Change
Saturday, April 21, 2012 at 3:18 pm
Well, I’m still in the CH postcode so little has changed since my last post, other than the fact I’ve left the comfort of the sofa and found a little space in a little corner of a big room upstairs on the left. It’s not as comfy as the sofa, sure, but I get an aerial view of the street and a snapshot view of the river so swings and round-abouts I guess.
Actually things have changed (saying “little has changed since my last post” is just an easy way to begin a post bereft of inspiration). I am, like another 2.67 million others in the UK, unemployed. 2.67 million people can’t be wrong? 2.67 million people can’t be bad company? 2.67 million people can’t be…a very employable option I suppose, by their very definition. That’s a lot of people. Millions of people in fact (just about). I didn’t have to be one of them. I had a comfortable job. I wasn’t earning record-breaking amounts of money, no, but it was a nice situation to be in. And I’d saved up a tidy sum of money (and in my head, yes it was tidy, folded into very neat stacks, a mixture of coins and notes; heads upon tails of Lizzy the second, mounted frugally one on top of the other).
So why then Mr Joe, did you decide to cast aside this comfort? Why would you so carelessly, in these difficult, economic times (circa some Politician, some time ago) throw caution to so much wind and resign your comfortable position? Are you not aware of the dangers of such a wind? Did your mother not tell you to stay indoor’s on windy days? What if a an out of control, flying politician hit you on the head?
The answer is fairly simple: not working is a lot like…not working. And older generations may gasp and grumble and choke on their piping hot tea, but I cannot see a better time to do what so many of these older-folk tell me they wish they’d done when I tell them I’m doing it (this it is round-the-world travel if you’ve not guessed by now- 2.67 million people- gawwwd).
If I am to live for another 60-70 years- and I do plan on doing so- then I see no better time to galavant and gala-vent (some fury) for at least the next 6 months. Some people already have a low opinion of youth (yes I’m still going to refer to myself as youth so shhh!) so I may as well indulge them in qualifying their half-assed, lazy assumptions of my generation.
So anyway, yes change. Change is always a good topic for a post. Things to have changed since last week: my employment; my location: living room to bedroom; my underpants (just about); the note in my pocket from paper to metal and… my feelings towards doomsday itself. The big day. Day of reckoning. Day of days. Monday 28th February. I don’t suppose that among the preparation of the last couple of weeks and the working-lark, I’ve been able to think or begin to formulate a sentence that would describe my thoughts about leaving.
Now that there are no 18-21 year old tenants to look after, who sometimes mistake you for their mammies and daddies and who I in turn often make the mistake of pretending to care about, now I am safely across the water my mind can solely occupy thoughts of departure day.
My last vaccination has been jabbed and whilst I am grateful for the (partial) immunity now swimming around my blood-stream, I am less grateful for the £180 those needles appeared to withdraw in the process. My last bits and pieces have been ordered and are starting great journeys of their own to get to my house by next Monday and whatever I decided not to order from Tim Turnet (t-internet) I dried desperately and with as little enthusiasm as possible to acquire in town. Maybe it was the pink stuff they put in my arm that sapped my energy. That or my being criminally unfit at the moment…no, definitely the pink stuff.
“Excitement” is certainly one way to describe how I’m feeling. But similarly, so is “unadulterated fear” and they both occupy me in equal measure. Not that the fear would cause me to back out. It’s a promising fear. It’s like, anticipation just graduated from adolescence, leaving behind it’s squeaky, pre-pubescent front and bounding into a 10 year period of late night binge-drinking, multi-narcotic experimentation and careless, unprotected encounters with skank-i-licious ladies of the night. It doesn’t promise to be good for you, but you’re guaranteed to have a ruddy good time.
But tomorrow might throw up another emotion. Delirium, panic, stress, hilarity, insanity maybe even dumbfoundity (yes, I’ve probably just made that last one up). But it does make things interesting. And that’s a feature of the 6 month jaunt I’m hoping will be prevalent: I won’t quite know what’s round the next corner and I hope that doesn’t change. And if it’s something really, really scary, then I guess I’ll just have to change my pants.
Categories: England, Travel Writings