I'm in a Bigger Pickle

Back in 2022 I wrote an article called I'm in a Pickle. I'd just moved into the first proper home I'd ever shared with a partner and I was frightened that if it all went wrong, I'd lose everything. I'd lose my partner, I'd lose my home and, because I was teaching guitar from a cabin in the garden, I'd probably lose my business too.

Well, almost exactly what I feared would happen, happened.

If I'm honest with myself, I don't think I ever really believed I could make that life work. Throughout most of my adult life I'd never thought I was cut out for marriage, children and conventional family life. I liked my independence too much, I liked being alone, I liked being able to practise my guitar when I wanted to and disappear off on my bicycle when I felt like it. But for some reason I wanted this new life to work so badly that I held onto it with everything I had.

And that meant not listening to myself.

There were times when my intuition, my fears and even my body seemed to be telling me to get the hell out of there. You can't do this. You're not meant for this life. But I ignored all of that because I wanted to prove myself wrong. Maybe after all these years of thinking I wasn't cut out for family life, I'd discover that I actually was.

So I tried and I tried and I tried.

We lived together for three years, two of those with a new baby, and what I hadn't really understood was just how much having a child would change everything. Of course I knew it would change my life, I'm not completely stupid, but knowing something in theory and actually living it are two very different things.

Slowly but surely, the things I'd always done began disappearing from my life. I couldn't practise my guitar in the way I'd always practised. I had very little time alone and less freedom to do the things that had always kept me happy and balanced. One by one, things that I'd always taken for granted disappeared and I became increasingly unhappy.

But I kept going because that's what I'd decided to do.

There was another reason I was determined to make it work. The house we lived in had been paid for by my partner and her family and I'd always felt slightly uncomfortable about that. When we moved in it was basically a shell and needed a huge amount of work to turn it into a proper home, so I decided to invest what remained of my life savings into it.

I built furniture, built a lean-to outside, paid for things that needed doing and landscaped both gardens. I put an enormous amount of work into the place as well as money, but I didn't really think about any of that at the time because this was my home now. This was where my partner and my son lived and where I thought I'd be living for the foreseeable future, so why wouldn't I spend my money on it?

Eventually my savings ran out.

Whether it was coincidence or not, it was at around that point that my partner asked me to leave.

I don't want to turn this into a story about who was right and who was wrong because I don't think relationships are that straightforward. I'd become incredibly unhappy and I think she knew that. Eventually I think she recognised that she could no longer make me happy, and we agreed that we should split up and I should move out.

So there I was. No partner, no home and almost no savings.

Oh dear.

There was also the small problem of my business.

At the time I was teaching guitar full-time from a cabin in the garden and I had a lot of students. My partner wanted me to leave the house immediately but told me I could continue using the cabin for another three weeks. From the 1st of September I had to be out because she was going to use it for her dog grooming business.

So I had three weeks.

In three weeks I had to find somewhere to live and somewhere to run my guitar teaching business. I couldn't just hire a random room for a few hours because I had guitars, amplifiers and all my teaching equipment that needed to stay there permanently. I needed proper premises that I could call my own, and I had no idea whether I'd find anything suitable in three weeks.

Somehow I did.

I now teach from premises in Reigate, right next to the grounds of one of the best schools in the area, and my business is thriving. So although that particular pillar of my life got a fairly hefty whack, it didn't collapse.

The other two did.

I hit depression and ended up staying at a friend's house for quite a long time. It took me a long time to get myself back together and just as I was trying to deal with everything that had happened, my health went wrong too.

I was diagnosed with a bladder condition and told that I would have to use a catheter for the rest of my life. I was also told that I had a cancerous tumour in my stomach. The medical stuff is all still ongoing with tests, appointments and various other things, so there's not much more I can say about that at the moment.

So yes, I was in a bigger pickle.

But something else happened after the split that I wasn't expecting.

I'd started writing a book while I was still in the relationship. Once our son was born I just didn't have enough time to continue with it and eventually the whole project ground to a halt. After the split I suddenly had time again, so I went back to writing it and managed to finish the book during the following twelve months.

And I got my guitar back.

Not literally, I never lost it. But I got back the time to practise it properly.

Something I'd wanted to do for years was play classical guitar publicly. I'd never really managed to make that happen, but after the split I began practising much more and my repertoire started to grow. I began playing classical guitar in cafés and getting some really lovely feedback from people who heard me play.

My playing has leaped forward. My repertoire has bloomed and these days I genuinely think I'm playing better than I've ever played before.

There's something uncomfortable about admitting that because I don't want it to sound as though I'm saying that having a child was a mistake. I'm not. I love my son and wouldn't exchange him for all the guitar practice in the world. But I can also admit now that I completely underestimated what becoming a parent would do to the life I'd been living before, and how important some of the things I gave up actually were to me.

Looking back at the article I wrote in 2022 is quite strange now.

I was frightened that I'd lose my partner. I did.

I was frightened I'd lose my home. I did.

I was frightened I'd lose my business. I very nearly did.

And after putting most of my remaining savings and several years of work into creating that home, I walked away from that too.

So perhaps the instincts I had back then weren't quite as irrational as I wanted to believe they were. Deep down I knew I was struggling to live that kind of life, but I wanted it so badly that I ignored what I was feeling and carried on trying to make myself fit into it.

I don't regret trying. I'm glad I did because otherwise I'd probably have spent the rest of my life wondering whether I could have made it work.

Now I know.

I couldn't.

So four years after writing I'm in a Pickle, I'm older, considerably poorer, single, living somewhere else, dealing with some fairly serious medical problems and still trying to work out exactly what happens next.

But my business is thriving, I've finished my book, I'm playing more guitar than I have for years, I'm performing classical music in public and, musically at least, I feel more like myself than I have for a very long time.

And I'm back to living in other people's houses. Apart from those three years, that's pretty much what I've done for most of my adult life. I've been a lodger, a flatmate or a housemate, living in somebody else's house and getting on with my own life. 

Except this time I'm 59 years old and I'm not quite as healthy as I used to be. I don't feel as though I'm looking for another girlfriend, wife or partner either. I think it's probably too late for that kind of sizzle.

Maybe it isn't. I don't know. But I'm not particularly interested and, if an opportunity did come along, I think I'd probably turn it down. I don't really feel that I have very much to offer somebody in that sense any more, unless perhaps I met somebody who was very much like me and wanted the same kind of life.

So life has pretty much returned to the way it's always been. I have my work, my guitar, my independence and my own things that I like doing.

Can't help feeling like I'm on borrowed time though. Better make each day count I suppose. 

Anonymity and Crime

Have you ever lived in a small village where all the residents know each other? I don't think there are many places left in England quite like this, but there may be some. Stay in one of these villages long enough and mingle with the local community and you may notice what I have: you feel safe, crime is low and antisocial behaviour is rare.

There are many explanations offered for crime and antisocial behaviour. Immigration, unemployment, deprivation and population density are all discussed, and some of these things may matter to varying degrees. But I wonder whether we overlook something much simpler: anonymity.

Behave badly or engage in violence towards others in a small community and everybody will know about it. The next time you walk down the street, you'll have to face people who know what you did. You cannot simply disappear into the crowd. Your behaviour follows you, and with recognition comes accountability.

People committing crimes generally have a very good reason not to be recognised. That's why someone intending to commit an offence may cover their face or wear clothing that makes them difficult to identify. They don't want to be seen, they don't want to be recognised and, ultimately, they don't want the behaviour attached to them. They don't want to be accountable.

These days, it's very easy to be anonymous, particularly in towns and cities where we can pass hundreds of people without knowing any of them. But what really started me thinking about anonymity was the behaviour I see every day on the internet, YouTube most of all.

It's very easy to set up an online account and hide your real identity. That anonymity means that what you say need not follow you back into your everyday life. You can unload malicious hatred on somebody you have never met and, in many cases, take little or no personal responsibility for it. Perhaps unsurprisingly, some of the most appalling comments we see online come from people who reveal almost nothing about who they actually are.

The conclusion I have reached is a simple one: remove some of the anonymity from our social spaces and we might all be better off. When people know who we are, we are accountable for how we behave. Our actions follow us.

One last thought. Perhaps this also helps to explain why some of us behave worse behind the wheel of a car than we ever would walking down the street. Inside a car, surrounded by strangers we are unlikely ever to see again, we can shout, swear, gesture, intimidate and drive aggressively, then simply disappear down the road. We can get away with it.

Perhaps anonymity doesn't make people behave badly. Perhaps it simply makes it easier for them to do so without having to face the people who saw them do it.