Firstly, if you don’t get the title, I’m sorry. This is your cue to listen to Moving Out (Anthony’s Song) by Billy Joel, you can thank me later.
So, I usually start a post with excuse after excuse for why I’ve been absent from the blog; I’ve been working loads, I haven’t felt inspired, I’m lacking motivation, I’ve been busy, yada yada yada - and whilst a few of those excuses are true - I’ve kind of been absent for something a little bit bigger.
This girl, sorry woman (I sometimes forget I’m not still a mid-teen), has finally got herself a full-time job (hello, it’s been a while, hasn’t it?) and moved out at the grand old age of 28! Not only that, but I’ve swapped sleepy little Southport, for the best city in the North (actually the best city in the UK but that’s often up for debate), Manchester. The funny thing is, some people thought I’d made the move because of my football team, and whilst I do love Man City and I get to go to the stadium pretty much when I want now (and thank god I don’t have to pay for hotels or miss out on games I really want to be at), I’ve actually been wanting to move here long before I became a City fan, long before my Cardiff days, long before my age was even in double digits. Like Cardiff, being in Manchester really feels like I’ve come home.
It’s a move I’ve been contemplating for a couple of years, on and off, since moving back from uni and finding myself in a funny rut where I wanted to move on but COVID was a factor, complacency was another factor, and the fact I was comfortable at home and being around my mum and work friends. I was settled for the most part, but I wasn’t really living life, I was coasting. Sometimes you feel so alone in these feelings until you talk to others and realise they’re feeling the same too.
Rewind back to April, I’d had the best weekend away in London with my best friend Zoe (despite my team getting knocked out of the FA Cup) and I was geared up for the following weekend to watch them again as they played Watford at home, plus it meant I got a day in Manchester with one of my best friends, Elle. By the end of the day, and a cracking 5-0 win, my heart was full and I found myself buzzing from being in the city. That night I couldn’t sleep, so out of curiosity I started googling apartments in Manchester in my little single bed, thinking ‘imagine if I actually went for it and moved’. The next day I flippantly mentioned it to my mum, and she said, ‘why not?’
It’s funny how you can look at a time in life, so seemingly small, yet you view it as the significant catalyst for a new chapter.
A week later I was with another best friend who I hadn’t seen in almost a year, we celebrated her getting offered a new job the day we reunited, and I talked over my thoughts for moving, as supportive as ever, Emily told me I had to try.
I started searching for jobs, seeing what was out there, what was something I could do and that paid well enough for me to be able to sustain living alone. I got a call back about a student accommodation job and had my first interview within 2 weeks.
I know I told you my move had nothing to do with football, but it’s funny how a lot of the story seems to be related to it.
My second interview was penned in for the day after the final game of the season. I’d been in the stands, biting my nails as I watched the dream of us winning the Premier League again going down the drain, it seemed I wouldn’t be watching us lift the coveted trophy this year. Until those pivotal 8 minutes where we pushed the score from 0-2 to 3-2 and suddenly my tears were of happiness. That day I watched the team lift that trophy up high and I was on cloud nine. Maybe this whole story is for another blog post one day.
All I kept thinking about, as I lay in the hotel that evening, and again the next night after being on an all-time high after the Champions parade on Deansgate, was, ‘what if I get to stay in this city, and I get these opportunities again? What if I don’t have to meticulously plan every time I want to go to a match, or I want to go to a gig? What if I get to be here all the time?’.
A week later I got offered the job.
Everything was perfect until it wasn’t.
Getting a job had actually been the easy part, finding somewhere to live? Less so. What should have been the most exciting time of my life, was one of the hardest, I wanted to give up the whole dream, the job, life on the odd occasion, because it seemed like it wasn’t meant to happen for me. Not yet anyway.
After so much despair, and a really disappointing flat viewing, I stepped through the doors of another flat, and that’s when I felt it. I’d come home.
Isn’t it bizarre how you can step into a place you’ve never been before and have that feeling? It felt like fate, there’s no other word for it. I frantically emailed my interest over to the letting agent, and again on the Monday morning ready for them opening up so it sat at the top of their inbox. I felt sick all day at work, thank god for the best colleagues for trying to keep me calm throughout the whole flat hunting process because I kept falling apart in the middle of the day and they picked me back up again. That Monday afternoon I got the email - the flat was mine.
I look around at this flat as I’m writing it, and can hand on heart say that I’ve never been happier. The type of happy I never thought I’d get to experience; the type I didn’t think was for me.
I’m now in a job with an incredible team of people that I adore already, and yes, I miss my old work lot like crazy, but they’re friends for life and no matter where I work, I have these people that I hold dear. I have a lovely flat (even if living alone is crazy spenny). I have an incredible city on my doorstep that I can just wander off to on my days off and explore at my leisure. I’m now happy.
I’ve often talked on the blog about feeling lost, feeling like I don’t know how to live life or find the motivation to live life, and it’s a bloody difficult journey to be on, but if you’ve felt like this, or are currently feeling like this, I’ve been through it. One day there will be that one day, that one event, that one person (or a few people) that will make you revaluate everything and suddenly you’ll get that motivation to push forward and start that new life.
Have these conversations with people, no matter how small or a big a dream, push on for it. I still have no clue what I want as a career, I didn’t have any dreams other than wanting to be in this city, so that’s what I eventually worked towards and I got here.
If I can do it, I’m telling you, anyone can, especially you.
S xo
