Over the years, I’ve given and received my share of broken hearts.

But in 2017 I broke my dick for the first time so that made the year one to remember.

(A few other things happened too, but they’ve all been fairly well documented on my Instagram so feel free to go there if you want to keep a wholesome image of me intact.)

It took a few minutes of swearing and agony but I managed to stem the flow of blood, destroying bed sheets and a bath towel in the process, long enough to placate the girl I was with.

After all, she was at least partly to blame for the ordeal.

She was a ghostly shade of pale, in shock from having so violently learnt that the penis was something that could be broken in such a fashion.

Fortunately for me, a couple friends had been through the same experience in recent years and had been more than happy to relive the story for anyone in the bar who would listen.

I wasn’t sure of the mechanics of how they had done it, but when I did it myself a few missing pieces quickly snapped into place. Or out.

So I had snapped my banjo string; which is a hilarious euphemism for a horrible experience.

After a bit of googling, I found out that in medical circles the banjo string is known as a frenulum, and armed with that information I hobbled into the doctor’s office with an icepack on my crotch.

What I didn’t find out is that ‘frenulum’ is a common term for various pieces of tissue in the human body, such as the one that holds your tongue to the floor of your mouth.

This led to a considerable amount of confusion as I told the doctor I had broken my frenulum, he asked to see it, I took off my pants and he just stared at me for a moment.  

“Oh! That frenulum? Shit. I thought you meant the one in your mouth!” Dr Deliverance said.

“I told you I broke it during sex?” I laughed, standing there half naked.

“Yeah I thought you meant during oral sex,” he responded, leaving me to question whether he thought I was gay or if I have been performing oral sex on girls very wrong for a long time.

And so I learnt there is a quiet affirmation in going through an experience which is not at all life threatening, but which can still be uniquely tragic.

Out of the woodwork came a host of blokes who would nod and grimace in a knowing fashion when I told the story, laughing at all the right moments both in solidarity and sympathy.

Not unlike a broken rib, to heal the banjo string little can be done save to rest a few weeks and try your best to not become aroused.

Oh, how cruel the games of fate.

But, as the last three years of my life had essentially dedicated to the pursuit of pleasure, it was somewhat fitting that towards the end of my time living in Canada my ability to indulge in such earthly delights would be so violently denied.

And maybe it was fitting, as a fear of sex allowed me to focus on properly saying farewell to the excellent town of Revelstoke and its population of kind hearted thrill seekers.

Oh, I reached a level of piety Christians can only dream of. Praise be.

Theology aside, leaving Revelstoke to return to Noosa is a continuation of unintentional three year cycles I have been following since I started at the University of the Sunshine Coast in 2008.

I left there for Western Australia with a bachelor’s degree in hand in 2011 to conquer the illustrious world of regional newspapers, and I left there in 2014 to travel the Americas and find myself a home in the mountains.

Now my three years in North America has passed and my wanderlust has, curiously, led me home.

Home to family and old friends.

Home to the setting of my childhood, of where I began to form a worldview.

Home to where I learned to ride a bike and, more importantly, fall off a bike.

Home to a tourist town I have had people the world over congratulate me on being from like I had a choice.

Home to afternoon thunderstorms and humidity that sticks your skin to timber and leather furniture and your ideas of how good you’re going to look today.

Home to all that Aussie sentiment John Williamson sung about and which I don’t want to try to replicate.

Ah, sentiment.

How many shitty pensive social media posts you’ve been responsible for.  

With its lingering sides of regret served up as tantalising amuse bouches from which to ignite my memories and inhabit my soul.

Oh, for fuck’s sake, just give me a bottle of Margaret River cab sauv I need something to wash this down with.

Sentiment is to regret as a trigger is to a bullet; one inevitably leads to the other.

Unless you’re firing blanks.

Which I could be since, you know, I broke my dick.

Here’s cheers to you, 2018!