfucker of a year it had been. Then he turned to me and said, ‘You seem to be doing really well, though. In fact, you seem tickety-boo.’ I replied, ‘Well, I’m fifty-two, it’s about time.’ 

It had certainly taken a while to get to this point, as the years leading up to it had involved the death of my brother, Niall; the worst break-up I’d ever had, which led to a complete exis¬tential meltdown; the onset of menopause; a career slump; a financial disaster; and, just to keep things interesting, trying to find my birth father. On top of all that, I’d had a number of revelations about how I’d been living my life and they weren’t good. But I’m good now and that’s what this book is about: how I got here. It’s about coming out the other side of grief, anger and confusion while retaining most of my marbles.

I didn’t know for quite a while that Turns Out, I’m Fine was going to be about me turning out to be fine because I was too consumed with the inciting incident. This is the term screenwriters use for the event that sets the story in motion. You certainly notice when there isn’t one, as I did when I sat through the 1974 Jack Thompson vehicle Petersen recently. The writer, David Williamson, just didn’t seem that fussed about a plot or tension, although we did see a great deal of a young Jackie Weaver’s bush. The incident is usually something pretty dramatic, like a death or a secret being suddenly exposed. In my case, it was a particularly awful end to a relationship.
 
I didn’t know it was a watershed moment at the time. Don’t get me wrong, it was the very worst bust-up I’d ever had, and I’ve had some doozies! (Such as the guy who said he’d left his wife for me and hadn’t. Although, with my practical hat on, that really did save everyone a lot of time and effort. No one likes moving, do they?) 

Time certainly didn’t fly after that watershed break-up, it limped along, making it clear that things were going to get worse before they got better. Not long after it happened a friend said, ‘Jude, you haven’t even sorted this into the six or seven piles of shit that this is.’ My therapist, Glenda, helpfully added, ‘Oh Judith, you haven’t even smelt the shit yet.’ That was exactly how I felt at that moment: there was a long road ahead and as I walked it, the smell of shit was only going to get stronger.

Six months after the split (as in, can I make like a banana and leave the planet?), when I was obviously completely over it and considering getting an audition tape together to submit for Love Island, I went out to lunch with friends and for the first time drank in a way that wasn’t about diversion, as I had been doing, but annihilation. (With the exception of the first few weeks, I’d generally been trying to take care of myself by not getting hammered and some¬times doing three to four hours of yoga a day. Although, that often amounted to me just lying on the floor crying – the only thing that made it ‘yoga’ was the fact that I was wearing Lululemon pants). Ten hours later, I found myself trying to pick up a gentleman I’d once been very keen on. He was in a relationship. I don’t remember any of it but when I checked my phone the following morning, my midnight apology text made it very clear what I’d attempted to do.

I was mortified – a lovely garnish for my cocktail of nausea, self-loathing and anxiety. And there was one more ingredient: I was also angry. The gentleman in question was an old friend who knew what I’d been through, and we’d both been . . . messy in front of each other over the years. If it had been him who’d had to send me the apology, I would have told him not to worry about it – but mine was met with silence. I lay in my bed with my hangover, staring at the ceiling, examining our supposed friendship. 

It didn’t take long before I was thinking of other men in my life and how they’d behaved towards me, and before I knew it I was looking back over my entire history with the opposite sex. I really do mean all of it. I thought about Dad, my brother Niall, boys I’d known as a teenager and at university, men I’d had crushes on, guys I’d worked with and/or fucked in the comedy scene, my relationships, ALL OF IT, and, SPOILER ALERT, it was terrible! It was a miracle I didn’t spend the rest of the day with my head in the toilet bowl, not just because of the booze, but because of the crushing realisation that many, many men had made it pretty clear, one way or another, that they hadn’t been interested in buying whatever it was I was selling. 

How had I not seen this before? If I’d had the same results while pursuing a hobby that I’d had with men, a friend would have taken me in hand by now. They would have sat me down and said, ‘Jude, all the time, the effort, the heartache . . . maybe you’re just not cut out for glassblow¬ing?’ I would’ve argued with them: ‘What do you mean? I love glassblowing. My whole life I’ve believed that the one thing that will make me truly happy is glassblowing, and society told me this as well. Are you trying to tell me that ALL THIS TIME I SHOULD HAVE BEEN LEATHER CARVING?’ 

That friend would’ve been right, though; the overwhelm¬ing evidence suggested that I should just forget about dating and embrace a single life with gusto. 

It also occurred to me, as I lay in my bed wondering if I was going to heave, that exploring my entire history with the male gender might be a rich stand-up topic. Excessive alcohol consumption really is my muse. While the thought of doing comedy about it all made me feel even sicker, I’d never felt quite so compelled to go through with something. That feeling outlasted the hangover. A couple of weeks later, I bought the Spirax notebook factory and wrote down every single bad experience I’d ever had with a man. 

The premise of the show was to get the audience to decide, after hearing my recollections, whether I should ever date again. It was called Judith Lucy versus Men, and as I suspected, it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. But it was also the beginning of turning my life around.

The most difficult aspect was trying to figure out what part I’d played in it all. How much of this was on me? I’d made terrible choices and I’d ignored warning signs – did I actually think that I deserved no better? I have a good career and great friends; it’s not like I’d been self-destructive in every part of my life, but the truth was that when it came to men, I was apparently willing to put up with a lot of crap. I’ve never understood gambling – we all know that the house ultimately wins – and I’d always thought, Why put yourself through that? But it seemed I was more than willing to risk my heart and self-worth, in a way that I would never have risked my bank balance. (Although my wallet did often take a hit as well; in fact, if you’re a financial adviser, I’d probably stop reading now because you’ll just find my monetary history too upsetting.) 

Before the relationship that resulted in my wanting to leave planet Earth, I’d been single for six years and had been wondering if the jig might be up for me on that score, and I’d pretty much come to terms with that. Or so I believed – yet here I was, despairing about being alone again. But this time I wasn’t thirty-nine, I was forty-nine, and staring down the barrel of being single FOREVER. 

I’m a smart, independent feminist, how had all this happened? How had I come to the point where my whole world seemed to have come undone? This was hardly my first broken heart but it was overwhelming in a way I hadn’t encountered before, because I was having to concede that, deep down, I’d always been waiting for a man to ‘complete me’. So what now – did I have a hole? If a penis wasn’t going to fill it, what was? Sweet Jesus, was I going to start garden¬ing? Was my emergency contact from here on in going to be another spinster? Was I going to join a book club, take up bridge and start volunteering somewhere? WAS I GOING TO BUY A CAT? 

I couldn’t have been more freaked out, but thank god I was so royally fucked over because it completely illumi¬nated what I had to change about my life. I actually mean that. The relationship that I thought was the best thing that had ever happened to me turned into the worst thing, which wound up turning into the best thing again, because without it I wouldn’t be where I am now and I like where I am. 

Annoyingly, I’ve had to revisit ground I thought I’d well and truly covered, because I finally understood what the fundamental question was: why had I thought a relation¬ship was the answer to everything? Was it my childhood that had led me to think this? Why had I been drawn to so many bell ends? And what was I going to do now? If I figured out what had gone wrong, what might my life look like if it was going right? This may sound crazy but I’d never done that before: considered what I wanted from my life without anyone else in it. I’ve learned a lot. But, also, annoyingly, I don’t think the learning ever ends. I don’t think you ever get to a place where you dust yourself off and say, Right, thanks universe, no more lessons for me! I’ve totally got this and now I’m going to open a bowling alley! 

It will all fall apart again because that seems to be what happens, just when you think you’ve worked it all out. But right now? Well, right now, I’m tickety-boo.