It's Thursday February 8th 2024, 10:22 am.
I’m currently sat in a co-working space in a hostel located in the Southern part of Tenerife - Costa Adeje (or rather El Duque). I’m sat in a hoodie, sarong-wrapped skirt and flip-flops. My hands and toes aren’t purple, cold or numb and I shaved my head 2 days prior to leaving the UK for various reasons:
The first - being black and traveling with carry-on only means I wouldn’t be able to take my entire collection of hair products needed to look after locs.
Second - I was already going down the squirrely hole of destruction through distraction and control of picking my locs apart to get rid of the floof in the middle of them. A weirdly rewarding but ultimately futile activity. I started doing this the first time I grew locs and shaved them off in 2008.
Recognising and acknowledging what I needed to do next was as easy as a little voice in my head saying, “cut them off” whilst I was about to hop in the shower. The lack of resistance wasn’t surprising and the joy of removing them was refreshing through the last 30 days of packing up my life - properly this time.
All of that to say, my head is wet shaved smooth and feeling fine in the Spanish February sultry morning.
I still don’t think the reality has actually settled in yet that I’ve left the UK with basically nothing more than the two bags I have… and likely won’t for a day or two.
So I’m sure there’s a burning question that needs to be answered:
Let’s rewind briefly to the global haze that was 2020. A mere 5 months after the 2019 debacle of my mother’s rather explosive departure and the conclusion of an unfortunately timed relationship, we barrel-rolled into international uncertainty around an overhyped respiratory infection. Only we didn’t know that at the time.
For many, it was a pretty harrowing time. For me, it was probably the best time. Work-wise, people were interested in finally doing their podcasts, trying to get to grips with how simple audio and the associated technology is, and grabbing life by the short n’ danglies finally opting to record their business audiobooks. Given my staccato online delivery of what I actually do over social media - I was surprised at the number of people wanting to work with me and equally happy with the small work rate required.
Add to that, I didn’t have to “be” anywhere at any given time other than online which meant changing a shirt if I needed to look more formal from the belly button up which only happened once every other week.
Online DJ streams and parties were the norm, as was the lack of needing to hold onto the concept of time desperately for the sake of a workday.
Only - that gave space to entirely dark moments where my ever-looming question of existence would come screaming in when I’d be lying on my sofa with my cat - Icarus - purring his head off curled up on my chest whilst I knead his peachy fluff skin for comfort.
Most of the time my existential dread was the usual - why am I here, what’s the point, nothing has meaning etc.
Except for one time when things went eeirly silent whilst watching Rick and Morty and an absolute statement boomed in my ears:
“I don’t want to die here”
Fuck.
Big booming voice of doom, you’re right. I *DON’T* want to die here…on this sofa, in this living room, in this apartment, in this city, in this country. I don’t want to die here. Hell, I don’t even want to get OLD here. What the fuck am I doing?!
Sometimes being startled awake doesn’t have to be as dramatic as the movies make them out to be. Often times if all happens in a fraction of a moment - the unfurling reality of your current existence and where it is going to ultimately end - and the resolute desire to absolutely not let that happen. All that you’re left with saying to acknowledge that entire realisation is to maybe let out a grunt, a sigh or in my case a very annoyed, “FuuuuuUUUUUCK!!”
Loud enough for Icarus to slowly raise his head off my chest to make sure I was ok, but not loud enough to startle him. His slow blink, yawn and return to napping was all the confirmation I needed.
A few months after that there were issues with my half-brother and maybe a few months after that I felt a departure happened but only learned it was my step-father another 5 months after he’d actually passed away - only because my name was in the will and his kids from his first marriage begrudgingly had to inform me.
I missed the opportunity to say goodbye to the one person I called Dad for my entire life even though in the months leading up to his departure we were Facetime calling and talking about the places we’d go visit when I flew over to Israel to see him even with his dementia getting worse every time we spoke.
Grief is never a one-and-done, usually. I likened it to a tsunami wave that gets smaller over time. When you get a cluster-fuck of unfortunate moments it’s all too easy to completely crumble and just concede to it all. Looking at my NHS record, I tried a few times it seems.
So that’s the cumulative iceberg tip reasoning to my thinking that started off my path to departure in 2021. I didn’t have it as a hard focus for that year as we were all tentatively returning to our normal lives as such. Having to go back outside was tough as I’d become quite comfortable with being able to switch that side of my life on and off at the mains socket. Reserving meaningful in-person connections to coffee dates, park walks, BJJ classes or open mats, bouldering hangouts or other little events was something I didn’t want to have to now mingle with “business” things like Personal Training, in-studio sessions and yes even DJing for anything that wasn’t a big nightclub event (the nice thing about the latter is you can come in 90mins prior and Disco exit once your set is done or hang about for a mate or two whos set you quite like.
But I digress.
My first run into making an exit plan was deciding I wanted to attend the Budokon Guru Killer 500-hour BootCamp in June 2022. A friend and low-key mentor supported me and even got me to bare it all in a live stream I rarely ever mention anywhere as I’ve not watched it back and probably won’t. But if you want to watch the nearly 2-hour stream it’s here:
I didn’t expect anyone to really care - but through my BuyMeACoffee link, people watching my Instagram Stories and the sporadic Facebook posts it turns out people actually do!
Whilst I didn’t completely reach my target, I got far enough that I booked a flight, and a train ticket and got accepted to the BDK-GK500 boot camp.
Those 30 days fundamentally changed my outlook on life.
Returning to the UK in July 2022 was hard. SO hard.
The artificial social and environmental constructs were louder than ever, impossible to ignore and even more impossible to accept being a part of. But - begrudgingly - I had to at the very least put on a happy face.
Life was knuckle-dragging itself forward with a level of annoyance I hadn’t experienced in a decade or two.
I have to leave.
The sense of relief I felt every time I said that was hard to ignore. Living as “the best version of yourself” at the Budokon ranch in Montana showed me the daydream I’d be lucky enough to re-live from time to time when my meditation practice was actually dialled in.
I found a ticket to Kenya/Nairobi well within my immediate financial reach at the exact time I had put into my countdown timer: 0720. The “woo” was strong with me that day.
And then life threw me a couple of red herrings:
1 in the shape of a Danish man coming out of his huge life problems and deciding to get involved with me at the wrong time in his life (and mine - but forget about me, I exist to help everyone else at the expense of forgetting myself. Yes - I’ve been to therapy about it)
2 starting a job at a new climbing centre venue with a company I’d been a customer of for a good 7-8 years. I had no intention of coming back but: See Red Herring 1.
Everything still felt focused to a clean departure:
Giving up the tenancy of my flat of 11 years
Finding Icarus a home temporarily until I could find him a forever home
Putting my life into storage
Giving up other stuff to landfill, sales or freecycle
The part I ignored was the fact that I was only going “home” for 6 weeks or so because I bought a 1-way ticket outta the UK.
My time in Kenya was beautiful, easy and felt “right”.
My auntie providing a perfect space for me to land and not directly worry about a place to live absolutely helped me focus on the more important aspects of how to feel and what I would be happiest in “doing” back home in Kenya - at least to start off with.
I’ll expand upon that in another post as this one’s already turned into a beefy chapter on its own (which is why I’ve opted to use substack for my incessant mental meanderings. If you’re still with me, my delighted brain ferrets thank you!)
So the “Great Dane” - the apple of my eye; the captor of my desire; the ache in my heart - helps in expediting my return as I am still rather chill with timings.
6 weeks and I’m begrudgingly back in the UK.
The only reason is because of a man - and partly my duty of being a good friend and employee.
See: I will completely abandon myself for the sake of everyone else.
I’ll FFWD through this bit as it’s all a bit meh..for me at least. If you want details tell me, I can - apparently - write forever when all distractions are removed (oh - who knew?!)
Back in the UK and able to crash at a client/friend’s spare room in their house whilst room share hunting
Back at work with some fresh energy
Missing the warmth of Kenya and everything that came with it
Still madly in Love (why does the hindsight of this make me fold my face up into a million pieces at the thought)
I found a place only 5 minutes from the Dane in East London.
Note: I would NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS live where I lived. I lived down the road in Stepney Green for a spell in 2007/8 and vowed never to be in the area again. It hasn’t changed.
Life is grand and full of the constructed designs I know I should be ignoring but: love.
The Dane comes to his first spiral (which I said would happen, given his circumstances and said I’d be there for him). Of course, he opts to cancel everything and go back to his parents.
This includes cancelling coming to one of my DJ events which I was beyond excited about as no partner in the past ever felt confident enough to attend my DJ nightclub events as you gotta dress up and have a certain level of self-love and not-giving-a-fuckness; he managed one and that meant the world to me.
The Dane decides to ask “for a break” in our relationship but is unable to define anything about a break - oh this is all via text message.
Note: I get sent a picture of him crying. A. Picture. A phone call, or a video call was literally right there in WhatsApp where we were sending text messages. But no. I get a picture.
Note: Yes I was fuming even though I didn’t let any of this out other than needing to talk about this all in person.
I have my own spiral and a new climbing friend offers to let me crash and land (and sleep) in their apartment for a week.
Honestly a godsend and a half.
Two weeks go by and we have the talk and it’s broken off. Sadness.
The new exoduscountdown timer goes OVER 9000.
Everything is a focus to February 7th 2024. I am out. Don’t look left, don’t look right, Collect £200 pounds and go straight to the airport.
That’s the short version(!) of course a lot of work bot at the climbing centre, PTing a client and audiobook production was involved. My new place in East London had a constant harrowing shadow of Canary Wharf in the background which was bemusing in one way and a stark reminder of the NPC side-quest I was wasting time on.
So here we are now at the first part of what could be 3/6/10 or more months of free-range travelling.
I don’t have a steady income, so we’ll see how that all works out too.
This was meant to all be done within one Pomadoro slice.
I am on my fourth.
I need another coffee and some painkillers for these cramps.
Thank you for reading this far. You a real one - this was a ramble and a half!
Until Tomorrow, Sun Babies 😍
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