40 years
Monday 10th October 1983 at 7am, I got on an Ansett flight to Kalgoorlie with 3 suitcases. Alone. Age 17. Not knowing what I was going to, but knowing I didn't couldn't stay where I was. One parent was trying to instill fear of the flight; her fear of being alone, of having a child fail at life, of where the child would be. She even had a fear of my address being in a street called Nemesis. One parent told me I would always be ok, to go and live my life, and that I was loved. One grandma smiling silently and nodding as I was now in a career path she had followed over 60 years earlier in the Post Office. I never rose to the dizzying heights of Post Mistress that she reached, but she was proud. My first plane flight. My first room in a house not with my parents. My first experience living with others. So many firsts all hit in that one day and the weeks ahead. I tried to work out who I was as all I had done was care for others from the youngest age, and to people please to keep