New Growth

It's been a while, hasn't it? I've not forgotten you. I just had some enormous life events to live. Buckle up, because this is a good half hour of my brain on the page.

For now, I write this from the seat of a BA flight, with sunshine streaming through the window onto my tray-table. I'm heading back to Germany, the country I've lived in for the past ten years, for what could be the last time...

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Things I never wanted

My younger self quite liked the idea of travelling and seeing more of the world, but I never dreamed of living the ex-pat life. I didn't really know what I wanted, but knew I had no longing to properly live in a foreign country...so when I ended up doing just that, I saw it as a short-term thing. We'd do it for a year, maybe two. Right?

Years can pass when you're not looking, because Getting It Done – whatever the day's 'It' may be – means that the bigger picture can slip out of view.

One year became two. Two became a fair few. Liberties were taken, and we glossed over them. We kept saying we'd move home soon but we ended up staying anyway, because of the devil you know, and the possibility that the turning leaves might bring a brighter life. You may know that thinking:

If I can just get through this project...

If I can just get through this year's big trade show...

If I can just get through until [insert date]...

...everything will be alright.

After a few short years I realised the humdrum success trap was sprung and I was already rotting in it – with an established everyday routine, a stack of promotions that had brought me to an unchallenging job, a large house, and a burgeoning collection of stuff I simply didn't need. I'd developed and triumphed over an alcohol abuse problem already, but the shape of my days didn't sit right; I wasn't living.

I guess that's what happens when you take a creative and put them in a cage. I'll skirt around the details, but I didn't want that life. We didn't want that life. Just like always, home is wherever my Kind-Eyed-Boy is, but both of us were unchallenged, unfulfilled, unrecognised, and just plain under-the-smiles- unhappy in general. And yet...still giving all of ourselves to our jobs, through some sense of weird unrequited loyalty. We're the idiots who show up and bring something to the table, even if the others at the table spit on us, I guess.

We decided to bide our time, save up, and go back to our homeland – but escape isn't like in the movies. I didn’t BAMPOW! smack my nasty boss with a keyboard, and stride out flipping the bird. Nope. Escape plays out as a series of little deaths while you hold on to your integrity, and pray you have enough Life Points to last until you can leave. You figure out which limbs you can live without, while you strive to keep your heart and brain alive. Saving money is a slow process: for years you'll still show up, do the thing, and do it exceptionally well...because you care. You'll push the bad feelings aside. Drink. Sit through those meetings. Bite your tongue. Watch society crumble. Watch mediocre men fail upwards. Drink. Soldier on. Buy stuff 'to feel better', while feeling guilty that you should be saving. Get through the day. Waste your free time. Do exceptional work. Look out for everyone else. Drink. Stand up to bullies. Want more from life. Push the feelings aside. Drink.

Ad nauseam.

Of course, there were plenty of bright lines in there, too. We both developed and grew as people, made some lifelong friends, discovered new passions, and fell even more deeply in love with each other. There was a whole bundle of happiness smudged in between the glaze of malaise, for sure. That's the strange thing about the design of your existence though: it can be awful, or awesome, depending on how closely you focus in. Take a day, week, month, year, or life, and you can excavate a variety of very different tales.

It's why Facebook and Instagram aren't the truth about people's lives...

Things I always wanted

What I slowly started to live for...was time: those quiet minutes in the mornings, reading in bed; Friday nights spent laughing with friends; hours to myself to write the songs I’d started to sing in my head. I lived for playing games and doing jigsaws with my love whilst listening to our favourite podcasts; cooking and eating together; going back to the UK to see family. The true meaning of happiness is in those quiet moments of humanity, in the night listening to someone you love drift within dreams, in the warmth of friendship, and in marvelling at the beauty of the world. Time is a currency you can spend but never get back. Nobody can refund you any percentage. Time is freedom. And our jobs were taking too much of it, along with plenty of other things.

It's all about time.

It became clear that after years as an ex-pat, it was about time to trade in a life chasing money for a life where wealth was measured in a different currency. Somewhere in the hubbub, we decided that for real, we would leave soon.

So we made a plan – and executed it with military precision, in one of the greatest logistic projects we've ever undertaken. Many years before, moving house cross-country within the UK had been easy, in comparison. The move to Germany had been a cinch: just starry-eyed kids (and kittens) in a Nissan Micra crammed with our most beloved stuff. Moving from our enormous house in mainland Europe back to our little British cottage by the sea was on a completely different level. It required a gosh-darned truck.

We were excited, but of course, it was a secret from basically everyone for months...

The stuff of dreams

One of our greatest challenges was the amount of stuff we had to do something with. Buying stuff to fill the holes in your soul can net you a lot of belongings. (And doesn't work.) Buying stuff because you're adulting and it's what together people do will net you even more. Buying stuff because society tells you that all the stuff you own has some reflective value, that'll get you mountains of pointless belongings.

I own this,

so this is the kind of person I am now.

Let's put it in a cupboard

and never think about it ever again...

For months we packed up our life, decluttering Marie-Kondo-style, while calculating our arrangements, and re-evaluating the next steps to ensure success. With every box we filled, and every bag of things we gave away, my heart felt lighter. Nothing feels quite as incredible as moving towards your goals.

We moved all our stuff, and our cats, before tendering notice on the billion things adult life requires you to fill out paperwork for. Truly, it all went like clockwork – sure, it was stressful as all heck, and living in an empty house for weeks wasn't fun, but my goodness was it worth it.

I left a job that I'd had some great times in, and some not-so-great times. People were kind on my last day, and I’ll have many, many fond memories of so many of them. I walked out with my head held high, and it felt good to walk away. Bittersweet, but right.

(Also, the incompetent internet stalking from one of the PR lackeys, at 2am on the night I left made me giggle. Hiya, I hope you're enjoying my blog, too! Go home to your wife. And do get some sleep...)

I left a house we had some wonderful times in, and some terrible times. The house where I grieved the death of my father. The place where I hopped on, rode with gusto, and leapt off the alcoholism train. The home where I was really, really ill, really regularly over our time in Germany. My EDS3 was at its peak for years, and I suffered multiple related illnesses because of it. Goodbye to the place where all that went down, but also goodbye to the venue for the incredible events I hosted: the gluten-free dinner parties; the amazing karaoke nights; the marshmallow toasting chat-fests, and the evenings baking cookies with my very best friends. Goodbye, house.

I bid farewell to the streets we'd walked every day, captured some places with my camera for posterity, and I boarded the plane – no looking back. I had a big, stupid, goofy grin on my face as we took off, because it wasn't my home any more.

And now I am home.

What I never knew I always wanted

It's funny how experiences that teach you what you don't like, can clarify what you do. Try this: if you're stuck deciding between two things, flip a coin, and then go for whichever one you're hoping it lands on...

Germany wasn't the country for me. Some places you take a deep breath and feel at home, but sadly, Germany simply didn't give me that ease. The German culture and methodology doesn't really mesh with the things that give me a sense of safety, comfort and contentment. It is what it is. Different strokes for different folks. But living in Germany meant I overcame a lot of challenges, which in turn helped me to discover things about myself.

For example, I've always been a pretty good cook, but living in Germany, somewhat through necessity to get the kind of food I love, I became an excellent cook. I discovered what I need for a place to feel like home. I discovered that creativity and artistic expression mean more to me than baubles and the trappings of success. I realised I want to write an EP (and I am in the process of doing so) and I'd like to make other forms of entertainment of my own, too. I discovered that even when kicked down, time and time again, I (clap) will (clap) get (clap) up. I may nearly die in the process, and surface covered in blood and dirt, but I am still GOING. I started writing again, for me. (My job prevented me from writing about the subject of the business. So for a long time...I just stopped writing. But then my voice demanded expression, and I started this blog. I love writing. Definitely overwrite in my private scribblings. Definitely don't care.)

As I wrote in a song recently, I realised time is the one thing we'll wish for more of when we die. I discovered some of the things that really matter.

What now?

I've been blessed with plenty of things in my life. I'm genuinely grateful to whatever cosmic hottie bestowed me with all that I routinely take for granted. I try to remind myself often to be grateful, and to recognise that what I have is wonderful. I don't want to waste the chances I've been given – and I know that there are plenty of people out there who are less fortunate than I. I know I want to be useful, productive and to bring joy into people's lives. I want to make people smile. I want to make the unrepresented feel seen. I want to wear my heart on my sleeve and see it beating in time with yours. (We're going to have such messy shirts!) I want to make, and create, and I want there to be space in the world for my own particular brand of nonsense.

I know I was an excellent manager to my team, and I'm proud of the incredible work that we did together, but I can't live without challenge and support of my own. And I wasn't getting either where I was.

Of course, the real Dark Souls starts here, because on my worst days, I wonder...

Was the last ten years wasted?

I'm 37; have I wasted my prime?

Is it too late to start again?

What will I do with my life?

What do I want to do?

Who do I want to be?

Shouldn't I have figured this out by now?

I see kids in their early 20s worrying these same things – from the land of the Internet – and I know that the reaction I have to them is the one I should be having to myself.

I get where you're coming from, but that's silly.

You really have all the time in the world.

Time is never wasted because you're not the same as you were a day ago, let alone ten years ago.

You're always growing; always learning; always evolving.

It's never too late to start anything.

In a year you'll wish you started now.

You'll never know if you don't try.

Maybe you'll never figure it out? Does that matter? Make something anyway.

I still haven't got it all figured out. Maybe I never will. I guess the real trick is doing it anyway, even when it doesn't feel magical or significant.

The (resolutely first world) problem I have is that I've always been fairly good at anything I set my mind to – and being generally good at stuff means I've never had a real direction that was set by what I wanted to become, as opposed to what was simply expected of me. But I have one life, and one shot, so I have to choose one path. Time's frustratingly finite. As I said, first world problems...

Hence, at 37, I'm choosing my path. I'm not quite sure where I'll end up, but that's the fun of it. As long as I keep my main goal (learning, growing, serving others, happiness,) in mind, I'm confident that the things I make will find their way to the people who'll appreciate them. I'm going to do my darnedest to make sure they do. But before they can, I've got to make them.

In a strange twist of fate that I'm assigning far too much importance to, I learned to manually focus my camera today. Up until now I've just used the auto-focus, and somehow managed to capture some banger shots. (Look, I'm pretty lucky with this...) But I've often wondered, 'How do I get it to focus here?' And then I found out. My tiny mind was blown at this functionality, and what it means for my photos going forward. (You saw the dodgy shot as the image for this post.)

But truly: I sought out an answer, in order to make something the way I wanted the art to be. And I'll keep searching for answers, until my EP is out...and more. 'Til the things that I make have made a whole lot of people smile.

And then? I'll just have to start asking new questions.

Love always,

Fay

xXx