The Latte Years by Philippa Moore

Author:Philippa Moore
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Schwartz Publishing Pty. Ltd

The travel bug

‘If adventures do not befall a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad.’

– JANE AUSTEN, NORTHANGER ABBEY

I started seeing Jules every Monday evening, when I would shed a few tears over situations where I had felt rejected or vulnerable, and we would gently unravel my feelings to get to their roots. It became clear that my inability to voice hurt, disappointment or anger with anyone for fear of losing them was slowly poisoning me. After everything that had happened with Glenn, I still felt unable to put myself and my needs first.

I came away from every session feeling enlightened but still incredibly low. There was always something to work on, more feelings to excavate and explore. In the meantime, I enjoyed going out on the town with my girlfriends, and revelled in whatever attention I got, but then felt deflated if I went home alone, or without a few phone numbers at the very least. I didn’t know how to make myself feel better so I gave in to this needy behaviour, wanting other people to validate me, and yet remained puzzled as to why it turned any decent man off.

Another thing that counselling had uncovered for me was that I was tired of feeling afraid all the time. It had kept me stuck – to places, to relationships, in bad patterns. I talked to Jules about how I longed to go travelling, to live and work in London, but I was scared and didn’t know why when this was all I had ever really wanted to do. I couldn’t remember a time when I didn’t want to travel. I think it coincided with my discovery of books at about age four, when my father would take me and my sisters on weekly excursions to the state library and I would pore over picture books about life in other countries. There was a series I particularly loved that followed a schoolboy or schoolgirl around, capturing their daily life in words and pictures. I was fascinated by these books about China and Japan, full of photos of schoolgirls barely older than I was, their classrooms with blackboards on which unfamiliar characters were written neatly in chalk, parks they played in, which had different flowers and trees, and their meals of exotic noodles, not the meat and three veg I was accustomed to. While my life in Tasmania was comforting, familiar and had ample to occupy me as a child, I yearned for adventures, to see all the things I’d only ever read about or seen in movies or on television. I had planned to travel while I was at university or once I completed my degree, like so many other people my age were doing. But all those plans went out the window once I met Glenn. I became very afraid of my big dream. Afraid of travelling alone, afraid of missing him if I left him behind, afraid that he’d leave me if I went without him.

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