Hello, Goodbye

Thursday June 26th/2014

So it turns out I have a life. I am a very important person with a very full agenda. Little time to document my whirlwind of an existence. I may also be a tad full of bullshit and just haven't gotten around to writing. But much has happened over the last month, some significant, a lot insignificant. I've gone part time at the unnamed bar. Finally freed myself from the all consuming black hole, though my body is still struggling to return to normal human hours and lifestyle. I still find myself dinner hungry at 10pm, wanting to sleep until 1pm, and struggling to fall asleep before the sun comes up. I started teaching ballet for a school in Westferry, a place no one seems to have heard of, and even I am starting to believe it may be all in my mind. It feels good to be back in a studio, not so good to be back in front of floor to ceiling mirrors. But I'm coping. And eating less carbs. Apart from that, I've managed to actually live, explore, and enjoy myself, which was next to impossible when every waking moment was previously being spent pulling pints and cleaning up vomit. Turns out there is a world outside of Clapham. Who knew? A world of poorly acted plays (1984 was shit), and mediocre modern performances (Akram Khan at Sadler's Wells was meh), and tacky Brixton markets littered with cheap crap, and delightful pubs that don't share the Clapham SW4 postcode, and restaurants that serve grilled banana nutella brioche sandwiches (any restaurant really, that isn't the unnamed bar's upstairs pizza kitchen). Days spent lying under the sun in the common, reading and accumulating melanoma. Yoga classes, and random adventures to places like London Bridge, and Waterloo where the day is perfectly wasted on aimless wandering. Hours of typing and sipping rose in beer gardens and old pubs. Trips to the grocery store for food that doesn't have to be cooked in the microwave. Ok that last one was a lie. The food is still microwaved. But I can take my time in Sainsbury's again! Wander the isles, and cherish the length at which I get to spend gazing at what makes me happiest; food. All of these things have me falling head over heels back in love with the city I had almost forgotten all about. I'm living in London. I'm living. In London. 

I'll tell you who isn't living in London. Angela and the triple B's. May was coming to an end, which meant the saddest day in my UK history thus far, had arrived: The goodbye sleep over. I spent the whole week dreading my final trip to The Iron Works, yet eager to see my suto family and soak in as much of them as possible before they took their permanent leave to the Emerald Isle. I got off the overground at Hackney Wick and changed my Iphone playlist from Play this to Depressing. (I'm one who, when emotional, needs to feel completely consumed by it. If I'm depressed, I will relish the feeling, indulge in every ounce of it. Hence the playlist choice, and the fact that I even have a playlist entitled, Depressing.) The walk through Hackney was a strange one. I wasn't sure how to feel. For the most part I just felt nostalgic. This was where I started. Where my London life began. This road was the first place I didn't get lost on. That graffiti, on that brick wall was what kept me from turning right, not left at the 'please don't feed the hipsters', thus aiding in my not getting lost. The cafe that sells the worst espresso I've tasted in London, but would always get my business solely because it's called Muff. The mattress that still sat, nudged in a tree. A tree that was vacant the first night I walked past it, occupied the next. I stopped. That mattress has been in that tree as long as I've been in London. I remembered coming home to Bernie and Bryan's after seeing it, telling them if all else fails and I couldn't find a place to live, I could always live in the tree down the block. And quite comfortably too. The fact that the mattress was still there four months later, and the irony that I was now actually homeless was incredible. It was like some kind of abstract metaphor that I couldn't quite put into words. I kept walking, chuckling to myself as Damien Rice serenaded my slow stroll down memory lane. I stopped again, this time outside the door of The Crate. Hackney's brewery and waterside pub, but to me, the scene of which my one and only "bar fight" broke out. Another chuckle, a moment to bask, then on I went. When I arrived at the gates of 50 Dace Road, I looked for a long time at the Iron Works sign. This was it. The last time I'd stand here. The last time I'd use my key. I wasn't sad. It was just strange. I entered the flat, surprised at the lack of welcome. Usually Angela is propped on the sofa, or in the kitchen trying not to burn Bobby's formula, and without having to turn my way, shouts a big, "Helllooo!". But there was no hello. No Angela. Just boxes. Empty space and boxes. I set my keys on the table and stood in the middle of the room. Alone. I remembered the first time I stood in this spot and I cried. Ya, ok. I cry a lot. Shut up. It takes a real man to cry. I swallowed my man tears and called Bernie. They were at the Britannia. Of course they were. Of course our last night as Londoners together would be spent in the first pub we ever all hung out in. I believe they call this 'coming full circle'. I call it bullshit. But I tend to get angry when I'm sad so it's understandable. 

The entire family had just got over a spurt of some stomach virus (the same virus they would leave for me as a parting gift) and had finally regained the ability to keep food down, but more importantly booze. When I met them at their table, Bobby donned the biggest grin, as he usually does when I'm around. Bernie said he hadn't cracked a smile in days, but enter Chelsea and he's beaming like a crushing school boy. Don't you dare make me cry, Bobby. I won't have it. Keep it together Chelsea. And for the rest of the evening, all my energy would be spent on exactly that; keeping it together. I remember very little after leaving the Britannia. Possibly because of the abundance of farewell liquor; partially a subconscious block from my memory due to it being one of the saddest nights in British history. But the next morning I woke hung to the tits, so safe to say it was more the liquor than the subconscious denial. Bryan offered me a ride to the tube but I declined. I told him I didn't trust his Kiwi ass with my Canadian one on his scooter, but really, I knew the minute I left their front door I'd be a blubbering mess. To cry in general is gross, but to cry on a scooter is just embarrassing. I also just really wanted to indulge in my final walk through the trendy trashy Hackney that stole my heart some months ago. I knew as I walked towards the tube, that I was walking towards another family I had created all on my own. A completely dysfunctional collaboration of the craziest fuckers in Clapham. My crazy fuckers. I knew I wasn't going to be left alone, and that I was going to be more than ok. But I was still walking away from my people. Instead of feeling sad, I felt blessed. I have people. I am a million miles away from home yet I have made connections with people strong enough to make my heart sink when they are no longer at arms length. I can feel blessed that even though a part of my life here in London has moved on, I am still walking towards a community of people that are my people. My home. 

And as it always does, life went on. Chris and I, after over two months of seeing each other, had our second date. The Royal Opera house. Yes, I popped stupid ginger beard's ballet cherry. And he didn't go kicking and screaming either. My brother had been working with The Royal Ballet on a show called Draft Works. A compilation of new, and up and coming choreographers who had been given the opportunity to set pieces on members of the company. I had requested a ticket, and Chris had requested I get two, on the condition that he would, without argument, be wearing his Nike Air Max's to the opera house. None of this fancy dress shoe bullshit. The night of the show arrived and I looked good, but the Irishman looked better. Grey dress pants, black dress shirt, that stupid ginger beard, and no Nike's. Damn. I don't think I've ever been caught checking out a man clothed whom I've already seen naked, so much in my life. The show was good, but let's be honest, when the view next to you has you wiping drool from your face, focusing on the stage proves a bit challenging. I'm also lying. The show wasn't that great. But I'm pretending to not be such a judgemental cunt. Dance over here is weird. And by weird, I mean mostly bad. But our second date was everything good. I think I have found my other half. And I don't mean the ultra cheesy, horribly cliched "you complete me" other half. It's like we just fit. It works. Despite all my tireless efforts to hang on to my single status, we are good together. And I know it. I think I always knew it. And so came the inevitable. When you put more effort into trying to ward off a relationship than you do actually tending to it, yet it continues to grow-- quite seamlessly in fact-- at some point you just have to let go, give in, and realize that some things are just out of your control. The best things usually are. Timing is always shit. When you don't want something, it comes at you with full force. I spent so much time opposing that force that I couldn't be bothered to see it was everything I ever wanted. With every relationship you leave, you take with you a better knowledge of who you are and what you want. Having spent the last year completely consumed with my single self and my wants and my needs, I 

a) never wanted to be in a relationship again, and 

b) knew that that was an utter lie, and if I did finally succumb to sharing my life with someone, I'd know exactly how I'd want that life shared and wouldn't change that for anyone.

It took me a long time to realize it, and even longer to admit it, but with Chris, the fear of my wants being compromised, or the idea of losing myself is non-existent. And so, one cloudy Saturday evening, I told him I wanted to be his girlfriend. The white flag had been waved. I am still me. I just have the most handsome, burley, imperfectly perfect Irishman at my side to enjoy everything I would already enjoy as a single female. It just is exactly what it is. Without any of that expectation I loath, and so often mention. We're a team. A team that picks each other's noses, and makes sure we're in a room full of friends when we mention the other person farted in their sleep. A team that can spend an entire day together doing absolutely nothing and wish that day would never end. A team that takes its teammate to Mcdonalds and while she's ordering, sets two lit candles oozing from ketchup cups, on the table to surprise her with a "romantic dinner". A team that can incessantly mock and insult each other's stupid accents to no end, and find a questionable amount of pleasure in it. Or when one knows he's in the doghouse and leaves an entire corner store worth of junk food with the bouncer of his teammates bar as an apology. A team that fights like animals in an indian restaurant while still dishing out each other's plates and telling them to try the aloo tika because they'd really like it. Or every time the teammate leaves to buy fags, he returns with a surprise for the other teammate-- sometimes drunk enough to forget he bought said surprise and wakes up in the morning with a melted chocolate bar in his pocket. A team that can laugh for hours, fight for days, drink like fish, and just be. I mean, I'm not one to brag or anything-- I am. I am one to brag-- but one could say I've found gold. A pot of gold? Oh yes, dating an Irishman is just too much funny. I'm funny.

I still don't know if I believe in fate, or universal influence. But the way things happen in this city, it becomes harder and harder to think otherwise. The other day a good friend of mine told me she had been meaning to tell me that she's noticed just how happy I've been lately. 

"I've seen you be kicked down so many times. I thought a while back, about the day you walked into the (unnamed) bar, completely crushed and at such a low. For weeks now, you've just been so… happy. You've taken so many blows since you got here. It's nice to think that maybe all that has finally passed."

And maybe it has. Maybe I've finally proven to this city that I belong here. I've done my time. My probation period is over. And I'm here to stay. Happily.