A Nagging Non-Feeling?

There was something nagging me, and until now I could not put my finger on it.  At first I thought it might be the dreary weather and lack of sun, which rises after even I wake up.  But that wasn’t it.  I couldn’t piece it together – I am sincerely thrilled to now live in a city that is full of life and adventure.  Lying before me is an endless array of opportunity available to me in every facet of my life.  I am living out something I have wanted to do since entering the professional world, albeit through my wife.  But still, new job in a new city in a new country is pretty damn exciting and something that the deep innards of me cheered for from day one (even if I still have to sort out the first of the three!).  So why was it that since I arrived in London there has been a constant companion residing in the “nagging” neighborhood of my brain?

It is pretty easy to understand, now, after thinking it through.  What I have viewed as a good thing, a new beginning (of sorts), has actually turned against me on an inner ear level.  I have no job, no permanent address, no cell phone, no state-issued ID, no gym membership, no coffee shop rewards card, no car, no-nothing of the sort.  The lack of this stuff is liberating, but at the same time it is suffocating.  Aside from my dear wife Sheila, I really have nothing but meself.  I have not a single family member or friend here in my new hometown.  Sadly, there is nobody to say “the usual, Dominic?”  For better or worse, the lack of these things has been nagging at my brain.  Where has the stability gone?

I do have a tube pass, but it doesn’t have my name on it.  And that is it – my name is not on a single thing that really matters here (AAA or 10 Sandwich card to Marina Sub, anyone?).  Just last Wednesday, my life had a living paper trail, growing and weaving in new and different directions each and every day.  Man I had bills coming to my apartment street for crap that I didn’t even really use.  It is somewhat embarrassing, but that crap was stability for me – though I no longer want that stuff to serve such an important purpose.  This is the point I have to reiterate to my inner ear: my wife and I took on this adventure for a myriad of reasons, one of them being the opportunity to view life from a different port; the other to shed the unnecessary baggage that inadvertently built up in our hull (it’s not the size of the boat that matters, by the way). 

Pardon the shipping reference, but I think it works.  Along with the opportunity to find a new job and meet new friends – I am sitting in front of perhaps the greatest prospect of all:  I can fill the newfound void in my “hull” or inner ear with whatever worldly possessions or worries I deem sea-worthy.  Or, I may decide to leave that space completely empty since it may be easier to navigate the waters ahead of me without a Sainsbury Rewards Point membership card.  But then again, it is the lack of a paper trail that is causing a disturbance in my balance.  Only time will tell, meanwhile I eagerly await inking my name and address on something that matters here in the UK.  What will it be?