Nick Grant

This is a story about trying to do too much...

I think I have a pretty good idea of what I want and what I need. I think I've got enough experience to know what makes a happy, fulfilling, complete and stable life. I think I've been through plenty of difficult periods when my life has been incomplete, to know what was missing. I've been through very happy periods when I've been full of joy and contentment, and I know the things that created those delightful episodes.

There aren't any short cuts.

It's a strange situation, knowing what my life would contain if I could cherry-pick all the things I needed from all the years I've been alive. I'd choose the huge group of friends I met in the kitesurfing community, and the exotic travel locations we went to. I'd choose living in a city by the beach, where I could have barbecues and play volleyball on a random weekday evening after work. I'd choose garden parties, dinner parties, pool parties, eating out, board games nights and sitting around drinking wine, with a house full of great friends. I'd choose a stable long-term loving relationship with somebody kind and caring, with an incredible career and fascinating educated opinions, who dazzled me with their intellect. I'd choose to have loyal friends nearby, who'd do anything to help me, and I'd do anything for them. I'd be surrounded by people. I crave company and affection.

I hate being single. I hate that all my friends live far away. I hate that I don't have a pet.

I hate not feeling settled, secure, in love with my home city and in love with my house.

I think I'm going to love Cardiff. Soon enough I'll buy a place of my own. I'll make friends. I'll meet a special somebody. I'll probably get a cat. I'll get back into kitesurfing and wakeboarding. I'll build a social network around me, which will make me happy - my gregarious and extroverted side will come back again, and I'll feel like myself; I'll feel glad to be alive.

I don't tend to do things slowly and steadily.

I want everything immediately.

I've set about trying to have a lovely house in a lovely area, meet people, fall in love and meanwhile carry on with all of life's daily demands, such as working my job and paying my bills. It might sound like the regular stuff that we're all trying to do, but you have to understand that my life was profoundly dysfunctional. Every facet of my life was incredibly damaged in some way, and I have found myself starting from scratch, more-or-less.

Of course, there are people whose lives are decimated and they don't enjoy the many advantages which I do, such as being able to find well-paid employment anywhere in the world. My health is good enough that I can work with limited impairment. My experiences have prepared me, such that I'm able to deal with just about anything and everything that life throws at me. I live a very charmed existence.

As it stands, my life is very incomplete, but I'm no longer paralysed by depression, anxiety, indecision and hampered by financial problems. The feelings of unhappiness are prompting me to take action, and I'm pursuing every avenue simultaneously to fix-up my life.

One year ago, I had a very lovely girlfriend, a great home with gorgeous panoramic views of the sea, and a well-paid job which was a short drive away. I might sound like Goldilocks, but that city was not somewhere I could fall in love with. The friends I made there who had cared very much about me, and I adored, had vanished as quickly as they had arrived in my life - an argument which exploded, and ended the relationships I had with an entire family. My house of cards collapsed, and I was jobless, single and sick, in a place where I only had a couple of friends left... and neither were particularly well equipped to help me.

Today, I have a big empty house. I love my job and I love the people I work with. I'm becoming wealthy again. I'm in a city which I find jaw-droppingly gorgeous. Some parts of my life are absolutely perfect.

The parts of my life which are broken and dysfunctional are being fixed. I'm meeting people. I'm no longer trapped in depressed isolation.

Being single is particularly horrible. I haven't had a hug in far too long. I've had nobody to cuddle me when I've been feeling terrible. For a time, I felt like I had nobody in the world who I could phone in a crisis, but slowly my life improves: a friend from work has been in contact, for example, making me realise that I'm not completely invisible... there are people who care about me.

I know that there are people who care about me all around the world, but I promise you that it's pretty awful being in a city you've never visited before, where you don't know anybody, and you're living all alone in a house full of cardboard boxes and unassembled flat-pack furniture. My clothes are all still in suitcases, because I have no furniture to unpack into yet.

Of course, we must consider the great potential that my life holds. In a matter of months, the scary alien city where I'm completely unable to find my way around, will become my home and I will feel attached to the place. My empty house will be filled with my things and I will make it comfortable, and pleasant to live in. I'll make friends and my social life will no longer be something painfully absent. I'll meet somebody special and have a companion to share life with. All of these things will happen, at some point in the future.

Because I'm used to living life at breakneck pace, doing everything all at once, of course I want to do as much as humanly possible. My life is a blur. I'm not doing things in a methodical, measured and sustainable way - I'm charging headlong into every problem, attempting to get what I want overnight.

I should have been in bed a long time ago, getting as much sleep as possible before another punishing week at work on a highly stressful project where I'm under a great deal of pressure. I should be protecting the things which are the essential enablers for everything else: without a job and money, my life will collapse like a house of cards, again.

I almost skipped writing for two days running, because I'm spread so thin, but I'm forcing myself to write now because I don't want a single part of my life to be neglected and left to rot and wither on the vine. I have ploughed a significant amount of time and effort into this writing project, and I'm loath to lose something which is such a consistent and central part of my identity, especially when my embryonic new life is just a tiny seed - it hasn't even begun to sprout green shoots yet.

The problems I have are nice problems to have. I write to you, happy that things are clearly improving, even if I haven't yet claimed any triumphs since successfully moving to Cardiff. It's slightly more intangible to say that things are getting better, when the gains are so imperceptibly marginal; the changes are so slow and none of the major milestones have been achieved yet. However, I had a nice weekend.

As always, I'm very hard on myself and I feel like I should be succeeding in every area of my life, overnight, but things are taking time and effort, and I will have to sustain my efforts if I want to get the things I need. It sucks, but at least I'm starting to have yet another attempt at rebuilding my life. I've had setbacks, but on the whole I have to say that there's more positive progress to report than negative things which have happened.

I seem to be finding reserves of energy that I didn't think I had. I seem to be more capable than I thought I was. The amount that I've achieved in a single weekend seemed inconceivable to me, and was causing me some anxiety, but in fact everything went very well and I'm very pleased.

Of course, there is a great deal of peril and uncertainty in my life, which will remain for some time, while I cement my gains and secure my future, but I've done pretty damn well at coping with setbacks recently, and I hope that I'm able to continue without any major disasters. I hope that I can keep control of my own propensity to self-sabotage. I hope that I can subdue my underlying mood disorder, such that I can plough through the depressive episodes and suppress the manic episodes, and emulate the behaviour of those who are fortunate enough to be blessed with mental stability.

My life has been a blur. My frenetic activity is so fast that my movement is a blur. The amount that I'm trying to do all at once creates a blurry picture, as all the different activities all blend together and I find myself continuously in strange novel situations, attempting to make sense of what's going on: mostly a passenger on a rollercoaster ride.

Life is certainly interesting at the moment, although I am always afraid that I will burn out or break down at any moment. I'm probably over-investing in the wrong things, as always, but that's me: a blur of activity.

Tags: #dating #relationships #friends #moving #newcity #loneliness #stress #anxiety #depression

This is a story about law and order...

My neighbour's burglar alarm has been going off continuously for over 24 hours. I spoke to my neighbour late last night who told me that she wasn't able to drive because she had drunk a bottle of wine. I said I would gladly pay her cab fare, but she refused to do anything about it last night. The alarm was still going off this evening, and I have been making attempts to contact my neighbour all day.

I phoned the police.

God bless the police.

They turned up less than an hour after I got off the phone to them. The police are very nice people. One policeman came in my house to hear how loud the alarm was and he said that he'd have broken into my neighbour's house and taken a hammer to the alarm, if it was him - he wasn't even joking.

In all seriousness, the police were pretty clear that I can't break into my neighbour's house - I would be arrested for breaking and entering. I can't afford to be arrested when my government security clearance is at stake, which is vital for the job I do - I can't afford to be on the wrong side of the law. My conduct has to be beyond reproach.

The police tried to contact my neighbour. Another neighbour tried to contact my neighbour. We managed to find my neighbour on Facebook, and the police managed to find an email address. We tried to figure out where she might be. My neighbours were out on the street, chatting to the police. It was all a bit embarrassing, but it's pretty awful being in my house with the burgular alarm blasting for over 24 hours.

I contacted the local council's noise pollution team and they told me that unfortunately the law changed, literally in the last week, such that the courts won't grant a warrant to break into a house and cut off the burglar alarm during "unsociable hours". Literally, if this had happened last week, the warrant could have been issued and the police could have gone in and cut the dratted alarm off. The lady I spoke to at the council was incredibly helpful and nice, and very apologetic about the fact that the law has changed so recently, so nothing can be done. Perhaps tomorrow I will have more luck with either my neighbour or the noise pollution team.

Meanwhile I found a better pair of earplugs which have rescued me from similar situations in the past, although they're so good that I could easily sleep through my own alarm clock and be late for work, if the alarm keeps ringing on Sunday night.

My neighbour's attitude sucks, but the response of the police and the local council has been great, and my other neighbours have been really great too.

It's really distressing to have this constant noise nuisance in my home, stopping me from peacefully enjoying my weekend, but I feel really glad that certain parts of civilised society are functioning so effectively. I would never have expected that dealing with the police and the local council would bring such swift action, and my admiration for the work of the police has only grown greater. I already held the police in very high esteem, given the difficult job that they do, and I felt bad to involve them in a matter which should have been quite easily resolved without their assistance, but I did try my best to handle the matter directly with my neighbour and the police agreed that the situation was intolerable, with the alarm going off for so long.

This whole episode has been rather tame and dull compared with other more colourful moments of police involvement in my life, but still, it's put rather a dampener on my weekend.

My new life in this new city is not taking shape as quickly as I hoped it would. My Saturday night has been a relatively dismal and disappointing affair. I was supposed to be going on a date with somebody who I really hit it off with last week, but she cancelled on me. I thought I would make the best of the weekend anyway, but instead I have been plunged into a terrible mood by this alarm situation and I was very nearly tempted to act in a very rash way which could have had dire consequences. I'm pleased I managed to remain patient and polite with my neighbour and I haven't let this relatively minor incident trigger me into doing something regrettable.

Not the most exciting story, but perhaps it's interesting in terms of how far I've come, dealing with things in an adult, mature, law-abiding and good-neighbourly way, when so often in the past I would have smashed things to pieces in moment of rage.

Tags: #house #moving #newcity #neighbours #police