“This is your life, go grab it” I said to myself and proceeded to stand up and heave my brown leather suitcase from the top shelf of my closet. Inside I packed the bare necessities such as clothes, a toothbrush, money and my passport. Then I decided to pull out a black leatherbound notebook from the drawer next to my bed. They may have been agonisingly difficult to live with, and I would always hold them accountable for the tragic state of my mental health, however, my parents had the right to know where I was going and so I started writing them a letter.

Dear mum and dad,

First of all let me apologise for the rather futile argument we had last night, it was wrong of me to expect you to understand in any way the crucial nature of what I have decided to do in the coming weeks or even months. As you are reading this, I assume that I have gone, and you are in a state of both utter panic and (in dad’s case) rage. However, as I told you last night I am an adult and it is well within my rights to pursue whatever path I choose in life.

Over the past few months I had deeply suffered from ceaseless bouts of depression, leading me, at times, to be plagued with disturbing thoughts, even sucide. I am aware that this is equally incomprehensible for you as you are of a generation that has always dismissed matters of mental health but I assure you it is the truth.

Thus, to put it briefly, this trip could be one that saves my life, an essential medicine if you like.

I hope that as my parents you will respect this crucial decision that I have made, and i ask that you make no effort to contact me or to track me down.

Yours with love,

Your daughter, Claudia

Satisfied with the letter I had written, I took out a beige envelope from the same drawer that I had got the notebook, and placed the paper inside, delicately licking the edges to seal it shut. Then, I propped it up against my lampshade and sat down on the edge of my bed. Sighing, I gazed around at my room taking in all the miniscule details that I wouldn’t see again for perhaps as long as a year. The countless posters of David Bowie and Jimi Hendrix that plastered the walls from floor to ceiling. The cluster of children's dolls propped up on top of my closet, that despite my mother’s insistence,I had always been too sentimental to throw away. The rows and rows of books that lined the oak bookshelf at the far end of the room, each one perfectly placed in order of the Author's last name, and read cover to cover. There was no doubt that I would miss home in some ways, and for a minute or two I contemplated leaving at all. This was all so rash, so sudden so spontaneous. What if when I retuned home my parents wanted nothing to do with me? Was this to be my last night in my family home for the rest of my life? Surely not. I was their daughter after all. Glancing at the old teal alarm clock next to my bed, I realised that it was just coming up to 3AM which would give me around two hours sleep before I would have to sneak out in the morning.

Now, dear reader, you may be thinking to yourself, “But Claudia, how on Earth do you expect to get to California?” well as I have said before and I shall say again times back then were different and Hitch hiking was all the rage. No car? No worries. In the summer of 1972, all a girl needed was an outrageously short pair of denim hot pants and a charming smile and she could make it from one end of the country to the other, completely free of charge. Luckily for me, I had both. Of course, such a sport came with it’s risks, but the way I saw it, you hear about more teen car crashes than you do random murders, so I was willing to take my chances.