Breakfast at Tiffany's

I am sitting on the train from Glasgow to London, 56 minutes into a 379-minute journey. I have just put down my new book, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, which I bought for it being a title I recognised and for its brevity; I just want it for the trip and not to extend the size of my reading pile.

I reached page 31 before reaching for my laptop to write this, having entered into Miss Holiday Golightly’s apartment for the first time. It is a place which she could pack up and leave at a moment’s notice, if it weren’t for the fact that she is essentially already packed.

I don’t think that she is necessarily nomadic, more that her heart aches and it is easier for her to use people and places to propel her to the next distraction that will help Miss Golightly avoid whatever heavy thing resides within her. Wining and dining over whining and crying, that sort of thing.

Whilst she feels unable to stay in a place for long – an assumption I’m making based off what I’ve read so far –, I am currently wondering where my next home location will be. At the minute, I am back living with my parents in preparation for going to Germany in the new year, not yet imagining Germany to be where I will commit the next several years of my life.

I’ve not lived in any one building for much more than a year since I was 18, providing a bit of a parallel with Holiday. In that time, I’ve come to realise the importance of people within places and that without deep, reliable connections, it doesn’t matter how much you love where you live because it will never provide the feelings of safety needed to call a place home.

Now that I am back at my parents’ place, I am loving not only the greenery and how much slower it is than city life whilst offering the city nearby, but also the knowledge that I have old friends a short walk away and my brother a short train ride away. It’s all really comforting to me in a way that it somehow never was previously. It feels reliable. Safe.

That being said, my parents are going to be moving soon and renting in Surrey isn’t exactly known to be the most affordable thing in the world. The Newcastle chapter of my life expectantly came to an end recently, but the apparent closure of the Surrey chapter has caught me by surprise, occurring just as I finally learned to appreciate all that I have there.

Who knows what life has in store for me after my Germany adventure? I might develop Germany from an adventure to something more long-term, go to Newcastle’s big brother in Liverpool, join my cousin in Glasgow, or fork out a fortune to write yet another chapter in Surrey.

[I]f anxiety is the price of connecting with myself and leading a richer life, then that is an investment that I am willing to make.

Arguably more important than whatever decision I end up taking is the element that I brought up a few moments ago: I have finally learned to appreciate all that I have where I am right now. Living in this world where you have to have the best life to be happy has led me to often look at what I don’t have, making none of what I do have quite good enough. In that sense, attaining that appreciation for any length of time is actually quite special.

I would love to know that wherever I go next will be as wonderful as where I am now, but realistically that’s unlikely. And maybe it doesn’t have to be as good. Maybe it’s actually this idea of constant progression and having to maximise every moment that is a bigger problem than imperfection. And maybe my search for certainty, when the future is by definition uncertain, is stopping me from taking advantage of the opportunity to explore life both literally and metaphorically.

Humans have evolved to feel anxious about uncertainty, but if anxiety is the price of connecting with myself and leading a richer life, then that is an investment that I am willing to make. And if I can make sure that I connect with and ask for help from kind people regardless of where I am, then their support will mean that I can feel more confident in taking on anything that the future has to throw at me. That’s the theory, anyway.

Now, back to Breakfast at Tiffany’s; I reckon it will give me something else to chew on (badum tsch).