Out of sheer rage I finally gave notice on the flat. I could not stand the inflexibility of it all. A hand-scribbled letter on a side of A4, which I took round the corner to the landlord’s house and dropped through the letter box. Quick and easy. A quick and easy end to the long shadow cast by the decision to move in, also a decision made out of sheer rage. It was the decision of an ill, pathologically independent young man, a lashing out of the left-behind which led to me living in this lonely and unlovely space. A decision I came to understand, forgive myself for, but never quite manage to be unembarrassed about.
But it was easy in the end. A hand-scribbled note, A4, delivered round the corner. Such contrast with the feeling of being impossibly trapped here when I realised shortly after moving in quite how ill and alone I felt. Quite how much I hated it. Quite how dangerous my thoughts of escape were getting. I was lucky I had friends and family prepared to give what I needed until calm was restored.
Exit
The daffodil vase has now gone to the Mind charity shop. I weed and declutter, consolidate down into a few boxes which will shortly go into an anonymous storage bunker in north east London. I reflect on how unimpressive my life looks packed up in this way, but I won’t have to look at it much longer. Distilled down to a couple of bags I will take to the road, my sheer lack of commitments affording the chance to get off the (an)hedonic treadmill, loosen the more burdensome of moorings, walk away from structure for a while and see what is really on my mind.
I have not done this since I was diagnosed. All I asked for then was five good years. That was six years ago. And I have kept going. I have lived them week to week, not really knowing what I was doing or why. Got somewhere and yet got nowhere. Ended up here. I’ve got to go.
