Finding Me - Blog Post

For so long he had tried to convince me to move there...

  'You'll love London, it's great!'

  'But what's so great about it?' I asked.

  'The sheer variety, that whatever you want to do, whoever you want to hang out with, you'll find it there.'

I stood there, unimpressed. What do I care for variety?

  'Why don't you move to Hove? It's got the sea,' I countered.

  'I am happy to move to Hove if you want me to,' he replied.

We scoured the transport links on the internet and realised it would be a single 2.5 hours trip to his job in North London. I couldn't ask him to do that - if I wasn't prepared to put those hours in, I wouldn’t expect another to try.

I sat and contemplated what to do. I could sit in Hove missing him and continuing a long distance relationship, with no realisation of it becoming the fully fledged relationship I dreamed of; where I could see and kiss him regularly. Or swallow my fear, my distaste for the heaving, sprawling and grey metropolis London is and trace my fingers on his naked skin every night, whisper my love with my lips and clasp his warm large hands in mine.

I thought about what Ben Lee would say.

He would tell me to gamble everything for love.

I thought about what Beth Orton would say.

She would tell me to open my heart.

So love won.

Love always wins.

In March 2014 I packed every single item I owned and waited for two lovely people to take me to the capital. When we arrived he was already there. He held me and then helped bring my stuff into our home. Our new life meant I had moved my belongings and bed to London but every week day my body belonged to Brighton. The hour train ride brought me back and forth between two lives. One of love, compatibility, fun and jokes - a relationship so precious, beautiful and fragile; but I had no support network or understanding of the city. Then back to the sea that contained my friendships and the home of homelessness where I battled daily to help prevent more people living without a roof for a night and a fractured management team at work whose expectations I could never fulfill.

The pressure was immense - my feet were in two places that seemed geographically and emotionally further and further apart. The injustice I experienced in Brighton started to affect the love I experienced at home. I felt torn, low, depressed and angry by the way I was being treated by people who I had respected at work, and I held onto the pain tightly. My earlier personal transformation as a social worker exploded into a sea of indecision and doubt, with every move I made misrepresented and misread by others. Where I expected support all I received was derision and disdain, in the name of professionalism.

I cried, thought, wrote, dreamt, spoke and fantasised about it at length - and during this time I lost my joy and spark. I strayed from my centre, felt off kilter and it bled into every area of my life. I questioned every decision that I made and thought myself worthless, useless and lacked the self-esteem and worth I was trying to instill in my clients. The pressure was building within, manifesting itself as ticks and pulses in my body and a jaw that continually ached. Something had to change.

Then everything changed.

I started applying for statutory social work roles in London. I wanted to live in one place properly so I finally cut ties with my old job.

The month after I resigned he turned around and told me that he was leaving me and our relationship; that he couldn’t undertake the next year with me at his side.

So I found myself in a city I didn’t know, didn’t like, and in a new job I didn’t understand. I was without my love, whom I knew deep within my heart was my twin flame. I watched him walk away from me in the airport, knowing that he was bound for Indian climes, alone.

I was isolated and lost.

But I was free.

And in that freedom, I found London... and me. 

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