Write it on a postcard: Dad, they broke me

I’m on a train. It’s the first ever Thalys high-speed train to Paris and it’s just started moving. I'm waving goodbye to my mom outside the window. This is the first time I’ve ever truly left home. The first time I’ve ever travelled alone, and I’m terrified. This is it. I’ve left home, and I won’t be coming back. I’m 18 and the world is there to be discovered. I have this song in my head and on my Walkman:

Stop breathin'
Stop breathin'
Breathin' for me now
Write it on a postcard
Dad, they broke me
Dad, they broke me

Over the next four weeks my trip will take me to Belgium, France, Spain, Italy and Greece. I’ll be robbed in Spain, I’ll cross Italy in the hallway of a fully booked train, sleep on the deck of an overnight ferry to Greece, hang out with some American college girls in Venice. I’ll visit the Prado, San Marco square, the Coliseum and the Louvre. I’ll stay at a hostel in Monaco, in a tiny room in Paris, dine at McDonalds, eat a pizza on my birthday. I’m alone. I’m moving.

And the ‘terrified’?

It disappeared the minute the train pulled out of the station.

Here are some tracks from Pavement's Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain (1994):
Pavement - Stop Breathin'
Pavement - Range Life