Understanding Youth

When I was 16 I applied to Youth For Understanding, an organisation that shuffles students around the world, to go to Denmark for a year. . I was a miserable misfit of a teenager, living in a country town with a dysfunctional family and victim of an oppressive education system. I was bullied at school, had very few friends and yet was convinced that there must be something else out there.

In spite of a poorly disguised Mohawk, bad behaviour at school and my shy, sullen attitude one of the members of the selection committee took a shine to me and a few months later I was on a plane with about 50 other over excited teenagers. It was 1985 and Frankfurt Airport had recently been bombed, we walked past the rubble to our connecting flight to Copenhagen and I realised I was out in the real world and I was alone. I have rarely felt so alive.

I settled in with my host family and went about the business of being a 16 year old in a foreign country. One evening my host father said to me “why haven’t you been to the pub yet?” Realising that this was acceptable behaviour I grabbed the American girl who lived up the road and we nervously wandered into the local tavern The Horseshoe. We were overwhelmed that we could buy beer legally and sat there thinking we must truly have landed in heaven.

I was wearing a tartan skirt, an oversized white shirt and a long tartan vest, cinched at the waist with a wide belt.* Hey, it was the 80’s. A very cute boy sat down at our table and asked me if I was Scottish. Many beers and many hours later he walked me home.
It was one of those clear Scandinavian nights, the moon shone over the trees and reflected on the bay the small town was centred around. We stood on the steps of my house and he kissed me. His soft moustache ticked and I was drunk and giggly and giddy with the romance and possibilities.

I don’t remember the progression to coupledom, but it happened rather quickly. We were head over heels with the wild passion and abandon that only teenagers are capable of. I was a (somewhat) naive girl from the country, raised in a culture of taboo subjects, stiff upper lips and denial of any positive emotion. He was from a culture of self expression, freedom of speech and permissiveness. We would regularly go to the local nightclub, Silvers I think it was called. The dance fashion, back then in Denmark, was for couples to hold hands while dancing – sort of a disco/swing dance mix. He was a good dancer and I learned quickly. It was so much fun, twirling around the dance floor until we were exhausted and needed to refuel with more beer. We would dance until dawn then stop at the bakery on the way home to buy pastries for breakfast.

I’d known sex, but was completely unaware of sensuality. He slowed me down, taught me to enjoy the journey. The journey from sleazy bogun chick to sexually confident young woman. I can still remember the feel of his skin and the soft, fine, pale gold of his hair and the way our bodies fit together so easily. His love enveloped and empowered me. I was blissfully happy.

Then one day he told me he wanted to end it. I was gutted, confused, bewildered and terrified. He had spent months beating his head against the brick wall of my emotional repression and had finally had enough. He walked away and I thought I would die. I pursued him for days, begging for a second chance. He steadfastly refused, finally saying “I need you to change and people can’t change”, I looked at him through my tears and insisted that I could and would if given the chance. He gave in and for first time in my life I told another human being that I loved them.

Together we broke through the barriers I had hidden behind for so long. I opened my heart and finally learned the most important lesson: how to love.
We had many adventures (see Faith, Sept 2007) I remember being on a train and him jumping from seat to seat with a curled paper megaphone shouting “I love Larissa”, another time dancing, pants down, on a table in a restaurant to “prove his love”. I also remember him kneeling before me, in a laneway outside the nightclub, and asking me to marry him and offering a tap washer as a ring. Of course I agreed, but being only 17 was unable to.

We made plans, I organised a job for him in Australia and investigated visas. He had finished high school and was going to work and save the money for his ticket. But then he got called for 12 months National Service, he was unable to leave the country until his obligation had been fulfilled. The day of my departure arrived and I was collected by a bus and driven to the airport. He was supposed to meet me there for our goodbye, but as I wandered the terminal looking for him I was called to the phone. He was still at home, unable to bring himself to face the goodbye, he apologised, and with his voice breaking told me he loved me, said goodbye and hung up. I collapsed in a flood of tears and near hysteria. I had to be half carried onto the plane I was so distraught. I cried all the way to Frankfurt, drank all the way to Dubai and by the time the plane landed in Melbourne I was hung over, jet lagged and completely numb. I managed a smile for my excited family and pretended to sleep in the car so I didn’t have to talk to them.
We reached my Grandparents house and I crawled into bed and slept several hours. When I woke there was a cow looking in the window at me. I looked around the room and everything was familiar – I even recognised the cow. It occurred to me briefly that it had all been an elaborate dream, but then there was my suitcase over flowing with Danish souvenirs. I felt so strange, a stranger in a familiar land. How could I have changed so much yet all here was still EXACTLY the same? It didn’t make sense and I carried the sense of disorientation with me for several years.

We spoke on the phone a few times, for hours on end. Eventually our phone got disconnected because my Mum couldn’t pay the $700 phone bill. I wrote to him but he had disappeared into the army and contact faded. It was a year before I could bring myself to go on any dates. Then 18 months later I got a letter from him, his service had ended and his letter told stories of his time as a soldier and declared his undying love. I excitedly wrote to him several times, but I never heard from him again. It was another two years after that before I was able to open up again and let someone else into my heart and I surprised myself by discovering I was able to love another with almost as much intensity.

Years passed, life took hold and I grew up, got a mortgage, a career and eventually a husband and child. My Danish boy became a part of my past that I thought I would never revisit. Then at work the other day, bored and aimlessly surfing the net I plugged his name into Facebook and suddenly there he was on my computer screen. Older, a bit less hair but still the same cheeky smile and sparkling eyes. I stared at his picture for several minutes trying to think of something to say to him – I had nothing! What could I possibly say that didn’t make me sound like a bunny boiling stalker? Eventually I just wrote “You shaved your moustache” and clicked send. I spent a nervous night wondering just how psycho he would think I was but the next morning got a message full of surprise, mirth and joy at the contact. We have exchanged email addresses and promises to tell our life stories. 24 years is a long time. We were children; in fact, our children are the same age now we were then. I know we have nothing in common apart from our shared ancient history and once stories have been told there will be nowhere else to go but back to the pages of history. Am I making a mistake? Will the fantasy of my youth be revealed as a romanticised teenage half truth? I hope not.


When my friends and I were leaving high school to go to university several of us were given big cheques by our families to cover our rent. I very sensibly deposited mine in the bank and used it only for its intended purpose. One of my friends cashed his, bought a combi van and drove to Cairns. His family forgave him eventually and he had adventures worth much more than a year at Uni. I’ve never been capable of that sort of recklessness. When friends were hitchhiking to Confest, on acid, I was working in Hungry Jacks so I could pay my bills. I’ve often wondered what would have happened if I’d taken that cheque, my passport and a taxi to the airport.

*How come I can remember what I wore to the pub one day in 1985, but I can’t remember where I put my car keys?