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Marie Claire Australia

SHOUT OUT to my EX

I always knew I was never going to get married. When I was young, it was a wilful ambition – I was watching She-Ra and Punky Brewster and the idea of being an independent rebel was appealing. While my mother had been told she could be a teacher or a nurse, I was told I could be anything. I looked around and saw Sally Ride going to space, Margaret Thatcher being an outright boss and Oprah talking about being sexually abused on her own show. It was legit: we were the luckiest generation that ever lived and I wasn’t going to waste the opportunity. Then I hit puberty; I was a late bloomer and didn’t get my first period until I was just shy of 17. All of a sudden, hormones kicked in and I was as into boys as Snoop Dogg is apparently into Martha Stewart.

Still, after a sexually eventful few years the status quo returned to regularly scheduled programming and I spent over a decade flying solo. Some of that time deliberately so, sometimes less so. Occasionally I’d be giddy with a new romance, but a lot of the time I could feel myself growing bitter at what felt

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