Change?

Before moving to London, I had the terrifying realisation that I hadn’t really achieved anything. Obviously the word ‘achieved’ is dependent on what you class as an achievement. To me, this had to be something more than the three-year stint I put in at Royal Mail, moving mail around a warehouse at the socially destructive times of 6 to 10 at night. To break away from that and to get on with my life and do something is an achievement. Prior to getting this job, I’d spent the first part of the year becoming steadily more depressed at my apparent inability to find work. The high levels of unemployment were the major factor here, of course, but I had resorted to applying for even the most basic of jobs and was getting turned down. I’d started to question myself, and to question if I’d ever escape the Nottingham backwaters.

Everybody likes a bit of change, no-one likes to stay still. Even the most minor change is welcomed. The extent of what has happened to me and my family since the summer has been the surprise, but we take it on board and we learn to live with it. Be it good or bad. Now, I love my parents to bits. I had a great upbringing, and never fell out with my parents as most teenagers seem to do. If I was that way inclined, I’d stay living at my family home for as long as I could. But I didn’t want to be that guy who still lives with his parents when he’s 40, and that’s only 12 years away! Life is full of people who’ve got a story to tell, who’ve come over from different countries or just moved from their hometown to further their careers and/or raise a family. To be still living in the village that I was brought up in, seeing the people you went to school with remain doing the same things they were doing 10 years ago, it’s not for me. I’m all for meeting new people, making new friends, never standing still too long, what may be comfortable for them is not for me. What better way to make the break from all of this than to move as far away as you can?

I’d admired and envied Iain’s life in London. He’s worked his arse off to get where he is, he’s got the brains to be doing the job that he’s doing, and it was always something that appealed to me. There was a long-held desire within me to move to a different part of the country, to come out of the comfort zone and to see if I can make it in a strange city. A trip to see Iain in April was enough to sow the seeds of a potential move to the capital, one which came to fruition thankfully within a few months. I still look back in shock that I got the job I have. It’s not the best paid job, but even so, I managed to beat off the fierce competition and was ready to start anew in London.  An initial leg-up from Iain – letting me stay at his and Aleks flat while I established myself – took the pressure off slightly and let me ingratiate myself with my new work colleagues and start the hard task of finding somewhere to live.

Regarding the job, I’m happy with how things are there. Having been there since June, I now know enough about the place, the people and the job itself to enjoy and appreciate what I am doing. I’ve made a great deal of friends there, and certainly made established myself. This easy introduction into work life helped make the flat search easier. I moved from Iain’s place in Ealing to a house in Acton. Still in west London, but far enough away to feel a bit more independent. An old Victorian house, as seems to be the norm in London, this had been converted into a self-contained flat downstairs and the two remaining floors made up the shared house. This place has no living room, but made up for that glaring omission by having a sun terrace. The housemates all seemed pleasant too, a couple were in the room next to mine, another couple upstairs along with an Aussie girl. My first night in this house and they threw an impromptu housewarming. We sat on the sun terrace eating, drinking and smoking, what better way to ingratiate yourself into the new household?

Four months on, that was about as good as it got.

The couple in the room next to me split up. She is a lively and talkative person who I always chatted with in the kitchen when I came home from work. He is a quiet bloke, spoke little and didn’t socialise that much. So when she removed herself from the house, part of what made me like living here disappeared too. She still occasionally appears to move her stuff to and from the room, but she hasn’t been the same person since. The Aussie girl was another loud one (aren’t they always? ), she decided a few months into me moving in that she was going to go travelling across Europe, eventually moving back home to Australia in December. So that was another one down. The couple upstairs (she’s french, he’s south african) are also ones who appear irregularly. Although I’m kinda glad as I don’t like her fussiness regarding the cleanliness of the kitchen, which at times borders on the obsessive. The lack of the communal living area is really the killer here, everyone keeps themselves in their rooms, at times it can get desperately lonely in this place. It’s less like a shared house and more like a flat. My idea of a shared house isn’t this, it’s people who do things together, watch television together, go out and get pissed together. I made my decision a few weeks ago to move out once my contract ends in mid February. Aside from releasing myself from this increasingly miserable house, I want to move back to Ealing. Closer to Iain, easier for my parents to visit and the transport links are so much better.

I like change, it’s scary but it’s all brand new. The way we adapt and acclimatize to it, the challenge, is brilliant. Not all change is great though, least of all the passing away of my gran in August. It wasn’t a massive shock, her health had deteriorated over the years and as she often had said, she was ready and waiting ‘to go’. The grim phone call from my sister Megan upon hearing the news that she’d had a stroke was still a shock, especially when it transpired that stroke victims at that age (late eighties) rarely recover to any great extent, if at all. I didn’t waste much time getting back up to Radcliffe, I hadn’t seen a great deal of a her prior to moving down to London, so I had to see her even if it turned out to be the last time.

My mum and my sister had been caring for her almost round the clock. As I let her know on more than one occasion, my mum is a hell of a strong person for this. She was taking it all in her stride. Her own mother was unable to move, unable to speak, yet she carried on caring for her, spending the best part of a day at the care home she lived in. She had trained as a nurse before she got married and had kids, so the knowledge of what to do in this situation was already there in her head, but even so – it was her mother. If it was her in that state and me tasked with caring for her, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bear to see someone you love so much in such a helpless state.

My gran was still awake and aware of people and things by the time that me, Iain and Aleks appeared. Despite being pre-warned as to the state that she was in, it was still an awfully traumatic sight to see her like that. She began crying as me and Iain came in the room to see her, obviously distraught that we were seeing her in this state, and mindful of the fact that this was ‘the end’. Still, she had enough strength in her left side of the body to be able to reach out her hand towards me. I couldn’t take much more of the intense emotion of it all soon after that, neither could Iain, so we had to leave. Upon hearing a few days later that she had become less and less responsive until the point that she passed away, I’m content to know that she recognised us the last time she saw us.

The funeral was equally upsetting. Never in my life have I been to one. I’ve been lucky to have had no deaths in the family prior to this year, this whole process and the mourning aspect of it was all brand new. The service itself, while I remain uncomfortable with the religious aspect of it, was very well done but the emotions were always at the surface. The sight of my mother, uncle and aunt embracing by the coffin at the end of the service was one that set me off into floods of tears. I’m not one to reel in my emotions, I will never do the manly thing of keeping it all inside! The emotion of that day still gets to me, and still bothers me. In fact it does make me well up even writing about it, which is probably the reason why I’ve taken until now to go into any great detail.

It’s all seemed to happen so far this year, it must be something about 2011, because it wasn’t over yet. My sister decided just a few weeks ago to get married. She’s been seeing her boyfriend Adam for a while now (over a year I think), and he proposed to her while she was over in Northern Ireland with him (he’s based there, as he’s a member of the armed forces). An engagement can be forever, Iain and Aleks are engaged and have been for a few years now, but to hear that she wanted to get married next month was a big shock! The reasoning behind it is Adam being back in England for a limited time, and something to go with them being given army housing if they’re married by a certain date. So they set the date for December the 23rd – a christmas wedding. They are to be married at West Bridgford registry office, and will be having the reception in the Test Match pub – of which the meal will be a christmas one. By her own admission, she’s on a budget, so won’t be doing anything extravagant. She feels it’s less about the day and more about the fact that they’re married, which is fine. She deserves all of this after what she had to go through with her last loser of a boyfriend. Adam is a nice bloke, and I’m so glad that he’ll be my brother-in-law and not the prat she was dating before!

There’s still a month and a bit to go of the this year, and I’m waiting for the next thing to happen. It’d be good to get to December the 31st with no more major shocks. Here’s hoping…!