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I’ve Been Saying Goodbye To A Few Places
How I’m getting ready for my next chapter
It’s been a couple of months since I last wrote something here, and now the things I talked about in my last post are finally coming to pass. Last week, I signed some papers and then transferred the largest amount of money I’ve ever had in one account to my solicitor, and on Friday I’ll own a house for the first time in my life.
Still feels odd typing that out and seeing it written down there, like it’s happening to someone else. But then I look around my current rented house at the piles of boxes, bare walls and empty shelves and remember that no, it’s happening to me, and it’s happening because I want it to happen. It’s a risk and a step into the unknown, sure, but it’s also a mass of potential and possibility to the point where I’m still trying to sort out which order I want to do all the things I can now easily do.
But that list is for the future, something to construct during the long drives along the A1 I’ll be doing during the move and to be embarked upon from Friday — and yes, purely by chance and without planning, I complete the purchase around the spring equinox, the point in the year where darkness gives way to light. A bit of an over-dramatic parallel perhaps, but I was telling someone the other week how I like long evening walks, and what better way to explore around my new home than long Northern spring and summer evenings after a hard day decorating?
But before I jump into the future, I’ve been back in the past. The last few weeks have been about saying goodbye to Colchester, where I’ve lived for almost thirty years.
Thirty years. It still feels odd to think of it that way. Back when I moved here in the mid-90s, it was something temporary. I’d got a job at the University of Essex and I figured I’d be there for a year or two before moving on to bigger and better things. I stayed in that job for three years, and even though I moved on to a range of different jobs, I stayed here, unknowingly putting down roots.
