Home and who I am

Today’s post should be about my sister. I saw her for the last time today, but I haven’t processed her departure yet. There will probably be a post in the near future about how much I miss her; in which I long for the days I would order a pretentious drink and hear her cackle over my shoulder. Or there's this post, in which I pre-empted this day and how sad it would make me. But today, this post will be about home.

I have become a consistent customer of the rushed weekend visit home over the last 5 years, and each time has been negated necessary by a different reason (usually a celebration). But today was the first time I returned home, to find myself not the only one leaving on a Sunday afternoon. My brother made a surprise visit home this weekend too, leaving before me, hungover and headphoned. And my panicked packing was made trickier by a hallway lined with four suitcases of my sister’s, as she prepares to leave home for the first time tomorrow, not to return for a full 8 months. I’ve not lived at home properly for much of the last 5 years, but I still find myself grieving my siblings’ departures. How dare they leave home too?! I have only lived elsewhere with the guarantee that at any moment, I can cross the threshold at my previous address, to find all four family members smiling, joking and arguing.

Home is a concept I’ve thought a lot about the last few months. You see, next week I should be returning for good. That was the plan – to leave London once my internship ended, to return to the calm and quiet of north Wales, to save and take a break for a few months before heading back to set up shop in the city permanently. But like my mum predicted many moons ago, I just can’t leave London. I’ve only been living here for 7 weeks, but those 7 weeks have been some of my happiest. London is a different kind of happy. Wales holds happy in the colours of the trees and the expanse the sun has to shine, and the family and friends that sit beneath it. When I arrived in London 6 weeks ago, I wondered what I would do with my evenings with only a handful of people to see. Fast forward to a week later and I struggled to keep a night off. I think cities do that to you, offer you so much so fast that it takes self-restraint to not do it all at once. Happy in Wales is different to happy in London. London is independent, elated happy. Wales is warm, sigh-of-relief happy.

A lot is happening for me lately, and I have found it hard to keep up. Never before have I had so many instances of overwhelming happiness, the type that freezes you and renders you unable to act for a moment. I’ve sat sparkly eyed with music feeding into my ears, feeling on top of the world, not just on the top deck of the bus. I’ve skip-walked down Upper Street, just drunk enough to see the wonderful surroundigs through a filter that frames it at its best. Every day brings with it an image and a feeling I want to capture, and I don’t think I’ve felt that at such a frequency before. I have so much to do and give and London gives me so much in return.

The downside of deciding to stay in London, is that my slight debt-induced headache will continue for a little longer. Some days this is worse than others. Most days the stress of the debt isn’t enough to stop me doing everything I want to, and subsequently, spending all the money I want to. The problem is that it doesn’t seem an achievable amount to pay off. Even if I did nothing for a month and wallowed in loneliness and misery, it would only begin to make a dent in the amount I owe. Plus, owing to a bank doesn’t motivate me to pay it back, because I hate them! But Jessie, you say, just take your foot off the pedal, you don’t need to go out for that meal with your friend tomorrow, you can just go next week. And here’s the real kicker. Some deep seated part of me finds that very hard to believe. I work in a cancer charity, hearing stories every day of people’s lives unseated by a diagnosis, possibilities taken away in a moment. I find it very hard to truly believe that I can choose to miss out on an experience or an occasion with a friend to save a few pennies, when my day job is a constant reminder that life can be cut short in an instant. So for now, I’ll sit in my debt for a little while, and chip away at it as much as I can for my long term happiness, while doing what I want to do for my short term happiness. I’m playing a long term game in all of my jobs at the moment, with none of my side projects particularly lucrative.

But any worry disappears in an instant, with a quick walk down Upper Street, past the old cinema, past every cuisine you could possibly imagine. Walking down this road fills me with the London happy I mentioned. I look up at gorgeous Georgian windows lit by the lives of others, and I wonder if they know that they have the life I want. Do I even know if that’s the life I want? This is a question I ask myself all the time now, who am I and who do I want to be. I’ve been on a few dates too, in an additional effort to answer this question better. I don’t want to be anyone’s anything, but I like having an excuse to try a new bar, be sparkly and learn about someone else for a few hours. Then I walk down Upper Street, and feel a pull at my heart as I see couples sharing wine in cosy looking restaurants. Is that because I want what they have? Or is it a kind of wistful half-want for something else that they represent, a financial stability and a willingness to settle down that I feel very far away from? Or is it because I’m wondering if that warm yellow love is real and long lasting? Or is it just reserved for random moments when you have that sip of wine that pushes you into fuzzy tipsiness and frames your dates face with a rose glow? London has presented so many possibilities to me, with so many jobs and side hustles and people all at my fingertips. I feel like each one asks a question about who I want to be. I don’t really know, but I’m really enjoying figuring it out.

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