The Airport
It's 7:30pm. We're at the Melbourne Tullamarine airport, standing in the queue with hundreds of other people. From the outset, I appear calm and collected. The only hint of my anxiety is the online check-in pass that I'm holding in my hands with little rips all along the edge, showing that I've been tearing it away piece by piece over this past hour.
Mum is waving from the entrance - I can tell she's holding back her tears with the thought that her baby will be gone for the next few months. I've never moved out of home, so this is a new experience for all of us. After a final wave, I turn back to the queue and stare straight ahead.
I will not cry. I will not look back.
We're next in line. After checking in our baggage, we enter through the sliding doors, into the endless sea of queues. Everything from body scans, to handbag and passport checks - the list goes on. After hours, we finally end up at the airport lounge where we wait for the final queue to board the plane. It's hot and stuffy. Our phones indicate there's a wifi signal, but it's too weak to load a basic Facebook post.
We're waiting in silence. Although we were chatting profusely when we first arrived this evening, we're now both too nervous to speak.
An announcement comes over the loudspeaker - all passengers for flight SQ208 to board the plane. There's a murmur of voices around us, some coughing, as people rise to their feet.
Eventually, we make it onto the plane and find out seats. My hands are shaking as I reach up to put my big canvas bag in the compartment above. They're shaking so much, that a man kindly helps me. I thank him. He smiles and returns to his seat.
Then the real waiting begins. This is it. The moment before take-off, where time seems to stops for us all. It may only be a few minutes, but it somehow feels longer than the other queues, more overbearing.
There's an electronic crackle through the speakers, before the plane starts to move. I close my eyes, holding my breath, as the plane roars across the field. The whole compartment is shaking.
With a loud groan, the plane tries to take off - it's jolting beneath us, like an old train losing steam.
And then we take off.