My Five Year London Anniversary: An Introspective then Retrospective

25th April means I have lived in London for five years!

Given that I didn’t even think I was going to be alive in five years, that’s pretty good, isn’t it!

So, five years ago, I took a taxi to the airport and never looked back.

Well, that’s not entirely true. For the first year, I was desperately homesick. I remember sitting on a wall in Southend on Sea and I cried because I suddenly missed my siblings so much. I have been tempted to go home, many times, but never have.

Mania took me to London. It was an impulsive decision. I was seventeen. I had a grand total of twenty quid, but I also had somebody to live with when I moved here, my ex boyfriend, Jonathan. I wasn’t a lodger, I temped and paid my way, thanks very much. In the second half of the year, though, I became deeply depressed. And thus began our strained relationship. Although we have nothing but warm feelings for each other now. I am absolutely grateful to Jonathan. It was not easy living with me.

My life in Belfast just seemed…over. Predictably, it was my mentalism that kind of wrecked it. I was really, really ill for quite a long time and had practically destroyed or bemused every friendship that I had. I was too ill for college, and was kicked out with the advice, “Your health is more important than your education right now”. My home life was awful, because my dad’s drinking was out of control. When I left, I felt like I had abandoned him, and that feeling has never left me.

There were also far too many of us squeezed into my mum’s council house and I was a teenager who needed privacy. Also, my door had been kicked down!

Some of my friendships still remain- a tentative friendship with Tracie and Andrew, who are married and respectable, and, in comparison, I feel bohemian and unwashed. I am still friends, of course, with my beloved Stephen. And I still adore and love my family, and I always will. I still get homesick, I still miss my family.

My ace big sisters, although Paula is making a weird face!

I don’t regret moving to London. I have made some fabulous friends who make me smile and laugh and who- I think- like me for me. I like them, very much.

I actually live here which shocks me- it shocks me deeply that I stuck it out, I didn’t leave. There have been nights when I have been steaming through Central London on the number 4, head leaned against the bus window, sliding past the Thames and thought, “Wow. I actually live here”. I’ve had almost twenty jobs! (Fear not, I was a temp!) I have been:

A journalist

A web designer

An archivist (and here is a photo of me as an archivist: I worked in a dingy basement. I used to walk outside on my fag break and tell people that there was anthrax in the building.)

A PA

….and much more. I’ve performed the best I could in all my jobs. My stupid mental health just got in the way.

I’ve written for several different publications. A radio station might be making a play out of this blog. I’ve been to a lot of gigs. I’ve written zero novels!

I am only twenty two and I’m sure I will be brilliant in a Future Job when I am Stable and Allowed to Work Again.

Looking back, I’ve actually done an awful lot. Most twenty two year olds are at university or living with parents. I have worked hard and I have fought very, very hard to survive here.

I have lived in eight flats. Here are a few of them:

This is my desk in Wanstead, where I lived with Jonathan. That’s Cook’d and Bomb’d on the screen!

Crouch End

My room in Crouch End where I lived in 2005!

And this is “the Bunker” in Finsbury Park. I lived here for a year! It was called The Bunker because it had a glass door and no windows. But I was very happy here. The landlord was an Italian who said, “Ciao!” and “Mama Mia!” I loved him.

After that, there was me, Rob and Hobbes’ flat in Crouch End, which I loved:

There was of course, the Arctic, my last bedsit:

and now my new place.

I’ve had innumerable hair colours:

Black!

Pink!

Purple!

and Red!

I’ve had some fun times. One wedding, one engagement party, a million Stay Beautifuls, tons of pub quizzes, many, many picnics.

I got a tattoo!

I met Neil Hannon! I met Eddie Izzard! I met the Manics.

I interviewed my idol, Neil Innes.

I have slept with seven people. Not too bad for the manic depressive hypersexual. Although I did proposition a ton of strangers in various manic episodes. I also “slept” with someone when I was psychotic. I did not sleep with someone, I just thought I did.

I went to Suffolk. We saw this church, in the dark:

I’ve had bad times.

I have been to five funerals. Five brilliant people that I loved. They were in the space of three years.

I had nowhere to live, but a friend helped me. I was almost homeless last year, but again a friend helped me. So thank you for friends who have given me places to stay. I have not been alone in all this. If I was, I wouldn’t be in London anymore. Probably wouldn’t be anywhere anymore.

I’ve had a few complete psychotic nervous breakdowns. I averaged about one a year. If I get past this October, it means I’ll have had a whole year without one.

I have been hospitalised once. That was terrifying.

Facing up to and accepting my illness, its extent and what it had done to me was and is one of the hardest things I ever had to do.

Living in London has been a massive struggle, emotionally, physically and above all else, financially. But I am glad I have had that struggle.

In five years, I have had two relationships. The first was with Jonathan, which I mentioned earlier.

The second one was with Rob.

That’s been for almost three years, save the breakup last year. I lost my way that time and didn’t know what was what. I am very glad that we got back together. And in a way, I am glad we broke up, too. Not because of lack of love. I love Rob, more than anything in this entire world. I don’t think that I could love anyone or anything more than I love him. But I found out how to be independent, how to live alone. I needed that break to sort myself out and to reestablish our relationship as boyfriend and girlfriend, not carer and patient. I needed the break to find out how much I loved him and didn’t want to lose him.

Rob is the greatest aspect of my life that has made this struggle worthwhile.

He is the reason that I do not give up, no matter what. When I feel like I am losing and that I should just end, I close my eyes and think of him.

I know you all see Rob as some sort of saintly force. He’s not. He’s human, and flawed, and lovely. He’s a cocky, sweet, silly, funny, blonde eejit who sometimes wakes up and thinks he’s a dog. He can make five innuendos in the morning before he can remember his name. He says, “Bollocks” a lot and he laughs like Sid James. He looks fantastic in his military jacket. He smokes self consciously in a vain sort of way. He has beautiful eyes and lips and, ahem, a beautiful body. He’s extremely intelligent. We argue but don’t fight. He is whimsical. We have flick fights. We share a cat.

He puts up with me, and he actually seems to really love me. He knows me better than I know me. He reminds me gently that I’m nuts when I think I’m not, he has kept me on medication and has helped keep me alive. He puts his arms around me and kisses my forehead. He makes me laugh more than anybody else. He holds my hand when we watch the shopping channel. He’s wiped blood from my arms and face and kissed my scars. He plays guitar and sings to me. He reaches the stuff in the cupboard that is too high for me. We have our own private language. He tells me I’m great at stuff he thinks I’m great at and tells me I’m crap at stuff I know I’m crap at. He tells me I’m beautiful and tells me that it will be okay. He gave a face to what was destroying me; my spiky sea urchin in my brain that tries to kill me and messes things up. He tells me, over and over again, that it’s not my fault. He knew I had manic depression a long time before I knew I had manic depression. He doesn’t mind that I like to read shit magazines. He gets angry on my behalf.

So, five years on, I am really grateful for what I have. Okay, yeah, mental illness and etc. Which is shit, and difficult but yeah, it’s there.

But also a brilliant boyfriend, a clutch of good friends, absolutely lovely, supportive blog readers, somewhere warm to live, a great CPN who is helping me get my life back on track, a physically healthy body and my family. And London, outside my window.

No matter how depressed I get, I’ll read this, and remind myself, of what I have. And how lucky I am to have it.