London has six major airports, over one hundred train stations and almost three hundred metro lines. This means when you are in London, you are perfectly positioned to leave London. Crucially, you are in the best possible position to flee the UK entirely.
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My SAD lamp broke at the beginning of last year. Taking this as a rather literal reflection of my mental state, I finally pulled the trigger and saw a therapist.
Unfortunately, the handful of sessions I could stomach predominantly involved rehashing an eclectic mix of relationship breakdowns I had already come to terms with, but the kicker for packing it in? My therapist’s only discernible observation was that my ‘nomadic spirit’ will never be satiated by the confines of routine and repetition.
Psychoanalysing that I have a ‘nomadic spirit’ is like telling a fat kid they have an above-average BMI. Of course it’s hard to be present: physically, I was working in London, but mentally, I was replaying all my other lives.
This isn’t poignant or groundbreaking – I think most people would rather be sailing the Med, or surfing in Morcocco, or getting their back blown out in Bali, than inhaling smog and punching made-up numbers into Excel. Like, no shit, Sharon. Of course I would inject jet fuel into my eyeballs if this removed all barriers to eternal globetrotting.
I am consistently dumbfounded by the reality of this perverse simulation that none of us seem to remember signing up to. Time and time again, I am astonished by how many still romanticise our nation’s capital, either from pastures far far away or from within its grey, dilapidated walls. To me, London is a city devoid of romance: there are so many restaurants and bars and museums and parks, but everything becomes grotesque in its abundance and trivial in its replication. Oxford Circus makes me want to go completely fucking analogue. Even sticky summer nights feel oppressive, compared to beachy countries where the sun heralds endless possibilities.
I took the slow lane on my journey to the workforce, stopping off to study in Canada, roadtrip through America, backpack around Asia and work in Australia, amongst other intercontinental romances and life experiences that I would not trade for, ironically, the world.
The resultant effect is that I am now so completely spoiled by experience that I have little patience for the time investment required to build a career. Especially if this necessitates sitting on the Tube five times a week and entertaining jargon pissing contests in a grey office against a backdrop of grey.
If a film is set in London, I don’t watch it. If I see St Paul’s in the backdrop of a show, I turn it off. The fact that I ever pined for a corporate job in the City is so laughable that if I think about it too hard I erupt into maniacal, Joker-esque cackle that hurts my ribs and brings tears to my eyes.
Before I sold my soul, ‘rat race’ sounded like a flippant idiom. Now, when I think about crossing Blackfriars bridge and melding with the indistinguishable suits and shirts pacing towards Liverpool Street, all with a face like a slapped arse and arses tenser than The Traitors’ round table, the term makes perfect sense. We are all vermin, propagating filth to make rich people richer. We are but infinitesimal cogs in the capitalist mechatron: comically replaceable and woefully disposable.
With each lap around the sun, I noticed yearly traditions were a particular trigger for Blighty-related anxiety flare-ups: every Christmas portends the same pub; every birthday the same guest list. These people will go to that festival, again; this couple will have an argument at that bar, again. Predictability is comforting, and it’s not lost on me that it won’t be long before wedding bells and the pitter-patter of little feet are a welcome shake-up for many. However, now I’ve got so used to flipping other switches to change the controls, it’s hard to sell myself the domestic dream. I have no motivation to save for a house, because I wouldn’t spend any time in it.
So, I called it quits with Sharon, pocketed the £80-a-week I was no longer spending on expensive talking and spent the final stretch of English winter in the Philippines. Good God, let me tell you: running away from your problems is so much more enjoyable than addressing them head-on.
Travel is ultimate escapism. You don’t have to think about laundry or ironing or home décor or taxes. You don’t have a moment to think about how single you may or may not be because you’re so socially saturated you could be wrung out like that towel you stole from the hostel.
What I love most about backpacking is the randomness: would you like to come to Lake Como with us? Shall we climb a volcano today? Have you been sandboarding yet? Do you want to join our threesome? For as long as I am in my young lithe body, I want to climb volcanoes and scale mountains and trek through jungles and rub against other young lithe bodies while they still have hairlines.
I often wonder how people are so content to go to work, go to the gym, come home, watch TV and go to bed. What is it like to not constantly want for more; to not be addicted to all that’s novel and new? What is it like to feel fulfilled without ever having lived outside of your hometown? I am envious of anyone so certain that THIS is where they want to live forever.
Of course, this certainty is often facilitated by the grounding of a relationship. Love can bring you to new places, and it can also make you settle. Its power to confine would help me make a decision I can’t otherwise ever imagine making: where to stick? Sometimes I feel like I would move to the moon if a beautiful boy asked me to.
But, most of the time, I can’t bear the thought of never realising my hopes and dreams because I ‘met someone.’ It is hard to reconcile that pang for intimacy and connection with an embedded aversion to the deep dive into forever: I want the butterflies and mutual obsession and rampant fuck fests without falling in so deep I neglect my travel plans and slip and fall into a shared mortgage. I am sure my perspective will change with age, but finding The One feels like an abstract thing to worry about whilst I’m physically fit and tied to nothing.
Now that I’ve left all together, I don’t feel like I have run away from a past life, so much as I have run towards a new one. My life is enriched by people I didn’t know existed a year ago, and vacant of others I thought I’d love forever. It is bittersweet to watch people recede from main cast to barely a cameo, but I have begun to accept that this is the price I must pay for a liminal existence. The more places you call home, the more intangible the concept of ‘home’ becomes. The more friends you make, the more people you miss. The more you fall in love, the more heartbreak you suffer.
Like in London, I am sometimes arrested by a profound nostalgia that breaks my heart a little if I indulge it. When I was in Europe, I dreamed of Australia; now I am in Australia, I have renewed appreciation for Europe. These spirals are always precipitated by a scent or sound – a whiff of perfume or aftershave; the crash of ocean waves or the smell of salty shoreline.
Obviously, moving to the other side of the world hasn’t solved all my problems, but it’s certainly alleviated some key stressors. I still work in an office, having quickly abandoned my cutesy-cafe-girl fantasy when the allure of 9-5 pay and stability pulled me in, but I no longer experience the acute existential anxiety or bouts of crushing, all-consuming depression that ebb and flow with the London grindset.
It’s the little things that are doing wonders for my cortisol: my rent has halved. My pay has near-doubled. I see the sun every day. I can breathe without fearing for my lung capacity because my walk to work is green and luscious and I can do yoga in the park on my lunch break. I have finally accepted the reality that those who didn’t fanny about for four years came to terms with a long time ago: work just is a bit shit.
Despite having run off into the sunset, there is no climactic finale. In real life, there’s always the next day. But for the most part? I feel fucking vivacious.
Each day brings new sliding doors and you truly never know who will change your life, until you find yourself looking back with almost biblical gratitude that you said YES to that party, or that job, or that festival. The possibility of having not met certain people – many people – is so painful that my memory of our first encounter feels fragile, as though it could shatter if I think too hard about the implausibility of us ever having been in that same space at the same time.
Yet, as gratifying as it is that taking this plunge really has made me so much happier, these feelings are tinged with sorrow for the girl who spent so many hours pining. The girl who expended so much time and money and energy trying to make London ‘work’ by committing – to jobs, to leases, to friendships, to relationships – all the while knowing her heart would never be truly contented within the confines of the south of England.
I am sure that one day the tables will turn and my ambitions will no longer be so nomadic, but when that time comes, at least I can say I tried. At least I’ll have the memories. At least I’ll have the photos.
At the very least, I’ll have friends across the globe.
Smoking Hot Mess 