The Backpacking Housewife. Janice Horton

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      Most people I knew left school and got a job and then got married and had kids. The end.

      But now, being around lots of people who travel extensively makes it seem normal.

      Today, while almost out of earshot, I’d overheard Brad (or Chad or Rick) asking Summer if she and I were mother and daughter. Summer had responded so sweetly. She’d told him we were just friends but that she wished she had a mother who was as cool as me, who might be old, but still brave enough to go travelling through Thailand on her own.

      Old? I had laughed to myself. I might not be young but I’m certainly not bloody old!

      I take a deep breath of sea breeze and toss back my freshly washed hair from my shoulders. Tonight, I’m letting it lie in damp waves down my back. Back home, I’d always considered my long hair too thick and too difficult to ever let it wild and loose, so I’d scrape it back off my face and twist it up on my head in a prim-looking topknot or I’d braid it out of the way to lie behind my back and out of sight. Once upon a time, my long hair had been my crowning glory, but now it’s the only thing that makes me feel different in a town where every woman of a certain age has a shoulder length ‘housewife’ bob cut and they all look just the same. Although, every few weeks, I’d consider having it all chopped off.

      Now I’m glad I didn’t because when I’d come out of the bathroom tonight with my hair loose and damp from the shower, Summer had looked at me with some surprise and said to me so sweetly, ‘Oh wow, Lori, I didn’t realise you have such fabulous hair!’

      ‘Really? You think so?’ I’d said, feeling flushed with delight.

      ‘Yeah. You look ten years younger with your hair down like that. It softens your face. You should wear it down all the time.’ So, I’ve decided that from now on I will.

      I stop walking at the midpoint curve of the beach, where the sun has created a golden line across the water, making it look something like a shimmering divine pathway. I hitch up the white cotton dress that I’d bought at the market stall in Chiang Mai and I wade in just past my knees. I look down into the clear warm water to see the white sand between my toes and the almost translucent fish swimming around my legs. I lift my face once more to the warm salty breeze and I look up at the towering cliffs all around me. Then I let my gaze wander over the traditional long-tail boats bobbing on the shoreline, decorated with their colourful ribbons and garlands and flowers and I take a moment to acknowledge how free I feel right at this moment. Today has been an unimaginably lovely day.

      I pull at my wedding ring and with a twist it comes off my finger quite easily.

      How strangely bare my hand looks without it.

      I realise it’s the first time I’ve ever removed it.

      I raise my arm in the air and I throw the ring as far as I can into the sea.

      I watch it twirl in the air, catching the golden light, until it disappears … and is gone forever.