22.15 Paris-London Victoria

My name is Lea Martin and tomorrow morning, I will wake up in another land. That is where Im going to turn 19, away from everything and everyone I know. My sister Helene and my boyfriend Raphael came with me to the coach station, not that I needed any help to carry my bags, I’m really not bringing that much. I want to start more or less completely fresh. They came to say goodbye.

My mum didn't. She went to bed before we left the house, it felt very anti-climactic. You would have thought she would make more of an event of her first born flying the nest, but I know better. She's the real animal type, the kind to push you in the water and let you sink or swim. The divorce didn't help, every now and again I wonder what type of mother, what sort of woman she would have become without my fathers multiple betrayals.

 But this is not the time to think about her, today is all about me and this new adventure I’m embarking on. Leaving one metropole for another. Au revoir Paris, Hello London.

I chose London because of a book my dad bought for me on my 13th birthday. It was a rather boring anthology of the punk movement but it introduced me to a whole new way of thinking. I realised I didn't have to try to fit in, that it was actually extremely cool to rebel against the norm and try to be your own person. After reading that I started dressing differently. I got some old ladies shoes in a second-hand shop and covered them in tartan fabric with a big bow on the front to emulate the kind of shoes worn by Louis the 14th. I painted multicolour poetry on jackets. I deconstructed T-shirts that I put back together with safety pins.

There’s an area in Paris where the old Bastille prison used to be, where all the alternative people hang out. I met some real life punks there but was very disappointed as it seemed punkness for them was just another heavily codified way of dressing and my bright pink hand-painted mushroom dress clearly failed the assignment. I thought maybe in England, the real punk spirit might still be alive and well and I started dreaming about going there.

I would be lying if I said I wasn't scared, I am only going for 6 months but one thing I know is that people change. Everything that happens leaves a mark on you, even down to the atomic level, any interaction is an exchange that leaves you a little bit less you and little bit more something else.

The Lea that leaves now is not the Lea that will come back. This goodbye to Helene and Raphael is also the funeral of the me that they know and love. I know it and they know it too. This is what is making this so damn hard.

Raphael helped me cut off my long hair to a pixie cut a few days ago. It feels weird to not feel its caress on my shoulders, theres no drama in turning around anymore. Things like that change your identity in the world. Not just the way you see yourself but the categories other people apply to you. Every decision you make in presenting yourself is another filter through which you will be perceived and treated. Which will in turn impact the way you respond.

Another thing is I am suddenly really going to become french, thats one thing I never really considered before, but in England Im not gonna be just another girl, I’ll be a french chick. 

My English is very decent already, and every-time I spoke it on the phone to make the arrangements for my flat in Camden and my documentary course at Ealing Studios, I noticed how my voice changed for a higher pitched one. Is the new me going to act more feminine to match? I guess only time will tell.

In my screenwriting class a few months ago we discussed how languages influenced structures of thought and how different countries have a different sense of humour that is directly linked to how their grammar works. For example in German the verb is most often at the end of the sentence so you have to wait until someone is done talking to know what they are saying. In French and English, things go faster, you can interrupt and snap a witty comeback after the first few words. We share a much more aggressive type of humour. The infamously bad weather in the United-Kingdom also had a hand in twisting peoples mind and crafting the hilarious dry, deadpan and self-deprecating humour brits are known for. Who knows what a winter over there is going to do to me. The possibility of verbifying words by the simple trick of adding ing is already tantalising my eager mind.

I am tearing up as we load my tiny suitcase into the coach. Helene hold me so tight I cant breathe. We have been so close these past few years, I don’t want to think about how hard is going to be without her, to eat without her snuggled up in my bed and to watch movies alone.

Raphael kiss me with a desperate passion, his tears are mixing with mine. After 3 years of ups and downs we both know that my decision to leave is going to put a lot of strain on our relationship. I am abandoning him, I am abandoning us and its feels horrible.

I walk up the 5 steps onto the coach and see them holding each other by the hand as I try to find my seat. It’s all the way in the back, I plop down, my resolve to go wearing thin. Could this be the biggest mistake of my life? I am actively breaking the heart of the most amazing boyfriend in the world. I am leaving my sister to face life with our mother on her own. We have always been a team and thats going to be over now. Everything is going to be different.

22.15 comes. The coach departs and they wave at me, distorted figures through the wall of water that glaze over my eyes. It is done. It’s too late to turn back now. Tomorrow morning I will tread new streets and breath new air. I am on my way to meet the woman I am going to become, all by myself, for the first time.