I missed my chance at a gap year, so instead I tried a ‘gap week' in my 40s

Sydney Morning Herald

3 days ago

I've always been as besotted with the idea of living in London as I was embarrassed by being besotted with the idea of living in London. It's such a terrible cliché: middle-class, white Australian girl grows up watching too much Press Gang, This Life and Black Books and, on finishing school, dreams of becoming an Antipodean Bridget Jones, follows the well-worn road of a gap year, moves to England, has a brilliant time and maybe never comes back. I thought for sure I would take that path.
But I kept putting it off. After my final high school exams, I was still not quite 18 and didn't feel brave enough to go live in a strange city on my own. After university, I needed money before I could consider the move, so I found three jobs and got to work, putting off the trip for another year. The next obstacle was a boyfriend I didn't want to break up with. That time, I even got as far as starting my year away, only to spend the first month with him in Europe before throwing in the towel on my plan to continue to London and coming home with him.
Then, back in Sydney, there was a job: a highly sought-after (by a particular subset of people with a fondness for books and extremely low salaries) entry-level position at a well-known multinational publishing house. I couldn't say no to getting my foot in the door of such a glamorous and exciting industry, could I?
You can see where this is going. For the next decade I worked away in publishing, moving up the ladder, quietly living through my 20s and watching as every year friends left for time abroad, building new lives that some returned from and some didn't. I stopped thinking that could be me. I had a mortgage now, and a relationship, work I enjoyed, family I adored and great friends. It would be silly to throw all that away.
Before I knew it, 20 years had passed and I had a great life. I was a mother of two, happily married, living in suburban Sydney – and I had pivoted from editing to writing books for a living. Books largely set in suburban Sydney, about mothers living perfectly good lives. After three novels, I began to see a pattern emerging: all these women wanted more.
The regret I had swallowed about my permanently delayed gap year began to creep back. My world had closed up around that potential gap, leaving no great scar, but there was a tingle of discontent, like you get before a cold sore erupts.
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The human propensity for dissatisfaction is what has led us to where we are today as a species. It's why we figured out how to control fire and domesticate animals, and build shelter; what led us to strive for discovery, exploration and invention. (It's responsible for the climate crisis and most wars, along with social media and celebrity culture – so, you know, not all good things.) It's also pretty insufferable coming from a person of great privilege and good fortune, so I did what any writer does to try to validate their feelings: I turned it into material.
I began to consider regret and what it has to teach us. This regret about not taking a gap year has shaped me: I'm intensely curious about (read: deeply envious of) people who have moved to other countries, either briefly or permanently. I wondered if there was something in that regret that could be incorporated into my life now. Was this a sign that I wanted to uproot my family and move overseas?