People I don’t see anymore. Some were clients. Some were friends. Some were lovers. Some were all three at different times, or none of those words quite fit what we were to each other. Some are gone now. Moved cities, moved on, faded into distance. No anger. No explanation. Time did what it does. But they’re still with me. 

 

In this work, I do the touching. That’s how it’s meant to go. Hands, skin, company, mine to give, theirs to receive. The lines are clear. But sometimes, without asking, without putting on a show, they touch me back. Not physically. That part’s expected, negotiated, part of the session. I mean the other kind. The kind that stays.

 

Over the years, I’ve received gifts from clients. Flowers. Chocolates. A bottle of something thoughtful. Food they bring, home cooked, their favourite takeaway, the snacks they’re convinced I’d enjoy. They’re kind gestures, and I do appreciate them. They tell me someone wanted to bring something extra into the room.

 

But the things that truly stayed with me were rarely the obvious gifts. They were the stranger touches. The ones that didn’t need to happen.

 

One came back from a stint in Japan with a good luck charm, the kind sold in airport gift shops by the dozen. “This is for you,” he said, like it mattered. It wasn’t precious, not obviously. But the fact that he thought of me somewhere between Nagano and Narita, that was. Along with the envelope of notes, one of his hand drawn cartoons, as there always is. No explanation. Just: I see you as someone who’d appreciate this. He was right.

 

Another mentioned, in passing, a woman he used to spend time with had managed to buy herself a terrace house in Sydney. He didn’t dress it up as advice. He didn’t sell it as a lesson. Just something he dropped and moved on from. But I heard it. And I kept it. What he handed me wasn’t information. It made it feel possible. After that, I worked harder, watched the market, saved, fought my way through the bank loan process. Three years later, I bought my first home.

 

And it wasn’t the only time. Over the years, there have been other passing comments like that. Not instructions. Not pep talks. Just one clean sentence that sharpened the way I think. A remark about rebuilding after loss and dealing with grief.  A line about patience. A quiet truth about pride, and when to put it down. Things said casually, forgettable to the person saying them, but they stuck in me like a pin in a map. They made the future feel practical instead of imaginary.

 

One arrived on his last day in Australia. Farm work on a temporary visa, flying back to his home country in 6 hours. It was storming. Heavy rain, the kind that makes you reconsider everything. He took the train from the country, arrived in the city with a 30kg suitcase, and walked 1.5km of steep uphill from Central Station to my place. Showed up soaked through, suitcase wheels caked in mud and leaves, exactly on time.

 

He could have cancelled. He didn’t. He had a flight in hours, the weather was vicious, and he still showed up like this mattered.

 

Smiled. Said nothing about the walk, the rain, the effort.

 

Weeks later, from Taiwan, he told me the truth. He couldn’t afford a taxi. The fare would’ve eaten what he’d set aside for me. So he walked. Chose to walk 1.5km in a storm, carrying everything he owned, rather than cancel or ask for a discount or admit he was struggling. Prioritised seeing me over comfort. Over money. Over pride.

 

That’s not touching. I don’t have a word for it.

 

Over the years, there have been other gestures like that. Quiet ones. Cards, mostly. Christmas cards. Birthday cards. Old fashioned, almost out of place in a world that barely posts letters anymore. No performance in them. Just handwriting, a few simple lines, the quiet insistence that I was still a person in someone’s calendar.

 

Later, during the pandemic, when the work stopped and the city went silent, I watched my bank account drain. Didn’t reach out. Didn’t ask. Just tried to stretch the numbers.

 

Then the transfers started. No name. No message. Money appearing where it shouldn’t be. Then cash started showing up in my letterbox. Unmarked envelopes. No notes. Bills folded inside.

 

Someone, several someones, knew I couldn’t work and sent money anyway. Not for a session. Not for anything. Because I existed and they didn’t want me to drown.

Never found out who. They never told me. Didn’t want credit or gratitude or acknowledgement. Just wanted me to survive.

 

Not everything they offered came wrapped. One client said something once, years ago, that I still carry. We were talking about work, his, mine, how we both ended up here. He said: “The people who judge you for this have never had to choose between dignity and rent. You’re just honest about the tradeoff.” Not advice. Not comfort. Just an observation, said casually, the way people state something obvious that somehow isn’t obvious until someone says it out loud.

 

But I carried it. Still do. Not sentimentally. Practically. When I doubt myself, when the noise gets loud, I remember: I’m honest about the tradeoff. He probably doesn’t remember saying it. We don’t see each other anymore. But that sentence stayed longer than he did.

 

Then there’s the other archive. The one outside this work. People I once danced through nights with. Friends from a different country, a different name, a different version of me entirely. Some I haven’t spoken to in over a decade. Lost touch not through drama. Through evolution. They became someone else. So did I. I carry them too. Not as heartbreak. Not as baggage. In how I move through rooms now. How I let people in. How I let them leave.