Journeys into adulthood, here and never back again.

The day I became an adult was not when I realised I had travelled around the sun 18 times. It wasn’t the moment where I blew out the candles on a cake and jumped from 10 to 22 in an instant. It wasn’t the moment I saw the first wrinkles on my forehead or acknowledged that there are some mistakes I can never correct. I can’t go back and double lock my bedroom door in my French student halls., or check that my wardrobe in Slovenia.

My stream of consciousness stopped as I looked up. Stopped outside the main square of Bucharest in Romania Remembering a hazy A-level history quip, I fell silent.

A lost memory rushed back: this is the place of Ceausescu’s Final Speech. I start to remember. Remember learning about the dictator's oppressive regime, learning about the Cold War in Eastern Europe, learning how this speech was a significant moment of the downfall of Communism in Romania. I could feel the simultaneously the cold yet hopeful 1989 breeze and my only half-interested 17 year old self in a classroom. The morning's museums, jilted by lack of English translations, became irrelevant. I could feel the first roar against a despotic madman who had been in charge for too long. i could feel where I was standing in history.

Silence.

I had reached this city of Communist juxtapositions and ornate buildings yet walking aggravated my alienness. I felt much more foreign here than walking through Tunisian shanty towns and pretending to understand how to pray in a Hong Kong church. This time I wasn’t the follower, I was the leader.

Pressing on to the nearby concert hall in silence.

Entering the grandiose Greek facade we went through numerous misunderstandings. Being led uneasily through corridors, suddenly we were seated in front of the rehearsals Romanian orchestra. The miserable day forgotten in the midst of the opulent scarlet surroundings. Where we meant to be here?

Sitting uneasily hearing the Romanian orchestra: silent.

A hall meant to fill thousands of people had just two spectators. No one to consult, nowhere to hide and nowhere to run. It had taken a twenty hour night train through gypsy villages, snowcapped mountains and litter-strewn fields but I was here. Here on my accidental accord listening to the accordions, my music awareness desperately failing me now.

The heavy realisation of my adulthood bubbled ferociously to the surface. I wasn’t playing make-believe anymore. I had grown up.

Yet to my friend, I was simply silent.