I realise that the following could be seen as a gloat or a boast, but I assure you, it is not. I mean it to be encouraging. Maybe it isn't. Anyway, I can write what I want here, so shut up.
A year ago, I had recently moved back in with my parents. I had been living in London whilst attending university, and stayed on for some time afterwards, staying with kind friends and living off the dole/returned deposits. I did a bit of freelance work here and there, but nothing you could really call a job. I spent most of my time watching TV (I caught up with about 4 series of Doctor Who, among other things), writing music (none of which was particularly good because of very little focus) and drinking. Due to circumstances, I drank mostly string white cider. White Ace, Diamond White, White Dragon, you know the ones. Mostly 7.5% and at that point about 75p a can. I am good at drinking. It runs in the family somewhat. And coupled with years of the university lifestyle, I was managing to put on a bit of weight. Still, I made it through two sets of interviews to get down to the final two applicants for a job in charge of entertainments at a venue. Then I didn't get it*, then I didn't have any money, then I had to move home.
Anyway, I moved in with my parents. Two of my brothers still lived there too. It was a nice place to live, but tensions ran high - this was an environment I had left, and suddenly I was back there, as if I'd achieved nothing at all. I managed to keep up with a bit of work to do with music, but with London now on the end of an internet connection, it was much more difficult. I signed on to the dole. I spent all of my money on alcohol. I stayed in my room.
Now, this all sounds a little dramatic, I suppose. It wasn't. And a lot of good things came of it. In fact, everything came out of it.
Firstly, I got to reconnect with friends that I hadn't seen properly for a long time. Trips to the pub with Ryan were better than going to any pub in London. Drinking ale or cider, buying roll-ups, stumbling up country lanes and listening to afrobeat, raiding wine stocks at our parents' houses, it was hilarious. Nights at Jack's arguing about whatever was the current topic, playing computer games or watching 80s action films into the early hours. Going dancing with Jess and Ed, making igloos with Johnny, Alex and Tom, we had an amazing time across the winter. But I still couldn't help but feel like I wasn't accomplishing anything. Mostly because I wasn't.
Anyway, the encouraging bit. I got a bit of work through a mate I'd met a few years ago and had helped out along the way a few times. There wasn't any money in it, but it was a couple of weeks driving around Europe working on gigs with a car full of nice guys, and because I wasn't paying rent or working, I could do it. As it turned out, it was a long, hard slog. It was great fun, and I met some wonderful people, but it was tough work, especially to someone who had essentially been a jobless drunk for the preceding six months. But I was professional, attentive and I did myself proud (there was an incident coming out of the Swiss mountains where everyone was nearly killed, but that aside, I aced it).
Due to being frugal, I managed to make a bit of money from the tour, which happily coincided with a friend having a very cheap room available in London. I moved in, paid the first month's rent and set about finding some work to tide me over. A couple of bits and pieces allowed me to just about get by in the city, even if things were tight.
Then, just as I thought any chance of more work with the company that organised the tour had disappeared, I got a call (whilst waiting for a bus) asking if I wanted to go out on another tour of Europe. The money wasn't amazing, but it was far more than I'd been used to earning in recent years, and this time there was no driving. I calmly accepted the offer, said goodbye and hung up the phone. I think I punched the air, in my mind looking like Rafa Nadal, in reality looking like a bespectacled man in South East London advertising himself as a prime candidate for mugging. I made a phone call to share my excitement and felt a whole lot better.
A few days after this, I was called into the office to go through the tour and also talk about 'something else'. I walked out of the office, in simple terms, with a job. It wasn't clearly defined, it wasn't salaried, but it was a job. A job in the music industry, no less. Happily, I had also arranged to meet a friend later that afternoon for a drink in a nice pub. That was a pretty bloody great day.
Anyway, here I am, I year after moving back in with my parents. I have been working in this job for about six months. It's not exactly what I want to do, but it's in the right area, and I've learnt so much this year that I couldn't even begin to tell you. I'm beginning to figure out how I might forge myself a career out of what I've been given. What I'm trying to say is this: my life was never awful, but just a year after feeling like my prospects were dead on the ground, I'm here. It's a lot easier to look back at being in that place than it is looking forward when you're there.
Just a thought.
db
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* Incidentally, I recently ran into the person in charge of appointing this job (he has been a mate for a few years through an old workplace). He told me the guy they went for was an utter disaster and that he had been sacked fairly promptly. I'm much better suited to the job I have at the moment, and I'm not one to laugh at other people's misfortune, but it did make me feel a bit warm inside.
