Well here we are not just at the end of another year but also another decade. I look back on this year first and it’s been an eventful and beneficial year for me with many ups and downs. Hard to really say if it has been a good year or not, I don’t think I can even judge this anymore as life is so up and down! This year saw me move for the tenth time in ten years. Relocating to west London and I have remained there since but though I have decided to stay in London for one more year it is important that I feel happy at home so I will be looking for one more move next year as living with my current flat mate is akin to living with the entire cast of “The Young Ones”.
I have also done a fair amount of traveling this year, albeit to the same country! I visited Sweden seven times this year and it is safe to say that in twelve months it is the country that I will be calling home. It has taken a while but finally I think that it really does feel like “home”. There is still so much that I have to learn about the country, so much that I need to understand but every time that I visit there it feels more and more special. Sweden is a naturally beautiful place and the people are amazing.
One thing that I have found myself guilty of this year is not seeing my family enough. Three visits just does not really justify what I would call being a loving son! So next year I have decided to visit at least once a month, hopefully that should keep my phone bills down to when I do call back home. When I’m in Sweden then it will be not so bad to fly over once a month.
But it’s not only the end of a year but also the end of a decade. When I think of what has happened in the past ten years I really do have to catch my breath to think. At the end of 99 I was in my 20’s living a great life in Bristol. I was surrounded by friends, and though I was about to end a long term relationship I was more than happy with the love I had. But I had come to the end of a point in my life and I desperately craved change. Towards the end of 1999 I set the wheels in motion to move to London.
After staying for one more year in Bristol I eventually transferred myself to London in early 2001. I had met a new woman in my life and was throwing myself into unknown waters. Moving to a new house (I had not house shared in ages) was an experience, yet though that house has more mice than a cornfield and more holes than a Gorgonzola cheese it was, and still is, the best house I have ever lived in. The people there were not just housemates they were very special friends and that in itself is a hard thing to find in London.
The early “Noughties” went fairly uneventful. We moved several times, getting to know each other in our relationship, growing in love. I traveled to some wonderful new places, South America, Malaysia, Australia and parts of Europe I had not seen. It became a fairly comfortable routine and life was becoming rather enjoyable. I think the only thing that I was becoming a bit uncomfortable with is that my partner and I had the same group of friends, neither of us had any real individual friends that we could go out with from time to time.
2004 saw us move into a house in Canary Wharf. Melanie was having a lot of issues with her work and would often come back home in tears and I always tried my best to make her feel comfortable and happy. My work was beginning to bore me and I started to feel a bit restless. It was also the year that we began to take in housemates; there were some strange ones like Kate and Rachel but also some amazing friends like Nati.
2005 soon rolled into 2006 and life was going just fine. Again I had the wonderful opportunity to visit Australia to see Melanie’s family and had a wonderful time, also getting the chance to stop by Singapore and see this country in its entire beauty.
Then my world came crashing down in 2006.
In September 2006 on the very same day Melanie and I met for drinks, she told me that she had met someone else and that the relationship was over, I also lost my job that very day. Within the space of 24 hours I felt empty. Over the next few months I struggled, I began to drink more than I should do, could not really be bothered to go to work and basically I was living my life in a chaotic mess.
It was in November 2006 that things changed. I could not afford the house I was staying with on my own so I advertised the single room. I had a reply from several people but the girl who took the room was a Swedish girl called Marie, young, friendly and she had a carefree attitude that I had forgotten existed. In the six weeks she was there she not only woke me up but also, to a certain degree, changed my life.
The way that she woke me up, taught me how to live again and not care at the world or the way it throws trouble at me was just something that I will never forget. On the final day that we said goodbye we both knew that we had given each other a valuable lesson in life, I had given her an insight into what life outside of Sweden was like and she had taught me once again that my carefree attitude that I carried with so much swagger in my Bristol days still lay within.
2007 saw me move back to Bristol as I had no reason to really stay in London. I needed to escape the concrete suburban jungle that I no longer recognized. It seemed that everywhere I went had some stale disgusting reminder of where I once shared some times with the cheating bitch I lived with. The following year was a good one, though it was difficult to live with the family again it was nice to see them on a regular basis but I knew throughout this period that I would eventually have to return to London.
2008 saw my return and now I have come not only to the end of a decade but the end of my time here. As the clock slowly winds down to end another decade I am once again contemplating a change in my life’s direction. At the millennium it was Bristol to London, now it is London to Sweden.
The past ten years have been one of immense self discovery, a lot of happy times, a lot of sad times but I am ending this on a high. I have lost more friends than I would have liked to have written, some fell into the trap of drink and drugs and could not escape their demons.
But throughout it all there were two constant sides in my life that through all the highs and the lows never left me. My gym and my writing there are some people I would like to thank this decade and some I would like to forget. But one above all stands tall, the friend who tragically passed away eight years ago. I know if she were alive my life would have been different.
So that in its summary is the story of my noughties. A time of love, pain, happiness, tears, sorrow, regret, silliness and cherished times.
What does the next decade hold?
Come back in a decade x
