#211: Travelling Backwards
I’m travelling backwards on a train.
I’m going down to London for a couple of nights and then I’ll come back.
For 8 years I’ve been travelling in the opposite direction.
I’d jump on a train from London to Stoke for the weekend, to see family, for a birthday or to come home for Christmas.
I’d travel back down to London loaded with bags carrying Christmas gifts that needed stuffing into my one bed flat.
Or i’d be rushing from the office to Euston, sweating underneath my coat, carrying a sniffle, desperately waiting to collapse at my parents and for my Mum to make me a cup of tea.
Suddenly, my reality is different. Now Staffordshire is home and London is temporary.
Now, London is where I travel with a rucksack full of cables, pants and t-shirts.
“Wait there, when did this all happen? When did this all change?”
Over a year ago we left our one bed flat in London to move in with parents for 2 months, then 2 months became 4 months, then Sarah took a 4 month career break, then we went travelling and then whilst travelling we talked a lot about where we would like to live, then we ended up looking at a few houses in Staffordshire, then we put an offer in on one, then it got accepted, then we started commuting the other way to London every now and again, then we bought a Ford Fiesta, then a washing machine, then a bed, then a mattress and today I’m travelling on a train backwards from Stafford to London.
A Sanctus Coach once said to me change is hard because it’s already happening. When you start talking about change, or about decisions in your life, it feels icky, but that’s because inside you’ve already made a decision that perhaps you can’t articulate yet. something is shifting inside and the talking is just trying to make sense of it and rationalise it.
I can’t really remember the exact moment Sarah and I made a decision to move and change our life. I remember a series of nudges, one thing, then another thing and then after a lot of things, a big change.
I spend a lot of time thinking when I’m going through change, I try to perfect the decision. I think about it so much, until I’ve got every single aspect of this perfect decision covered.
I am brilliant at thinking about decisions, I think everything through, every scenario, every possible outcome.
It helps, about 5% of the thinking helps.
The rest of the time though, decisions are made and change seems to happen in my life without me really remembering how I made it or how it happened.
My hands take over to write an email.
I say something I didn’t expect to say.
I decide not to do that thing.
I decide to do that thing instead.
Change comes from a thousand tiny actions.
Change started when I let myself write in my journal about being unhappy working full time on Sanctus.
Change started when I let myself feel disappointed with London.
Change started when I put a book launch on in Stoke.
I thought about it all, but the thinking didn’t really help too much. I made mini decisions, plenty of them and pop, my life has changed dramatically.
Now I’m travelling backwards from Stoke to London.
The inbound ticket will take me home.
From London to Stoke.
Writing
TIP JAR
You can tip me for my writing, here's the Tip Jar
A response, comment or 'thanks' are warmly welcomed too.
Who am I?
Writer, founder, husband, always tanned.
Wannabe poet, imposter, taboo buster.
Thinker, philosopher, not a drinker
Joker, chancer, bad dancer.
shoulder chipped Stokie
champagne hippie
Asks questions,
the big ones
best ones.
Always
asking
Who
am
I?