Leaving

So, this was the pure-yet-passionate girl that I was when I left town in the early 90s as a 16-year-old with my 18-year-old sister to head to Sydney to go to beauty school.  I was a girl who: had never been on an official date or had an official boyfriend; worked full-time in a bookshop (I was a bit of a bookworm by then); wore long, flowing gypsy-style skirts and dresses, with moonstone and rose quartz drop earrings and necklaces; was a vegetarian (we’d also had cows as pets on our farm – another story entirely); and a little entrepreneur who sold all of my unneeded old toys and other personal items alongside my sister at a couple of local beachside markets to help fund our trip, accommodation and course. Although we had lived in quite a few places growing up, including overseas for a couple of years, I had never lived in a city as big as Sydney. I was terrified and excited to be doing it alone with B. For anyone who would blame my parents for what was to come, I don’t think they could have stopped us from moving to Sydney if they had tried. While at that age I was still very emotionally immature, I only realised that through maturation and hindsight. In reality, I was only just beginning to grow into myself as a girl-turning-into-a-woman and experimenting with my identity. I looked at life through wide eyes and rose-coloured glasses; everything was an adventure. Nevertheless, although I knew that I was young, I still felt capable of making adult decisions. What I didn’t analyse or predict though were the repercussions and possible lifetime consequences of my decisions. 

We travelled to Sydney by bus as neither of us could drive and we were dropped off right in the middle of the city in the late afternoon/early evening.  Neither of us had any idea where we were, but we had booked to stay at a lodge in Glebe where they had either twin rooms or multiple-bed shared unisex rooms. We caught a cab, which seemed to take forever to get there considering the short distance that I later realised we had to travel. I would not be surprised if we had been taken advantage of though, considering how utterly lost and out of place we must have looked. From certain points of Glebe, I could see the city skyline and it looked menacing, looming and intimidating to my unsophisticated eyes. I wasn’t used to the continuous noise of the city; it felt cold and seemed dirty in comparison to my beachside town. It took us a day or two before we actually had the courage to venture into the city again from Glebe. When we finally did have the courage to explore in the days leading up to the beginning of our course, the voice of my grandmother resonated in my mind – telling me to hold my handbag close to my body so that it wouldn’t be stolen.We grew to love the inner city fast and lost all fear. We explored almost every main street and major shopping area from the city to Paddington/Woollahra. This included the Queen Victoria Building and the underground tunnels that were filled with shops from the train station to Myer (where we bought our regular hot pumpkin soup and roll); the Pitt Street Mall; the Strand Arcade (where we bought the best date scones); the Centrepoint Tower; David Jones (I loved the international designer labels on Level 7 and the beauty section on the ground floor), which was the first place I saw women shopping dressed head to toe in Chanel and other haute couture; Hyde Park; Oxford Street. To me, it was all just breathtaking. For the first time in my life, I felt like I was living in a movie. This was not necessarily a good thing. Months before we left for Sydney my sister and I had seen the movie, Pretty Woman, at the cinema. I didn’t realise the impact this would have on me at the time, but I certainly did within the next year. While I didn’t try to be accepted by peers or follow their behaviours, I was heavily influenced at that age by fashion magazines and movies, and the images and lifestyles that they portrayed. I still find it astounding when media or research suggests that these aren’t great influencers of adolescents/teenagers. Perhaps there is a certain type of personality or character that is more highly influenced by marketing; more easily moulded by suggestion – but if there is – I was certainly, and regrettably, one of them.