At 17, I moved across the country to Melbourne – a city where I knew no one. It was everything I had begged for and dreamed of: an escape from Perth, a place I’d long associated with stillness, silence, and the slow erosion of ambition.
Growing up in what’s often called the most isolated city in the world, I was desperate to leave. I wanted to be a writer. I wanted independence. Mostly, I wanted to get away from the nothingness Perth represented to me.
In my final year of high school, I applied to a slew of universities, going through the motions more than anything. I didn’t expect to get in, least of all to the one Melbourne university I’d applied to. When I finally opened the email, I had one week to accept the offer, and another to pack up my life. I remember feeling like it was the beginning of everything.
"Growing up in what’s often called the most isolated city in the world, I was desperate to leave. I wanted to be a writer. I wanted independence."
By that point, there were maybe three rentals in all of Melbourne that were still available and didn’t involve a gruelling daily commute to campus – and only one was willing to lease to someone underage. So, I ended up in a shoebox apartment in Prahran so small I could stand in the ‘hallway’ touching both the kitchen tiles and the bathroom door at once. There was just enough room for a single bed and a study desk – the chair, when pulled out, blocked the hallway. And at the very end was a sliding glass door that opened onto a small, shared balcony.
It was perfect. It was a brand-new start, on my terms. But the fantasy quickly dissolved.
Independence felt less like freedom and more like survival. I was juggling full-time uni, customer service shifts, and the emotional toll of navigating a new city, utterly alone. I had no friends. No support network. No one who really knew me. My mental health deteriorated, and I didn’t want to ask for help. I was scared people would think I wasn’t coping. I didn’t want my fears – that I’d made the wrong decision – echoed back to me.
Years later, on a quiet Saturday afternoon, I found myself back in that suburb. The purple glass-stained balcony still stood, 15 kilometres from where I now live with my partner. I looked up at it and thought: I can’t believe I made it through. What helped me survive that year wasn’t therapy or even community – those came later. It was something much simpler: becoming a tourist in my city.
"Independence felt less like freedom and more like survival."
For years before the move, I had romanticised the kind of experiences I saw YouTubers like Tokidoki Traveller capture across the world. In her tiny Tokyo apartment, she’d find meaning in the simplest acts – cooking despite limited space, and exploring nearby shops despite the language barrier. The act of filming these quiet, human moments made them feel worthy of attention. Watching her document those small, unremarkable rituals helped me see the value in mine. Now that I was in a similar – if less complex – situation (still in Australia, still speaking the same language), I started to think differently. Her videos had offered distance from my reality, which wasn’t all that different from hers. If I found comfort in how she framed her life, maybe I could try doing the same. I didn’t need a camera – just a shift in focus.
I started small. I took myself to the art gallery. I rode trams and trains like a visitor. I wandered through neighbourhoods with no goal other than to look. When you’re a tourist, you’re not trying to belong. You’re there to notice. To walk slowly. Pay attention. That shift was subtle, but it recalibrated something.
I began to adjust my inner monologue. Instead of “I look weird” or “I don’t fit in,” I told myself, "None of these people know me." And that was a blessing. I didn’t owe anyone a version of myself I didn’t recognise.
I also turned to dating apps – not to date, but to find friends. Through Bumble BFF, I met people in the same boat. Some of them are still in my life today.
"I didn’t owe anyone a version of myself I didn’t recognise."
It wasn’t easy. It didn’t happen overnight. It was a slow, deliberate practice – retraining my thoughts, reframing the silence, learning to interpret stillness as possibility instead of absence. Over time, I stopped waiting for the life I had imagined and began paying attention to the one I had. Looking back, I wish my 17-year-old self had known that, yes, things would be hard, but it’s okay to decide something matters just because it does to you. Shifting your perspective – even slightly – can be enough. Because sometimes, survival looks like sitting alone in a gallery café with your headphones in, pretending you’re in a film.
And sometimes, pretending is how you begin to believe again.
