Tumoulin Girl

Memories of Sydney

I love how Rachel condensed my whole visit down into one sentence on her blog:

"We did all the girly things like shopped a lot, ate food, talked, watched movies and stuff which was so lovely!! :)"

It was lovely. My whole trip was just...what's the word?...good. The whole way down I kept thinking how much it felt just like my first ever Sydney trip four years ago. I was barely a fledging traveler then. I tagged along behind Rachel in her escapades and in the overwhelming noise and lights of the city would hide behind her back.

This trip was different in that I'm beyond that. I feel different now that I've been sick. It's as if in the last two years I've found something of myself I never knew I had. I still stumble over my shoe laces a the stupidest of times; I still even find myself looking in a changing room mirror wondering how on earth Rach let me out of the flat wearing un-ironed jeans but somehow it doesn't matter so much anymore. I see everything differently.

We sat in the car and talked. I think that was one of my most favourite things. I was exhausted from traveling, Rach was exhausted from carrying around baby and with all the groceries we had stashed in the back seat we dreaded the climb up four flights of stairs. So we sat in the car. I love moments like that. We sat there, staring at the falling down fence behind their apartment block and chatted as if we were back in our beds talking through the darkness, four years younger.

We did other things. We shopped, we ate food, we cooked muffins (well, actually I cooked muffins; Rach ate them), and then when Josh flew down a few days later we dragged him around the Saturday markets and bored the poor guy to death. He turned sixteen that Saturday and Matthew took him out to a Mahler symphony at the Opera House for his birthday. A very sophisticated thing to do. Going from the grins on their faces three hours later they had a good time. Rach and I stayed home. We made chocolate slice, changed into our pyjamas and watched a chick flick. I suppose that marks us as uncultured females. The classical lovers of this world will just have to get over it.

After that was Sunday. I went to church, slept, went to church again, and somewhere in that day felt again like I was returning to something I had done before but differently this time. Something has changed in me and in walking out of a long dark tunnel it's like I've arrived on a sun-drenched beach. I went to Sydney intrepid, a mixture of fear and longing churning in my gut, and I came back knowing I'd proved something to myself.

I know now that I am truly getting well. I know now there's a huge world out there that I have the strength to face. I know now I can sit talking with my sister in a car and not have a fear I won't be able to climb the stairs. I did it. I walked everyone of those stairs and even now, two weeks later, I have not crashed. This is the miracle I barely had faith to believe would ever come true.

I have memories of Sydney and they were lovely.

If you'd like a few photos, you can find them here.

posted by Lydia @ 11:48 pm