Once, I was a girl.

I'm getting my period, so my breasts are like whoa-hoa, and even my sports bra is struggling with this new load. This morning, as I roughly readjusted them, like a breast-feeding mother, I returned to the summer of 1997; all steamy in North Melbourne suburbia. For me, it was a time of floppy-haired boybands, Leonardo DiCaprio, and backyard trampolines.

On one particular evening, after an ICQ chat, I made a run for the trampoline, brimming with pride at my launch onto the warm and softened taurpaulin. Each jump brought me a coloured still-shot of neighbouring families eating their BBQ dinners, or running stump-to-stump in ritualistic cricket matches.

I had a routine. First I would jump sky high, then I would throw myself into a tight somesault. Back on my feet, I would fall on my arse, with legs outstreched in a 'V'. Then: on my feet, on my back, on my feet, somersault round, on my feet, on my stomach, on my back, on my feet. This could go on for hours, much to the bemusement of my mother, who would then have to call me in for dinner. On this particular evening, it only lasted until the "on my stomach" part as two sharp points of pain exploded in my chest. Winded, and clutching at my new boobs, I clambered off my old friend and ran off into the house.

For a long time after, I would observe the backyard trampoline from my kitchen with suspicion and contempt. I no longer paid heed to the white-flap of instructions, frayed and flapping in the breeze. I made certain to leave the trampoline in direct sunlight and when the pigeons shat all over it, I didn't scramble over with a wet cloth before the acidity ate through the plastic. And once I took up swimming as my main sport, the trampoline was shamed and relocated to the corner of the yard.

Summer soon moved on, and I was swimming in local heats. Naked in the changeroom afterwards, I would savour the click my new training bar would make, as I pretended I needed to readjust my breasts so that they would fit better. The other girls were jealous.

It was 1998; I had gotten over Leonardo DiCaprio; and I didn't even notice when the trampoline was given away to the younger family next door, until I got a still-shot of the girl in the sky. Up she jumped. Then somersaulted. Then she was back on her feet, on her back, on her feet, and then a really good V...