Email to Abi

Hi Abi, I’m just writing letters to nearest and dearest and, to be honest, they’re all people from like 10 or 12 years ago – weird that they’re the ones I hold closest in my heart – but I hope you’ll be pleased to know that you’re in there too. :-)

So how’s the life? How was your year? Things going as you want them to be?

I think this year turned out to be a good one for me. There was a lot of struggle and strife for the first part of it but in the end it all led me to where I needed to be – which was, weirdly enough, right back at the place I started doing the thing I’ve always wanted to do. Imagine! And: who’da thunk it? I guess that’s the purpose of not feeling good, really – it gets you off your arse and gets you doing what you’re supposed to. London never really worked for me, looking back now I don’t know what I was doing there in the first place. It was like, I think, I was having a go at trying to live someone else’s life – you know, a life from TV or maybe a newspaper – the kind of life I thought I was supposed to be living – and it took me a little while to figure that out. And then it took me even longer to act on it and get my ass outta there! But, too, living the life I really didn’t want to live was great in that it got me asking the question, well what do you want to do, Rory? (I’m not sure content mediocrity would’ve done that) and I suppose I was forced to come up with an answer. And the answer, of course, was all wrapped up in this infernal desire to write and my realisation that somewhere inside was a desire to further my education with an MA – as suggested by my writing tutor way back in 2006 – and then the further realisation that the only reason I wasn’t doing it was because I didn’t want to splash the cash. Tight bastard! But after juggling these realisations around for a little while – I’d probably had them in years past too; it wasn’t going away – I decided, what the fuck, who cares about money anyway, I’ve got some, it’s better to be broke than not do the things you want and so let’s do it. Of course, I imagine this is perhaps not news to you – but to a tightass Yorkshire lad who grew up dirt poor and never dreamed of paying for education (didn’t pay for BA; local authority did (mature student)) four grand for some classes and a bit of paper was actually quite a push. But, anyways, five years later (and maybe late) I decided to go for it and – well, whaddya know? They awarded me a bursary and paid for the whole damn thing anyway! Sheesh: it just goes to show…

So much of my mind is bent to always wanting to feel like I’m “on track” and doing the thing that feels like the thing I’m supposed to be doing. Living in London, I guess, stopped feeling like that thing a long time ago. In fact, nothing much of what I’ve done the past five years has felt very useful to me – I can always take the shining light that it’s showed me how I don’t want to live, which I guess is some consolation – but now that I’m here, back in Leeds – right back where we met! – I feel again that lovely in your bones feeling of right place, right time, right occupation. No mad restlessness. No crazy urges for travels abroad. No wanting to ditch it all and howling at the moon and wishing for something to change and begging to know what to do. Nope: I’m a student. I’m a student of writing. I’ve got my little flat and my girlfriend and my routines and my projects and it’s so lovely to feel so simply content and to know that for the foreseeable future it’s all laid out and that’s the way it’s going to be. Restlessness be shelved: we’ll deal with you later.

So that’s my life. Our flat is £250pcm including council tax and water and it’s on a nice quiet street about two minutes bike ride from campus and we don’t even have noisy student neighbours or passing traffic. It’s cosy and cute and also a little bit cold but I like that because a) it makes you tough; and b) it means you don’t get cold when you go outside; and c) it’s cheap ‘cos cold is cheaper than heat (ie, we only have a gas fire and no radiators: it’s old school man!). The whole point of that is that I only need about sixty quid a week to pay rent and bills and food and treats and ‘cos we found this place and I got my tuition fees paid it basically means I can live for a year on whatever I had left over from London. How cool is that! Although, actually, I did end up getting a wee little job – which I love – so in the end my savings can stay where they are (and perhaps fund a mad sneaking into America trip or a year in Mexico when all this is over). Want to know what my job is? It’s football referee! Yep, I did a course and got trained up and for the last two months I’ve been spending my weekends running around after students blowing a whistle and occasionally showing them cards, and after New Year I’ll be doing proper pub team grown men games (done one already – it was cool) and I can’t wait. Love it. It’s probably as good as playing – if not better. So another path in this crazy little life opens up and, who knows, ten years down the line I could be there at Wembley bossing England players around. Why not? Someone’s got to do it. Although my actual ambitions are to do it three or four times a week for the rest of this year and pay my bills and see how I feel about then. Obviously writing and travel jostles muchly for my time. Women too.

Girlfriend? I hear you ask. How is she? Yeah, she’s all right: all my life I think I’ve been looking for a woman who don’t give me no hassles and I think I’ve found her. Everything I do is fine with Ali: she don’t mind a thing. A woman who takes care of her own life, who don’t need me to make it work for her. A woman who lets me do my thing and is quite happy doing hers. Not of course, that we don’t have pretty much all of our home-time together – but you know what I mean. Just nice to not have hassles – which is probably a terrible thing to say – and a terribly blokey thing – but there it is. Will it last? We’ll see. No reason to think about those things now. Certain things are missing, maybe – that crazy mad feeling of love that I’ve felt before; and her jokes are pretty poor – but perhaps those things aren’t that important in the grand scheme of things. Definitely that crazy mad feeling of love has slid down on my list of things I’m after. Who needs it anyway? It feels sort of desperate and necessary but – hm, actually, I shouldn’t muse on these things, I’ll just go off on one: too many ideas on this subject, too many tangents. Point is: nice girl; good girl; lives a good life; we think the same about many things; talk well; [ahem] well; have a laugh; and she tolerates and accepts me and never gives me troubles like no one I’ve ever met – and that I ought to remember and remember well – ‘cos much as I like myself even I can see I’m probably no easy guy to be in a relationship with. ;-)

Well, I should think I’ll leave it at that. Reckoning up I think that’s probably well over 10,000 words for the evening and it’s now midnight and the fingers have had enough.

I do hope all is well in your world, dear sweet little lovely darling Abi. You do make me smile, and I think of our hugs and times with joy.

Lots of love, as ever,

Rory