It’s a slightly overcast evening in the bosom of South Derbyshire, and I am sitting in a shed, looking out into our garden. We have two sheds in our garden, and Hayley, Donna and I spent the entirety of yesterday afternoon clearing them both out, filling (to the point of overflowing) a large skip in the process. Babs is not quite a hoarder, but she is always reluctant to get rid of things that she thinks she might one day find a use for, so Donna and I did most of the work, letting Hayley relax in the bliss of ignorance to what we were throwing away. Anyway, the whole point of the exercise was to consolidate our things into one shed, which will be exclusively for storage moving forward, whilst freeing up the other shed to be used by yours truly. It’s actually quite a nice shed inside, and I shall be using the space as my own sorting of living room, somewhere I can call my own to read, write, listen to music and so on. 

The reason d’etre behind this new living space is because I’ve recently decided I’d quite like to move out into my own apartment, preferably in London (I know, not quite the same, but I’ll get to that). I’ve always been reluctant to move out before, largely because my poor mental health meant I was consistently relying quite significantly on my poor Mother for emotional support, but now I am feeling better and actively excited for what the future holds, I feel the time has come for me to step out into the big wide world. However, my notoriously reckless spending habits have ensured this option remains out of my reach, at least in the medium term anyway, so I discussed it with Babs and we agreed a good interim solution would be to have my own space, other than my room, where I could be at one with myself. 

So, here I am, sitting in the shed with the door open, watching the rain poor (in August?!) whilst Forest repeatedly rolls his ball underneath my chair and then barks at it because he can’t reach it. It may sound ridiculous, but I feel better already, just knowing that I have this space to retreat to. Yes, I have my bedroom and our office and the main living room, but the former is a functional room with little space for recreation, and the latter are shared spaces, so this shed, my living room, feels different, because it’s the only space I have to relax that is my own space, and just my own. God, you wouldn’t think I’m twenty fucking five would you? 

I finished Britney Spears’ autobiography earlier today, and whilst my struggles haven’t quite been as extreme as hers, I felt myself relating to her quite a lot. In her book, she explains that, in order to get through her conservatorship, she often regressed to a child-like mindset so she could avoid thinking too much about the injustice she was suffering, and whilst that is a rather different situation to my own, and whilst I haven’t ever regressed to a child-like mindset, I sympathised with the idea of regressing to a less situationally-aware state in order to escape reality. In my case, I now realise that I have essentially spent the last ten years in survival mode, focusing on nothing other than making sure I lasted until the next morning. Now that I am better, I’m dealing with the consequences of that short-termist behaviour, such as my weight gain and my indebtedness, so whilst I’m inevitably disappointed that this means I can’t move to London yet, or do other things I’d like to, I remind myself to be kind to the person I was before, since he was just doing what he needed to do to give me the chance to be who I am now, sitting in my shed, at peace with who I am and the life I have. 

These recent blogs have all ended up getting a bit deep, have they not? I’ll try to keep it a bit lighter next time. Speak soon.