In 2003 I was 17 years old and working in a 24-hour restaurant in the middle of Brisbane. I was a first-year art student who took herself far too seriously to become embroiled in a passionate love affair with a 19-year-old bartender with gelled-back hair who wore pointy white leather shoes and a big gold chain over his muscle tee. Or so I thought.
I had notions of becoming some incredible artist in a creative power couple and Ivor completely slid beneath my defences because that wasn’t what he was about at all. Instead, he had this amazing capacity to make me laugh, we could talk for hours with no awkward pauses and I never felt as if I had to show up as someone cool, edgy or artistic. I could be exactly as who I was – which at that point was probably a pretty superficial, horrible person – but he seemed to adore me regardless. Looking back, it allowed me to put down the facade and relax into who I was.
