All those who wander are not lost...

[annwfyn]

I'm in a good mood today. Yesterday I got a letter through from Camberwell College of Art, telling me that I'd got an unconditional offer on the MA course (not unexpected, but still nice), and then today I got an e mail from the curator at the house of the late John Latham, who is looking for volunteers over the summer to help archive and conserve the work he left at his home after his death.

Life is going very very well at the moment. Well, there are minor money woes, and occasional worries about other things, but in general life is going very well.

It's making me pondersome. A long time ago, I remember talking to someone about moving away from Edinburgh, and was told that if I left I'd just be running away from my problems, and wouldn't be able to resolve anything.

(This was conversation was not with anyone who now reads my LJ, by the way)

Anyway, I had this conservation and it has stuck with me, and the older I get, the more I disagree with this statement.

People are not islands, or wholly formed entities which do not change, no matter what. People are squishy, malleable, subjective creatures, and I think people are massively affected by their surroundings. Which means that you can change a lot by changing your surroundings.

I love Edinburgh. I always have done. It's a gorgeous city - big grey buildings carved out of stone and hillside. The air is clean. The people are wonderful. I feel more alive just by going there. Yet I've become so much saner and more relaxed since I moved down south. I don't think that London or Oxford or Reading are better places than Edinburgh intrinsically. I do think that living in Edinburgh had let me build up an odd identity, based heavily on my own past stupid behaviour, which I found very hard to get away from as long as I lived there. I know that Edinburgh also was very bad for prodding me into a professional rut. I could not have done this course here, for a start. Finally, I think my image of myself in a romantic context was massively skewed, again by the dumb stuff I did as a teenager.

Getting away from that, finding something new, starting again was one of the best things I have ever done. Edinburgh makes me feel alive. London, and indeed the south of England, makes me feel calm. It always has done. London is big - it's big enough that I've been able to lose myself and come out a different person. I got to meet new people who didn't see a composite Sally made up of everything I'd done in the past - they just saw the person I was right at that moment, and let me build from there. I found a new career, which has changed me more massively than I can say. I found pierot.

I still love Edinburgh. Maybe one day I'll get to move back there, but I'll get to move back there as a confident, settled adult who knows what she is doing, instead of the slightly bug nutz chick with the shed load of issues, all catalogued in alphabetical order.

That's what happened to me. I think I've seen it with a few other people - they've left Edinburgh, or Birmingham, or wherever they were living (this happens most dramatically with the folk who leave the town they went to university in) and just sort of straighten themselves out. Admittedly, I've also know folk who are incredibly happy in their university town, or the town where they grew up, so I guess this isn't a universal rule.

This is why I will sometimes recommend people to look at moving. Everyone has a place out there which fits them - like a decent pair of jeans. But a lot of folk haven't found that place yet - they are living somewhere which doesn't have the right kind of job opportunities, or the social group they are involved in is pretty straight laced and there isn't much of a local kink scene, or they just get edgy living without greenery. And that doesn't mean that those places are bad - just not right for whoever is living there. Yet, all that could change if you go out wandering and try one some different lives for size, until you get one which fits so well that you don't need to go home again.

Comments

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

I think more simply than that. That just because a person is running, doesn't necessarily mean they're running from. They may also be running to.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

You're entirely right.

I think it's just something that has stuck with me - me being so very sure that moving away from Edinburgh would just be 'running away', whereas in the end I have gained so much in a big and massive way (Oxford Uni, Camberwell, Jez, you & all the other friends) by that move. And honestly, a lot of the problems which I was convinced were 'in me' (self harming, making bad romantic choices, being a bit aimless with job stuff) have also been sorted, just because taking a step back, and then putting myself in a different environment I was able to see things and deal with things a tiny bit differently.

And then I think that, and feel bad because I feel like I'm saying that Edinburgh is a crappy place and it's not. It's lovely. It just drove me insane, for lots of odd and complicated little reasons. Maybe I'm just too English to be able to handle celtic passion :p

[crocodilewings.livejournal.com]

"Running away from your problems" and the stigma therein is what's known in professional circles as a wanky platitude, and should be treated with scepticism, or possibly ridicule and swear words.

Location: Westfall

[bringeroflight.livejournal.com]

We have you now.

Quick comment, as I'm online via phone...

[adze.livejournal.com]

Slightly hyporitically, I agree with loads of what you're saying.

Sometimes you have to make changes to improve your situation.

I wanted to be living elsewhere by now, to be away from the rut I've been stuck in, but events have conspired against me. (I say events, I think I mean me...)

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

I too have made a big move and it changed who I could be. In Melbourne I was one person. In London I was able to completely change who I was... to become more focused, active and adult. This was partially helped by the fear of being homeless on the streets of London, but partially because coming here could shed all my old baggage and shift perceptions of me - both my and others' perceptions of me.

Luckily now London Ben is well entrenched enough that I don't revert to slacker, crappy Ben on returning to Melbourne.

[windzswept.livejournal.com]

I needed to get out of Lancaster, then Edinburgh.

There was and still is for me, far too much baggage up there.

Moving back to England was originally for financial reasons and Keele was for the practical reason that they were the only teacher training course that had space and would take me with an ordinary degree.

Birmingham was again for practicality as Andy was already working here and it was relatively easy to get a job (which I hate, but you can't have everything).

Personally, I think your more and more frequent visits down south during the last year you were in Edinburgh were running away from everything and I think you found you prefered the person you had the potential to be away from Edinburgh which is why you made the move.

I hope that made sense. :o)

Places

[mangochutney04.livejournal.com]

I agree in the sense that I have always felt much happier being in London than in Oxford. I think it's the mix of people. London is so big, there's so many people to meet and to choose from - for some reason I find that in London there are 'more people like me' and I don't feel like such an 'oddball not belonging or fitting in quite anywhere, hard to categorise' type person as I have done in both Newbury and Oxford. There are enough people in London to satisfy all aspects of my personality and I think you get more of a mix, it's more of a melting pot and I don't know how but for me personally that means I get on with more people and see more people as 'being like me'. I still feel akin with all my schoolfriends from Newbury funnily enough and a few of the Uni ones from Oxford but generally until I got to London I felt alone and out of place - too down to earth for posh Oxford boating types and with too much wanderlust or mission to stay and settle in Newbury - now I feel fine, normal and happy.

Paradoxically in 2003 I just knew I had to leave London for the provinces to meet my soulmate. I just knew I wasn't going to ever meet anyone long-term in London because the only types who were attracted to me here were 'wanker bankers' not down to earth nice grungy slightly alternative quirky boys as I have always liked. It used to drive me mad that the only guys interested in me were rich. I know I'm mad but it's true.

For some reason as soon as I left London to return to my hometown of Newbury in 2003 and started working for the Lib Dems I just knew, just knew, that my soulmate was going to be in the Lib Dems and that I'd find him during that stint in Newbury. Maybe just because Newbury is smaller so you can get to know people better or maybe because there are more men in politics or more men with values who are less obsessed with looks and money who could get to know the real me. I don't know but I had that sense and I was right!

Along came Robin, my soulmate, and then moves for the two of us together to Winchester, then back to London, then Singapore, then back to London again and since that day I really couldn't be happier wherever I chose to live but I don't think my love affair with London will ever quite end.

[becky-spence.livejournal.com]

you can change a lot by changing your surroundings

I definitely whole-heartedly agree. Not living in Birmingham any more was the single best thing I ever did for my mental wellbeing. I like Birmingham, I like the people there, but I will _never_ live there again.

It is definitely not "running away" to want to change your circumstances or give yourself new opportunities.

[cage-this.livejournal.com]

Ever since I graduated from high school, people have been telling me to stop 'running away from my problems'. I think they got the idea that I was running away because I spent so much time actively trying to leave my hometown. Now that I look back on the last two years, now that I have moved away, I can see that I was running in some ways, but not running away from anything in particular. I just wanted a place where I could start over, leave all the other baggage behind and really start making myself into the person I want to be, without anyone having any preconceived notions of who I am because they've known me my whole life. It's been difficult to leave all of my family and friends behind, but I feel free, like my hometown was some gigantic oppressive force and now I've rid myself of it. I don't think I could ever live there again, I'd be too afraid of falling back into old habits.

One thing I did mean to say earlier...

[adze.livejournal.com]

...was congratulations on getting the place on the course!

[eladriell.livejournal.com]

"It's making me pondersome. A long time ago, I remember talking to someone about moving away from Edinburgh, and was told that if I left I'd just be running away from my problems, and wouldn't be able to resolve anything."

First part probably true at the time, second part obviously incorrect.

Edinburgh would be fine if foreign types would stay out o' it :P. Though I include anyone from outside the city in that category. You did good, im impressed...I'm having to do the same thing myself at the moment, but without the moving...'tis my home after all. Reinvention and self discovery are worthwhile sometimes, and after all, its the people in a place that cause problems, not the place itself....unless yer in a desert, or the jungle, or a big hole with snakes....well you know what i mean.