2. just a small town girl (living in a lonely world)
anyone else always trying to make themselves a victim?
My childhood wasn’t exactly idyllic. But looking back, it’s so easy to make it so. My parents believed in good old-fashioned freedom, as close as possible to the kind they’d enjoyed as kids. My siblings and I used to wheel out our bikes, pile our library books in the basket with a packet of biscuits, and spend a glorious afternoon in the library and the neighbouring park, returning home as close to 5:00 as we possibly could. All my friends lived in walking or biking distance, and I used to visit them all the time. I never had a phone. I remember the opening of our suburb’s Kmart, and saving all my money to buy highlighters almost as soon as it opened.
Then, high school. I attended a Posh Private School in the City (read: an “indie” Catholic all-girls school in the suburbs but in the city council area), where none of my friends went. All the girls seemed to have the newest iPhone and money to spend on brand-new school uniform items, instead of buying second-hand. They went on trips to Bali and the coast all the damn time. They knew about celebrities and pop music and all these things I didn’t (which had absolutely nothing to do with where I lived and more to do with my parents stricter internet controls).
I’d never been in a place where I had to explain where I lived. And everyone’s reactions, when I eventually managed to explain, were ones of pity. They suggested that it must be so hard for me to travel (an hour-ish, on two trains + walking – but not too bad), that I must live in practically the country (I had a friend call it “rural”), that I really had it bad.
I found myself desperately trying to prove this. My mum actually grew up in the country, and we used to challenge her to name the owners of random houses we passed along the way to visit our grandma – much to our chagrin, she always seemed to know the answer. So, when my friends finally came to visit in Year 9, I pointed out as many houses as I could, and connected everything to some charming childhood story. I introduced them to all my old haunts. I pretend like I know my way around, but even as a kid, I mostly stuck to the main road and the streets off it that my friends lived on.
I walk down the street and assume all the cars are full of people who know me and are prepared to judge my exposed midriff. I wander the streets as the sun sets, listening to Phoebe Bridgers and Noah Kahan, and think to myself “I have to get out”. I have an overwhelming urge to get on a train and away from “here”, because it’s not enough for me.
In Lady Bird, the opening scene has her complaining about not living on the East Coast. She wants to go to culture, to be amongst writers. And I don’t want to be from a “small town” that no one’s ever heard of where I can’t connect myself to anything. As if struggling to afford living in Sydney or Melbourne would help connect myself to “culture”.
And the truth is that under no possible definition do I live in a small town. Sure, we’ve got some cows out there, down the road with the cliché XXXX pub, but we’ve also got every fast food place under the sun, all the major supermarkets, a railway, a bus line, two primary schools and one high school, and by now we’ve even managed to have traffic on a weekend.
And now I have to escape it because it’s too small for my hopes and dreams. Because I don’t “fit in”. Because…somewhere along the line, I decided to let myself be the victim of some made up thing someone else ascribed to me.
The truth is, that I’m incredibly privileged and incredibly lucky. Sure, I don’t get trips to Bali, but for most people at my school, they get a trip to Bali and nothing else, whereas I’ve been to Europe and Japan and I’m about to go back to England – on a relatively impromptu trip that my parents can afford to pay for because they aren’t sending us repeatedly to Bali every summer holidays. Lots of people don’t get those holidays at all. Most people don’t get a private school education. Most people don’t get a nice house with a good backyard. Most people are struggling. And we aren’t. And I’m still, somehow, jealous.
I intend to move to Sydney for university. And if I stay here, I’ll spend more time in the city, wandering through the night. I have these big visions of turning Sydney into a place to come into my own – some illustrious city girl (I’ll be living well into the suburbs, in another “small town”), of imbedding myself in culture and art and talent.
I have these visions, like in Lady Bird, of finally escaping everything that’s holding me back. And I have, growing more and more by the day, a nagging feeling that possibly, nothing is holding me back – except for me.
But why is it that I enjoy clinging to the “small town girl” moniker some girls made up for me when I was twelve? What is it about Noah Kahan’s Homesick or Phoebe Bridgers’ Graceland Too that speaks to my soul every time? What is it, about myself, or about this place, that makes me aways wishing for more? Why is it that I’m never good at acknowledging my privilege, never good at being satisfied?
I’d like to tie this piece up in a pretty little bow, preferably a thick and shiny one, but I really don’t have the answers for myself. I think I see it a lot these days. The friend who’s mother is “only” paying for one year of university sees it as a struggle. The girl who works at the Racecourse for $24 an hour at 16 is having a moral crisis because she’s “complicit” (but I have to be grateful for the money I earn at McDonald’s). Everyone hates the Talent Show or College Admission sob story, but everyone crafts one for themselves, day by day, as if it will give them the brownie points to get them anywhere they want to go in life.
Being a victim (just a little, not enough to be serious) makes you the main character. And everyone wants to be the main character, right?
"and think to myself “I have to get out”. I have an overwhelming urge to get on a train and away from “here”, because it’s not enough for me." very much relate to this! i'm not from a suburb but rather a very boring neighborhood within a mostly struggling city in a completely disregarded state.
i've always hated being there because i too, wanted to leave to new york or some other perceived paragon of "culture" because there was nothing for me where i was. i still want to leave lol. another lovely read!
And love lady bird !!