Yeesh. It's been way too long since I last updated -- I've had a couple of close-calls, sitting down, intending to write something, and then not quite managing to get started. Would you believe that before my 30th birthday way back at the start of February I had every intention of writing a kind of retrospective of the last 10 years? What happened to that, I don't know.
I started to write this post a couple of weeks ago, but it didn't turn out the way I wanted it to. Somehow, it all just seemed to be about work -- what meaningless career was taking up my time. The real substance seemed to be missing. What books did I read that year? What authors did I read for the first time, what poetry did I rate highly? What bands did I see that year, what albums did I buy, what artists did I listen to for the first time? What friends did I make, what friends did I meet, what friends did I lose? All of these things are what make our lives important -- and yet these details I can't remember.
In 2001, I turned 20 living in student dorms at the University of Utah, in Salt Lake City USA.
In the intervening years since then I have moved back in with my parents, moved to Leicester to train as a journalist, failed to become a journalist, and moved to London. I've seen more bands than obviously I can remember, I have started writing and performing poetry again regularly for the first time in over a decade, I have travelled to far-flung places and raised money for charity trekking the Inca Trail.
I have started trying to work my out of my depression -- which was sort of the original point of this blog's latest incarnation, and I now firmly believe that when it comes to earning a living the only solution is going to be to forge a career for myself, that I will never be truly satisfied working for someone else. It's a matter of trying to find out what that involves.
In 2011, I turned 30 living in London's Docklands with the girl. I took the day off work and went to Greenwich, just to wander around. Sometimes it feels like the last 10 years belong to someone else.
I look back and I don't know who I was 5, 10, 15 years ago. Might be a good thing. I'm not too fond of that person.
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