This blog goes round in circles. I don’t mean literally; that would be ridiculous. No, this blog swings between packed-with-reviews to cowboy-movie-tumbleweeds seemingly in perpetuity. At the moment it’s tumbleweeds; I can’t get anything written because there’s one massive thing blocking out everything else. It’s like a lunar eclipse, with my hopes of getting any other subject down on virtual paper playing the part of the sun.
A while ago I lived in Hong Kong and for the final 2 years I was in a state of constant anger. It bubbled under the surface, so that as I walked around the streets I could feel I was hoping someone would give me an excuse to smack them or at least lay into them verbally. I needed a release of anger, a cloudburst every so often, to keep it in check. This blog was my outlet.
I did move away from HK and back to the UK. After a few months I realised the anger was gone. Everything was as it had been a few years before, when I was a much more level-headed person and emotions were thankfully relegated to mostly subtle bemusement at the world.
I’ve been back 5 years now. And up until a few months ago, everything was pretty copacetic.
Well I say everything. What I mean was the important things - my home life, my friends, the availability of things I wanted or needed. My job was ok but nothing to write home about. However it afforded me a car, a flat, and means to go out if I chose. The flat wasn’t in the best of areas as I couldn’t walk down to a watering hole for free, but it wasn’t too far from other things I needed and in fact a 10-screen cinema was 10 minutes walk away (hence the constant movie reviews here).
And then my company made my role redundant. The company was bought and head office already had a perfectly good payroll department for all of their acquired companies. My role was obsolete and I was fine with that; it was a unique role within the company so when I chose not to take any of the other open roles (none of which had any relation to payroll or my qualifications), I got the usual statutory redundancy settlement. I felt it was time to move on, time to find something new.
And so I moved 220 miles up the country to where I had begun. As a person, I mean. My family moved out of Manchester long before I started school and barely spent any time there when I was growing up. I mean, we had the usual summer holiday jaunts to see relatives etc. and to shop, but that was it.
I now share a house within the Greater Manchester area and that is the current cause of the rising tide of anger once again. Like the same wheel that sees this blog oscillate between loved and lost, I’m nearing the same state of repressed anger that I experienced toward the end of my HK tenure. A home is a place you should feel comfortable in, where you can relax and be yourself. I cannot do that here and I doubt I ever will. As it turns out, this is the first housemate I’ve shared with whom I just don’t gel with and can’t seem to make myself gel with.
The logical half of me knows that only half of this is my fault. However, half a solution is not a solution by definition, so the obvious choice it to leave. This means I have to wait until I have the requisite amount of time served under this landlord so that I have the right references to be able to move.
This time next year I look forward to having a place to myself. It’ll be closer to work as well and I’m really enjoying it there; they have plans for me and I have plans for them, so it’s all good.
I knew I could never rent a place here without sharing this time round - I was between jobs (even though I had a contract for my new job as well as the copy of the redundancy statement proving I could support myself completely for 3 months) and between addresses, so basically I was a legal leper until I was established on the electoral roll and utilities etc.
Incidentally, the person who was paid by us to change all these details for us actually did cock-all, so it was a good job I went to the government website and updated my own electoral roll details.
It’s a waiting game, I realise that. It doesn’t help that I have a holiday to HK coming up and I know for 6 months after I get back I’ll be missing the place more than I did the last time I visited. It still feels like where I was happiest, and I still miss it every day. Manchester is a pretty good substitute for now, but at some point I will decide it’s time to move on again, simply because it’s not HK. I don’t know how many times I will go through this cycle until I realise I should just go back to HK, but I already know I can’t get back in through visa channels as they actively keep people like me out.
And so it goes.
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