Published 21 November 2018
So, I made it to fifty.
The big five-o.
At first, I thought I might not have made the best use of my time on this planet so far.
But I was wrong.
I met and married Rhona in 2004. By the following autumn, our beautiful son had arrived. Those two events shaped who I am today. I honestly believe they saved my life.
Before that, I worked hard and played even harder. Having enough money to go out drinking and partying became normal. My relationships were often twisted, painful, and messy.
There had been some stability earlier in life, but it was sporadic at best.
My mum kicked me out just before I turned seventeen, and I ended up sleeping on a thin mattress on the living room floor of my grandparents’ small one-bedroom flat. That was the start of my sofa-surfing years.
From my mid-teens through my mid-twenties, I lived in more than fifteen different places. Sometimes on a friend’s sofa. Sometimes in a small room in a shared house.
What I didn’t have was a place to call my own.
I had never really been taught how to look after money. No one sat me down and explained savings, pensions, or the need to plan for later life. Mine was a hand-to-mouth existence.
The culmination of all this came in the spring of 1994.
I found myself homeless in Brighton and plunging into a serious breakdown. The people I had been staying with asked me to leave when I was already at my lowest ebb. The following weeks are fuzzy at best. A complete mental block at worst.
Somehow, I ended up in the hospital, being cared for by people who, for the first time in a long time, made me feel human again.
I have no memory of how I got there. I do not know how long I had been there.
They kept me clean, warm, and safe until I was ready to step back into the world.
After that, I was placed in a halfway house with support workers to help me make the transition back into ordinary life. I had lost a lot of weight, but I was starting to eat properly again. Through weekly therapy sessions, I began to piece together what had happened in the weeks and months leading up to the breakdown.
It came down to stress.
I had made poor choices. I had upset people. I had run away from everything, which is how I ended up in Brighton in the first place.
The stress of that self-imposed exile (due to violent family dynamics), losing my job, being unable to pay the rent on my room in London, and the end of the relationship I was in at the time all became too much.
Something had to give.
Unfortunately, that something was me.
The doctor told me some memories might be gone forever. Events had caused so much pain that my brain had deleted them as a kind of safety switch. The gaps still frustrate me. Now and again, I catch glimmers of them. They feel like forgotten dreams returning in pieces, and I have no way of knowing whether they are real or imagined.
Recovery was slow.
I found work at a car body repairer, doing mostly crap jobs. Then I was placed into a bedsit, paid for by the government and a local housing association that helped vulnerable young adults.
Things began to look up when I got a better job at a car hire place. I cleaned cars and vans, made deliveries, and earned decent money.
After a while, I started dating my boss. Several months later, I moved in with her. I thought all my Christmases had come at once.
So began the next chapter.
For the next ten years, I was in an on-off relationship with a woman I adored, but one that also played dangerous games with my head. When enough time has passed, perhaps I’ll write about that properly. For now, it is better left alone.
It did, though, lead to me meeting Rhona.
It led to love.
It led to Karta.
Becoming a husband and a father put a nail in everything that had gone before. It gave me the direction I had been searching for.
The road since then has not been easy. I still make mistakes. I still get things wrong. But I now have something I did not have before.
Purpose.
Being a father and a husband keeps my compass pointing in the right direction.
As I step into my fifties, I know there are still things I need to do.
Meditate daily.
Fast sensibly.
Read more.
Write every day.
Walk for an hour.
Support Karta with his schoolwork.
Sort out our finances.
Nothing dramatic.
Just the daily work of becoming steadier, healthier, calmer, and more useful to the people I love.
I still have some significant challenges ahead of me.
But I believe the next fifty years can be the best days of my life.
Until next time,
adieu.