As of this afternoon, I am still fundless.
However, that will change next week as I have made arrangements to be paid every week, and there’s only one small piece of paperwork left to fill out, and that’ll be done today or Monday, and then I’ll get paid on Wednesday.
So this is where I guess the surreality part comes in. Despite all the horrors of the last year, at this moment I feel like I did when I got on the plane to come up to England. As though I was in a dream and I was afraid to wake up and find out it wasn’t true.
I am in England. It’s been more than a years since I started writing about leaving the Caribbean and coming up here. To be honest, you know, even as I was psyching myself up for the leap, there’s a real serious part of me that didn’t think I was going to get up here. And by here, not just being physically in England, but here, in a great job, working for a multi-national billion dollar company, working with cutting edge technology and making very good money too.
I guess once I was up here too, and the job didn’t happen in the first few weeks like I had hoped, it was just a constant battle against self doubt, stress, poverty and itinerance. I lost my heart many times to the fight, and it was all I could do to just curl up and cry my heart out. I’ve cried so much in the last two years.
Somehow though, as dreamlike as this week has been (and I do mean it, not just my awe at my physical surroundings and such, but because I’ve been getting up at 5AM every morning to haul my ass across London, then on to the Thames Valley to get to work on time) I guess my indulgence in self pity was just that. Because in truth, I wondered about the inherent promise of water the numerous signs this particular leg of my life’s journey indicated, yet took so long to materialise once I was here, I don’t think it shook my faith in the choices I made. In fact, in made my faith in God, my faith in the Ancestors and the Orishas even stronger. There is no other force that could have brought me to this point. It was purely the strength of my own will and that of the Orishas and Ancestors working together.
I look at my life now, and I realise I have a social life. A real social life with friends, outings, meetups, parties, limes, shopping (even with no money) and most amazing of all, in LONDON! I never thought it was going to be London, in my mind I was going to go to Birmingham or Manchester, not London. Yet here I am.
Surreal. Like I said.
So most critical right now — other than getting enough money to get to work next week, because again I am down to nothing and with no guarantee of getting money this weekend so again I don’t know how I am getting to work on Monday — is finding a place to live after the 4th of March.
Tonight’s the night, going down to Fulham to stay at Ms. G’s.
I’m trying to find a flat near Paddington, which is the station I leave from every morning. I need to do that to avoid dramas like this morning.
I left in enough time to get to the station before the 7.30am train, yet once I got to North Greenwich, it was to discover the the Jubilee line was suspended between Waterloo and Baker’s St.
Worse, the train inched it’s way to Waterloo. It was held at North Greewich for nearly ten minutes. That’s ten minutes of being PACKED up against people in a seriously crowded train. Got to Canary Wharf, and was held on the platform for yet another ten minutes. Got to Canada Water, another wait; got to Bermondsey, YET ANOTHER WAIT.
By 7.30am, I was still in London Bridge. In the end I had to get the Bakerloo into Paddington, and waiting a half hour for the 8.35am Exeter St. David’s train, got to work about an hour late.
It’s a good thing it’s so relaxed here, because noone batted an eyelid, it seems their quite used to commuters, since a good chunk of the people here commute from London or near London.
Anyway, I’m hoping to get a little place somewhere near enough to Paddington to cut down on not just travelling time to work, but the chance of delays cramping me that badly.
I’m hoping to find a nice place; somewhere with wooden floors and big windows. I don’t need much, but I don’t want to be cramped either.
So we’ll see how it goes, eh?
Anyway, the same way I got to work this week, is the same way I’ll get to work next week I guess. By the grace of God and the kindness of someone.
So I made it through my first week of work. What a blessing to be able to get up in the morning and come to work! It’s amazing how easy it is to take things for granted, but I will always remember how badly I wanted this job.
As much as I say that, I’m really, really looking forward to sleeping later tomorrow and Sunday! Also, looking forward to not having to get up at 5AM, next week.
Ahhh…. simple pleasures; simple joys.
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