FINAL DAY ONE

So this is the last week before I move again into a new place. It is already feeling strange and I have worked out why.

In Feb 2008, I lost my old flat, my job was looking shaky, my girlfriend and I were breaking up and my health fell through the floor. I had been chewed up and spat out by London and life.

My good friend D. helped me back into London and the amazing support of my friends got me back up. I found a new place to live. My job moved on to more permanent positions, giving me the money I had lacked for what seemed like an age.

I remember sitting in my new, tiny room or on my roof terrace and contemplating my new life. My bonsai tree sat in the window, but sadly didn't survive the move (the type is not good at adapting and being moved). I knew if I was going to survive I would have to adapt.

So in many ways I have adapted and in 2010, I certainly feel it is time to move on. However, I am sad and a tad reluctant because this place, this house, the roof terrace were the first thing I had after my life fell apart in 2008. It was a sign that I could survive, I had hit the bottom and now I was crawling out of the rubble. How could I not feel connected to it?

The roof terrace has always felt like a contemplative place, the sky rolling overhead, the gardens behind the house, quiet away from the main road. Leaning on the railing and thinking the long, long thoughts I do. It was just like when I used to get home from school and look out my back window. I dreamed such big dreams then. I still do, but I no longer expect them to just 'happen' to me I guess.

I moved rooms, when they turned my old room into a kitchen, that was difficult at first, coming home to the roof kicked in and dust all over my things was not easy. But I adapted and even changed my room around to mix things up. Then persuaded a good friend to move in downstairs. Now with that friend we are moving on to somewhere else.

But I will always remember how I was when I came here. A broken man, but also a blank canvas of sorts. I was terrified and small, but I knew even then that new things were possible.

Still, a home is where you hang your hat. 2010, I doff my hat to you ;)