Starting Over in All Good Things

Things are starting tomorrow. I’ve been waiting for months and suddenly it’s all happening at once and I don’t feel ready but I know the minutes are passing and tomorrow will dawn and I’ll be in London, not Plymouth, I’ll be working on my new big case’s first day of opening submissions instead of there to share in the first night of the big new show.

I’ve chosen court over theatre.

The last few months have been a time of endings. I’ve let go of a lot, not just of people and things but also a lot of my identity, what made up my identity. The things that I defined myself by. Without them, I feel a little lost - okay, make that a lot lost - but it also feels good. It’s not helpful to let the things that drove you at 20 still be driving you when you’re nearly 40. I’ve changed so much but I hadn’t fully accepted it until now.

Recently someone I was very close to at 18 got back into contact. He and I had a single conversation in 2006, spent an afternoon wondering around London in 2001, but other than that we hadn’t had any contact since 1999 when he told me how much he’d been in love with me three years earlier and it came as such a shock. He’s been married now for about 15 years and we follow each other on instagram and like each other’s photos but that’s been all until a couple of weeks ago when he suddenly sent me a private message there, I replied, we moved over to WhatsApp and now regularly spend several hours messaging at a time.

It’s funny because in one way we’ve slipped right back to the way we were at 18 and used to talk on the phone all night, it was like no time had passed at all, but also we don’t actually know each other any more, we don’t know the surface details of each other’s lives. Like when the US election happened (he lives there now) and I suddenly realised I had no idea who he would have voted for and that was pretty huge because if he’d voted a certain way there’s no possibility we could have stayed friends. Luckily he felt the same way I did, but it was a bit of a shock to realise just how much we don’t know about each other.

It’s meant a lot to me to be back in contact with him. I hadn’t realised how much I’ve missed his friendship, missed our conversations.

But tomorrow it all kicks off here in England, and I’m not going to get a moment of downtime until Christmas. Part of me is terrified about all that’s headed my way, but hopefully I’m up to dealing with it. Panic is still there, and I had my first nightmare about work in two and a half years last night, but I’m strong now, so much stronger. I just have to go out there and BE strong.