Working It

I have never been a great one for networking.  It comes about as naturally to me as Olympic level gymnastics.  My instinct in a room full of people is either to take up residence cross-legged on the sofa with a bottle of rosé wine at my elbow, and wait for people to circulate, or stand in the kitchen by the drinks.  It's a kind of passive, random socialising.  It reminds me of Forrest Gump sitting on that bus stop bench, with a variety of people passing through his narrative.

A few months ago at work we had a visit from a representative of a university where I would really, really like to work.  For once I didn't stand in the kitchen. I was all helpful, and gave him a sort of cross-section of me being casually ace.  It wasn't totally calculated as I had not at that point definitely decided to leave.  OK, it was a bit calculated.

One of my colleagues used to work with him and she messaged him last night about my return to the UK.  He said he would be more than happy to try and help me, so I emailed him today.  It is by no means an offer of work, but it's a very good connection to have, in the place I would like to be working.  

And a friend has given me details of a temp agency in London that deals almost solely with universities.  Things are tentatively, gently, almost starting to be in a position where they might possibly fall into place.

Now, if you will excuse me, I have a fridge to move.

Century City

Today, it is exactly 100 days until my departure.

Bits of furniture are falling away, by way of Facebook and Freecycle.  The big items I've yet to list as I'd forgotten how fucking tiresome the whole process is.  And how easy it is to fuck up and give the wrong person the wrong item.  Still, there is nothing nicer than seeing things go to a good home.  OK, so maybe they flog my stuff on Ebay.  I'm not really that bothered.

July, waiting out there like a glittering bit of glass in the sun, is going to be a huge month.  Within the space of about two weeks I will become a grandmother; go to visit my daughter, her partner, and my GRANDSON in Paris; come back and have my fourth sinus operation (we're going to need a bigger hole); then finish everything here and leave Belgium.

The city itself, I will not miss.  I'm waiting for some premature nostalgia to kick in and it isn't.  The yellow, orange and shit brown of the metro will haunt my dreams for years.

But I've met some lovely, lovely people here and it's possible I won't see them again for a very long time.  When one day I am relatively settled, or just in a Wetherspoons with a massive glass of cheap wine in front of me, I will be able to reflect on the last seven years.  At the moment I'm just throwing ballast out in an effort to stay airborne.

Stop! Watch...

The timer is on.  I've started vaguely doing things.  I've given them a heads up at work that I'll be going, I've given my landlord a heads up.  I've started the process of reactivating my UK bank account, which has the princely sum of £1.95 in it.  Actually I'm surprised it's that much.  I've got a quote for moving and when my mover can stop fucking moving other people for five seconds and confirm my booking, I will feel a lot happier.  I have got boxes and bubble wrap.

Yet still nothing much feels different.  There is a feeling of seismic change coming but much in the way that the San Andreas Fault has been set for the Big One for as long as I can remember, it's still out there somewhere, not quite happening yet.

I keep thinking about August in London.  There's a montage running in my head of me sitting under a shady tree on Hampstead Heath, necking cold wine and just seeping tears of bliss.  Or walking down the South Bank with a dreamy smile.  Or just holding my friends and slobbering on them.  All very Richard Curtis.

The reality will be me rushing about sweatily looking for temp jobs, trying to convince people who don't even need moisturiser yet that this 57 year old fat bitch is exactly what they need right now.  I will probably have a panic attack when I realise I can't remember my way around London.  And as for drinking wine on the Heath, hell no.  I'll just want a piss and get anxious about leaving my stuff for a few minutes to find somewhere and when I do I will pee all down my leggings accidentally.

Apparently Nothin'

So there are sixteen weeks until I leave.  Have I done anything?  No.  I think when you are on the carousel of work, you just don't get off it long enough to think straight, and when you do, you are dizzy and wanting wine, distraction, crappy Netflix films, documentaries about Anne Boleyn, and oblivion.  But sixteen weeks.  It's nothing is it.  And there ain't gonna be fucking Disney birds with ribbons helping me.

I need to kickstart something and the best way is probably selling something vital or actually telling my boss I'm leaving.  It's finding the words.  I guess I'll say I just want to go home.  Not "This job is relentless, and killing me cell by cell and why do you go home two fucking hours before me?"  Not that.  I'll just say I need to go home.

I think I'm going to sell my table.  It's a fantastic table.  It's a table that had dreams of being big one day.  In reality it just held a bunch of my shit, and hardly hosted anyone.  I guess that's my fault for being a curmudgeon. I feel like a failure that I never had a lot of people round this table and fulfilled its purpose.  I often feel like a failure, but I must put that aside.  There is a whole life to remake back in the UK and thinking of how I failed is not going to help.

I remember when I came here, I simply refused to have a Plan B. 

So there's no Plan B, part II.