What It’s Like to Live Thousands of Miles Away From Your Parents

I think most of us sometimes fantasise about gaining our own independence.

It usually comes about when you’re arguing with your parents about whose turn it was to do the dishes or who drank the last of the milk. You think wistfully about getting your own place; somewhere you can do whatever you want, with no one there to tell you off. And it doesn’t matter what kind of family you have, eventually we all want our freedom.

I, for one, got my freedom in a slightly unusual way. When I was seventeen, my parents announced that they were moving out. And not just moving out of our house. They were moving out of our country.

My parents are teachers in the Solomon Islands as part of Australia’s international aid program. My mum Rosemary teaches at one of the village primary schools, while my dad Simeon teaches the locals about sustainable business practices. I’m very proud of them, but life has definitely been a lot more complicated since our family split like this.

For starters, there have definitely been a couple of ups and downs along the way. In fact, it all started about ten minutes after I’d dropped my parents at the airport for their early morning flight. We’d hugged goodbye, I’d pulled out into traffic, and bam! I’d made the horrendous mistake of falling asleep at the wheel and had crashed my car. It has to have been the world record for shortest time without parents before screwing up. I had this sudden urge to call my parents – who were probably still at airport check-in – to cancel their flight, come find me and rescue me from the responsibility of my own mistake.

The Ten-Minute Meltdown (as it is now referred to in my family) definitely wasn’t my only mistake. I’ve done everything from blowing all of my food money on new video games – where I spent an entire week eating brown rice and playing Fallout 4 – to accidentally putting a four-inch strip of metal in my washing machine. That one was particularly interesting. Since I couldn’t afford a plumber (or, obviously, a new washing machine) I had to YouTube some Irish guy pulling apart and reassembling his washing machine, so I could do the same. It took six hours and all of my sanity, but I finally had a washing machine that now only breaks down every two weeks.

See, that’s the thing about living far away from your parents. You realise that you no longer have them as a ‘safety net’. You don’t get to make a tearful phone call to someone who promises to fix it all up for you, pronto. Instead, you have a quick freak out, pull yourself together, and Google how to fix your problem. Oh, and you also have to learn from your mistakes. For instance, I can absolutely promise right here in print that I will never drive tired again. Falling asleep at the wheel once was more than enough for me.

I’d be lying if I said that I transformed over night from a scatterbrained child into a fully blossoming adult. It’s closer to the truth to say that I have, over many months, changed from a reasonably sensible teenager into a slightly more sensible one. I always knew how to cook and clean, but now I know how to manage my time so that my days are filled with both chores and fun. I go to uni, I go out with friends and then I come home and balance my bank accounts. I guess I have a stronger sense of the consequences of my actions, and I more keenly feel the need to live as a functioning, contributing adult.

I like to give myself a little high-five every time I try something new that is particularly adult. There was one for the first time I filled out my tax return, one for the first time I phoned a customer service number, and one the first time I went out to brunch (brunch!) with friends. These are new experiences for me, and I like to celebrate them in my own – slightly childish – way.

And as for my parents? I know that, eventually, they’ll come back to live in Australia. But when they do, I’ll want to continue living on my own.

They email me every fortnight or so. The internet where they live can be bad, so it’s often almost impossible to message each other. Very, very rarely, I’ll get a phone call. Mostly they tell me about what they’re doing, or give me advice about how to clean an oven or change the oil in my car. They can be pretty good at trying to micromanage my life, even when they know only the basics about it!

We used to finish our emails or phone calls by saying ‘I’ll see you soon’, but since they left, we just say ‘I love you’. Oh, except once, when I had to say ‘SorryIcrashedthecarIloveyousorrybye’.

Sarah Payne is one of Student Edge’s student contributors. Learn more about the contributors program.

Photo: Fox.