On Leaving Home, Again

Lately, life seems to be moving in circles. Days move to weeks and weeks to months and as sure as Friday follows Thursday I find I am leaving home again. 

As I write I am sat on a quiet carriage. It is entirely empty apart from myself and an elderly man who is sat slumped with both arms forward. I hope he is asleep. 

I have been home for a recent break to the home where I grew up. Nestled very deep in the countryside, we have no pub, no local shops and the nearest town if you can call it that is a good half hour away. 

To an outsider, I’m not exactly selling it. But to me, it’s exactly as it should be. It’s a place where the crossroad track reminds me of the hour I spent listening to Jamela’s Superstar on repeat. It was the late noughties and still to this day, that song is the definition of sophistication. It was the first song I bought; it cost 99p, was displayed pride of place on the of my green iPod nano and was played always. That thing was indestructible and I sometimes hope that when the nuclear fog clears and the clear up begins, the small green sheen of that device will greet me as I clamber out a bunker. 

It may surprise you to know that I am not listening to it now. Instead, its RAYE whose once-in-a-generation vocals accompany me on my way back to another home. And, as the carriage is rattling through the little villages with alarming names, try explaining lower slaughter to an American tourist, I am on a familiar journey back northwards. 

I love it, I really do, it’s a place where I have made a home. Yes, it’s where the baltic winds slams into you at a rate of knots but it’s also the place where I have found my favourite coffee shop and where they know my order and where similar kinds of landmarks are studding my experiences of growing up with a memory or two. I would like to preface this with stating that I often feel like, despite all of these newer home comforts, I often feel like I don’t know what I’m doing. Honestly, the world still staggers me a bit. It moves so quickly. It flashes with brilliance and then dives into a fickleness and a casual cruelty that sends news headlines reeling from one disaster to the next. 

People seem to have careers sorted, or prepared, or due to be sorted whereas I feel like I’ve missed out on a talk that I really should have attended. Unfortunately, life is not like The Bee Movie where a job board lights up with the life path for you, and if you don’t know what I’m talking about, go watch it, it’s up there with Citizen Kane. But however begrudgingly I admit it, I ultimately think it’s pretty good it’s not like that.

A very wise person recently told me that motivation comes from discomfort; a need to do more or do differently to see the change we actually want. It’s very often a non-linear and frustrating process but the outcomes, if we stick with it and with those we trust and love, can be brilliant. 

Each person’s motivation is individual to them, and I won’t be as self-centred as to tell you mine but for the moment I’ve decided I’m going to hold on for the wild and exhilarating and romantic and hopeful ride. And to me that suits just fine.

Written by, Bea Bennett