Tag: Optimism

Worth Its Weight In Gold

Another new year is here, and 2024 holds more significance for me than most. It is, after all, the first calendar year I’ll be spending in my own flat, and my flat is a base from which anything is possible. For the first time in my life, I truly believe that. One of the worst things about waiting for the sale to go through was the instability it inflicted on each day – I may have had a job, but its continued existence relied on also having a place to live sharpish. If anything fell through, my life would be thrown into disarray again. I may have alluded to this before, but when you’re freshly out of a long spell of unemployment, there can be nothing worse than the thought of going straight back to square one.

I therefore feel blessed that – at least for the foreseeable future – I don’t have to, and it’s not something I ever intend to take for granted. I’ll really savour not having to give vague answers to questions about where I am or what I’m doing. I’ll be able to respond with total certainty, and that’s worth its weight in gold. Someone told me that life becomes easier when you have a place of your own, as it enables more new connections and more solid plans. One thing is for sure – over the coming year, I can’t wait to find out if they’re right.

Mason

The Best Possible Way

Before I left Somerset to move back to Winchester in January, I jokingly said to the (always very helpful) lady in the job centre:

“In the best possible way, I hope I won’t have to see you again.”

We both laughed, but at that time I didn’t know whether that line might come back to bite me on the behind a few months later. Happily, after Monday’s news, I know that it won’t – at least not for a little while. Why am I bringing this up? Because yesterday morning, at precisely 11:40am, I had the opportunity to repeat those words to the gentleman I’ve been speaking to in the Winchester branch, and I can’t pretend it didn’t feel good. Not because I necessarily have anything against job centres or the people who work in them – they’ve done everything they can to guide me in the right direction – but because I now feel vindicated.

Many have reacted with genuine interest upon learning of my plan to move purely in the pursuit of work, but a few have definitely betrayed a distinct note of scepticism in their expressions and responses. There’s no doubt about it, some of them must have thought I was destined to fail. I guess I can understand that, in a way. It is quite a gamble to do this with no solid plan, but in little more than a month, that gamble has paid off. That’s possibly what pleases me the most about the whole thing, actually – even more than sealing the deal. It pleased the man I saw yesterday, too (who told me he also hoped I wouldn’t be back). Maybe it’s official, then. I’m not so deluded after all! I won’t be after I’ve signed my contract, anyway.

Mason

Operation Book Club

I’m starting this post in Waterstone’s, a place I often frequent even though I mostly have no intention of buying anything. That’s certainly the case today – I already have an outstanding book to finish (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which I bought here last year, and which follows the equally excellent Ready Player One), so there’s no need for me to emerge with any more. And yet the notebooks captivate me. There are all sorts on the shelves, ranging from blank ones, to bullet journals, to those specifically designed for lists or novel planning, and even one containing a Jane Austen witticism a day (just in case you want another reminder that she’s buried in Winchester – I rolled over her grave once).

The possibilities, then, are endless, and every time I’ve bought a new notebook in the past, I’ve done so with the same overriding desire – to make it the starting point for a new, game-changing project. Admittedly, this desire does come with some slight delusions of grandeur. I can’t help imagining myself putting pen to paper on a literary classic for the ages by candlelight like an 18th Century romantic novelist, or scribbling down my memoirs in a book small enough to fit snugly into the sidebag that hangs from my wheelchair.

Judging by my track record with notebooks, neither of those things will happen – and in any case, at this moment I can’t even decide whether I want a big one or a small one. I might have something entirely different in mind for it, though, thanks to a sudden burst of inspiration Lara has unknowingly given to me. In just over a week, I’ll be leaving Winchester – hopefully not for the last time ever – having finished my degree. Over lunch on Monday, Lara, Ben, Alysha, Ryan and I discussed the small matter of how we’ll stay in touch post-uni, and it was Lara who suggested we engage in a book club. I responded very enthusiastically. She said we could put books forward for consideration, and when we’d decided on one, we could obtain a copy, start it on the same day, record our thoughts and share them with each other at the end.

At the moment, only Lara and I are definitely up for it, but I hope others will agree to join, because it could be a great group activity – and it’s given me the perfect purpose for a new notebook. Not only would it allow me to make all the observations I need on what we read, but it’d also mean I could prise my eyes away from a screen for a bit and write the old-fashioned way. I’m sure my handwriting could do with the practice. One of my teachers used to say that reading it was like looking through spiders!

Mason