The grass is always greener but what shade of green?
If there were ever anyone who has thoroughly tested the idiom "the grass is always greener" it has to be me. I have jumped over more fences into more gardens in the past 22 years than I care to count. I am not even sure why! It started in 1992 or so when university ended as did the cozy cocoon like life I had with my friends. It ended abruptly on a June morning in 1992 as my Dad woke me from my sleep. I was asleep on the sofa in my tuxedo, hungover. It had been the last night of university, the Summer Ball,
it was fantastic. We all sat in a park and watched the sunrise, the first day of our new, adult, post graduate lives. I remember the drive home, 5 hours of hangover hell, I was so sad. I realized life was never going to be the same and I have spent the past 22 years looking for something like it, a security blanket, an adult life I can feel comfortable with. I've never really found it. One of my students is a psychologist and she describes me as a slightly narcissistic little boy trapped inside an adult (and yes, she is one of my nice students); I am not sure if that is her professional or personal opinion or both. Can we ever tell? So here I am 22 years on from university and sitting in a foreign city surrounded by books and my bags ready to leave, ready to go home. Part of me feels ashamed of myself, I am not even in my own home but the home of a friend who had to rescue me from a landlord who was turning my apartment into a B&B while I was still in it! I woke up on July 19th to find 4 tourists sleeping in the spare rooms and on the sofa. Maybe I could have handled that at 22, at 44 I can't handle it and nor should I. It was the last straw. In 14 months of being in Barcelona I've had a landlord who had a nervous breakdown and ran off to Galicia, an angry passive aggressive Irish man who would disconnect the internet when the bills weren't paid the day they arrived and finally the B&B owner. My last 2 landlords were or are university teachers, I worry for the students if that is the quality of their teaching staff.
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| The summer ball with Penny, Kirsteen and Mathew |
it was fantastic. We all sat in a park and watched the sunrise, the first day of our new, adult, post graduate lives. I remember the drive home, 5 hours of hangover hell, I was so sad. I realized life was never going to be the same and I have spent the past 22 years looking for something like it, a security blanket, an adult life I can feel comfortable with. I've never really found it. One of my students is a psychologist and she describes me as a slightly narcissistic little boy trapped inside an adult (and yes, she is one of my nice students); I am not sure if that is her professional or personal opinion or both. Can we ever tell? So here I am 22 years on from university and sitting in a foreign city surrounded by books and my bags ready to leave, ready to go home. Part of me feels ashamed of myself, I am not even in my own home but the home of a friend who had to rescue me from a landlord who was turning my apartment into a B&B while I was still in it! I woke up on July 19th to find 4 tourists sleeping in the spare rooms and on the sofa. Maybe I could have handled that at 22, at 44 I can't handle it and nor should I. It was the last straw. In 14 months of being in Barcelona I've had a landlord who had a nervous breakdown and ran off to Galicia, an angry passive aggressive Irish man who would disconnect the internet when the bills weren't paid the day they arrived and finally the B&B owner. My last 2 landlords were or are university teachers, I worry for the students if that is the quality of their teaching staff.
So I've moved around a lot, it is a joke among my oldest friends who laugh at the entries they have for me in their contacts. Thank god they have stuck with me. You gain people on the road and you lose them too. I think the universe has been kind as I am about even. The friends I had 22 years ago are still my friends, the friends I had 30 years ago are still my friends. That is good fortune indeed, especially for a narcissistic boy!
So here I am ready to go home, albeit temporarily, I may finally be over my need to live overseas, I love travelling but really miss something, maybe it is my old friends and the familiar things of home, even if my plan is to be in London which is only 3 hours away by train and not a E300 return flight.
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| Maybe this is one of the things I miss. |
“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”
July 30, 2014
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