Meltdown

Returning to normal life was hard. Someone called it post-holiday blues, but it was so much more than that. Two days after my return, on a Sunday at about 10pm, I found myself on the Expedia checkout page, about to book flights the following morning to Germany for a week. I was on the edge of despair. I’d come back from a beautiful place and way of life - where they grew their own fruit and vegetables, where they took advantage of all nature had to offer, natural remedies, food and fuel, where there was no need for constant entertainment and where every bit of work you did was not for money, but to feed and support yourself – to a city, where the streets were dirty, the people unfriendly, where I worked for money in a job I hated that was going nowhere, to people who only thought of themselves, to a completely unrewarding way of life. Why couldn’t I just ship off to Germany at the drop of a hat? Why couldn’t I be spontaneous and reckless with the money I’d saved? Why was I restricting myself to this dull and insignificant way of life? We’re born, we grow up, we get jobs and a career, we retire, and then we die. Where’s the living? Where is the point to our urban existence?

My mind was running in overdrive at this point – I was verging on insanity; my eyes were wide with it and I could feel laughter rising in my throat. I thought ‘I’m going to do it. I’m literally going to go to Germany tomorrow, leave all these people and all these worries behind me, and just go. No need to tell people – I’d just do a Stephen Fry, emerge from wherever I ended up when my money runs out. Why the fuck not?’ I had no plans, absolutely no commitments until Berlin with my sister in September. I wanted to learn German – perhaps I could get work out there and learn German. ARCADE FIRE. Wait, I was seeing Arcade Fire with Harry on Tuesday. A gig I had been anticipating for three years. A one-off, special gig that Harry had booked for me whilst I was in France. Arcade Fire. I came crashing down. The delirious happiness gone. There was no way I was missing this gig, it wasn’t even an option. Spontaneity would have to wait, changing my life would have to wait. Freedom would have to wait.

I couldn’t go to work the next day. After having what I can only call a minor breakdown, I could not face the thing that had almost pushed me over the edge. I spent the day kicking myself into action – sorting out things, applying for new jobs and agencies. And the next day, almost as if nothing had happened, normal life had to resume.