Sonia Said: Slàinte (a very *very* long read)

Well, it’s been a while. How have you been, what’s changed? Did you make that thing happen, are you still embracing failure, did you have a nervous breakdown, moved cities, countries, “gave up” on the dream, sold your soul, did you slay that dragon, went to some protests, changed directions, got married, got a new job, got fired, went bankrupt in the lockdown, fell in love? Or did you happen to have lost a taste for life, nothing serious, just you know, a little break, two or three months, or a little bit longer until, one day, you wake up and realise it has more than two years and you’re like, oh, I think I had a life to live?

Fuck, it was supposed to be perfect. Like, you know how every story ever (even those “based” on real life) tells you that if you work really, really hard, push, push some more, don’t sleep, never give up and never stop, you’ll achieve, you know, the thing. The thing used to be a dream. Then, a goal. Then, an achievable point on a timeline. Later, an acceptable outcome. Finally, "just a job” to pay rent and pay off those three overdraft cards. Lastly, it becomes a thing. A faded memory hanging in The National Gallery where you go on the first day of payday with bags full of new clothes for that new office job, call your mum to tell her how great things finally are, even though the moment you walk in the gallery from the side door where it’s quiet and almost dead, you let out a little whimper because every bone of your body is telling you it feels sick and your mind is sick too and that you’ve been lied to by everyone and everything.

That sort of thing.

So you might sit down on an uncomfortable bench in front of a painting that makes you feel most calm (there are no people on it, you don’t like people these days) and try to trace it back to the time when things were a little different. You might see kids on a trip with parents and it will make you cry in the middle of the gallery just because. Because this is who you are now. You’re weak, you’re sad. Everything about you is fragile and unstable. You can’t control your emotions even though your family always said you were a “cold breed”. Where the hell did that go to?

You know when it disappeared. Stop being a wuss and admit, that the moment it happened, you were crossing the street at night when coming home from work, there was blood on the pavement from that fight in a local pub, you were used to it and this one time, even though the lights were changing to red, you didn’t check. You kept on walking with the new friend, he didn’t have a name yet, and you heard a noise, you saw the lights, you closed your eyes…and nothing happened. The faceless driver manoeuvred around you at the last moment and drove on, shouting at you.

That’s when it disappeared. When you woke up the next morning and realised that for a moment there you felt relieved that nothing would bother you anymore. But it wasn’t scary, was it? There was some kind of reassurance in knowing that things changed inside of you even though they were things you always called excuses, being weak and giving up. Now, it was your closest friend, staying with you day and night. Say his name. No? Relax, it’s not like it’s Voldemort.

The moments that led me there are little snippets from my mind. Like, when I couldn’t find a journalism job after my MA and to this day, I can’t read a newspaper without feeling that something is stabbing my heart with every word I read. Or when after dozens and dozens of “content writer” interviews I finally had to look someplace else not to be a waitress anymore and started applying for reception jobs. I’ll never forget the one where a manager told me that I’d need to straighten my hair, polish my nails and do an English test to even be considered. Or maybe the time agencies told me they couldn’t get anyone to hire me because all companies thought that a girl with MA would get bored with the job within a month and quit? I mean, it’s not like I was an adult woman asking for a job because I couldn’t pay my fucking rent, was a waitress in a green, frog-like shirt, living off £850 a month?

Wait, actually I think it might be the time I managed to get a gig in a private members club for women. It could be the moment they told me to change into a uniform (a size 12 dress) and made me still try when I told them it wouldn’t fit (of course, I got fat? Not all depression is anorexic). Or maybe when I sat in a park nearby and ate my £5/week homemade lunch with rats running around. Or maybe it’s when they called me “agency girl”, or when I met a waitress who didn’t mind being treated like shit because she thought that these entrepreneurs (wives of rich men) could help with her writing career.

Somewhere along the way, I forgot about the thing. The Why Magazine. God, it used to be my everything. The writing. It used to be all I lived for. Friends. No. I felt exhausted every time someone opened their mouth. Family. I lied. Days went by. I prayed for a sign. I always liked signs. They are like coward’s escape when one is too afraid to take a step.

It was midnight as I was walking to the bus stop and noticed a sticker on a bin where I was about to throw my cigarette. It was just a name of an indie publisher and as it happened, I wrote something during my three weeks of working in that strange place and decided to send it to them. A few days later I got an email from a writer who would help me work on it. He was based in Edinburgh, he said. My heart jumped. It was the strangest feeling in a while - an emotion. I immediately remembered how a few months earlier I visited my friend in Edinburgh and how, for some reason, it was the only place I had been able to breathe for the first time in a long while. It was a harsh but sunny winter, I spent days walking around empty quiet streets, woke up to sea views and a life that seemed so different, I couldn’t believe it was real. The last night, my friend told me to stay. She said things would be okay, that I belonged there, that London made me sick. I knew she was right but went back. After all, I was a faithful girl and not one to give up even when in the darkest place.

So, I got a job. A good one. Actually, a really good one. Instead of telling me I would get bored and leave, they gave me more money in acknowledgement of my education. And it was a good two years but ultimately nothing changed. It became worse if anything. After two promotions I couldn't look at myself again. I became a bad friend, sister, daughter, lover. I was desperately missing my waiting and bartending jobs. I felt missing connections to everything: people, meaningful work, the world, myself.

Then, of course, it happened again. I think it was my punishment for not leaving, not following the signs. It was Wednesday morning and as always, I left early. Those days, I would leave 6:30 am and come back 7:00 pm. The station was full, it just didn’t matter how early you left, how much you hurried. And I was always in a hurry. I didn’t even know why.

I was waiting for the train, the platform was full in about five minutes. Once it finally arrived, we all squeezed in and waited. Five, ten, fifteen, twenty minutes and the train was just standing there because of a signal problem, as always. Finally, we moved. There was no space to breathe inside. I was crying. But that’s normal, right? Just another thing we laugh about when reading Time Out. We were asked to leave at Finsbury Park and change for the Victoria Line. The platform was already full, but I followed all the grey suits because I had an important job to get to. Already, I was asking myself how important was that job? Because as I watched the trains come, one every minute, I was closer and closer to the line. Not the finish line, just the line that wasn’t supposed to be crossed. I was standing by the very edge of the platform. People were angry and I was scared. I could feel the tension of their movements, how they tried to hide behind expensive clothes but their bodies followed their basic instincts. And so they pushed. One step, another. Suddenly, I felt sweat on my forehead because I knew that one more step meant falling down. And for some reason, I couldn’t tell them because I believed they knew. All of the people standing behind me, pushing. Because they had a shitty job they needed to get to. They had stinky money to make. Meaningless office conversations, busy lives, quick walks.

The train was approaching. I felt it. At first, a gentle push from behind me. One, two, three hands, who counts when you look ahead and see the strong lights of the train, look down and see death as hands and bodies keep on pushing you, until you can’t breathe and you can see your shoe on the very edge, convinced you’re about to fall down because you don’t have the guts to scream.

Well, I didn’t die. I was on the train, crying and shaking until I looked up and saw an advertisement. It caught my eyes because it showed some guy standing over a big mountain with a quote: “City life with a really big garden. Move to Scotland.” I mean, wouldn’t you?

The force that drove me my entire childhood in search of a good life in London, has now started to drive me towards Scotland. But it was different this time. My desires had changed from superficial to deep and natural. I looked to Scotland with nothing but one wish - to find some peace. Does it seem sad and boring? I thought it should, but oh, how light my body started to feel. How clear my brain began to be when I got rid of all the noise and nonsense of everyday pressures and distractions. Things that were supposed to be a short break (like this platform, writing, pursuing journalism) had to be put on hold for a much more important mission. To fight for a life that won’t feel temporary ever again.

A seed that was planted three years ago took so long to start blooming because we’re not supposed to find happiness and peace. First of all, as I said, we’re taught to believe it’s simply boring. If we’re not constantly busy, on the edge of exhaustion, running after some materialistic or narcissistic dreams, having to fit in a rest time in the calendars, we’re failing. I didn’t want to fail. I always wanted to embrace failure but not for it to be the end result.

Second, it’s just not profitable. It’s not how society works. Because if you really find your lost connections, you’ll probably no longer contribute to consumerism, planet destruction, toxic behaviours and pressured actions. Of course, we’re all different. Some of us will always find validation in the validation of others or some strange social media hierarchy but some of us will wake up one day, realise that none of it ever mattered or made them happy. But this sickness is injected so deep into us from the moment we got our first phone or tablet or saw Piccadilly Circus with billboards and were taught that this is a success, some kind of “being” there and achieving things, which is either making money or becoming famous, no matter the price. No matter that the way we live is not normal. In short, some could say, “You’re just getting old.” But I say, I just had to wake up. The choice was given to me and it’s a choice of many when they realise just how deep they got and how they pushed to the point where an idea of a car hitting you seems so encouraging because it would provide some long needed, never-ending rest.

Most people decide to jump to the side and go to battle. But this battle is different. It means questioning everything you always fought for, welcoming the signs. It means giving in to that emptiness and darkness and having a serious conversation with them. It means not being able to have more than one beer with friends at a pub because you’re just so tired. It means you can’t walk through a park without having a strange anxiety attack because it feels so loud, so noisy and you wish you were on a top of a mountain somewhere so you could just think. It means going to Lake District for your birthday to hike, sing to yourself, speak to sheep, get lost, eat hearty meals every day, talk to a nice old guy who does this regularly because he’s so sick of London, 46, renting a room not able to make a change because his English is not very good, the work is there. Here, he’s having his nice English breakfast and walks on the other side of the street from you to show you the way but also to let you be alone. And you’ll know he understands and will think about him as you cry yourself to sleep before coming back to London, and it’s so busy and loud again, you start to wonder, is it on purpose, so we can’t hear out deepest thoughts that tell us to get out of there?

It means drawing boundaries so sharp, friends don’t know what hit them. It means being that bitch who says no over and over because it’s better to lose you than myself again, and I know that I’m on my last cat life. It means becoming someone else, or maybe just meeting yourself for the very first time?

It almost feels like an act of rebellion itself to fight for the simplest things like the undisturbed sound of the wind, a stranger’s smile, running from a snake in a Scottish forest, having a place of your own to call home, to feel safe in a world where normality has become living in a closed-off space, barely affording rent or hating your job, never feeling like anything is permanent.

So, long story short, I’m leaving. I’m going to Scotland, just because. When my boss asked why exactly I was leaving a really good job just to move there, that’s what I said. Just because. What was I supposed to reply? Because when I’m there, I feel like I can breathe? Because when I went up Arthur’s Seat it was most at peace I had felt in a long time? Because I can afford to live by myself, like an individual, adult person who needs to have safe space, should? Because I’ve been obsessed with the idea of living between the sea and mountains, because life is different there, because I like The Outlander, because I want to feel love for life again and I felt it there, walking around the castle, thinking of stories in my head already, because it feels wild but safe, because I love its history and culture, so entwined with my own, because one day I was walking by a big building and saw a Polish flag at the highest point since they’re true to history, because I sent hundreds of CVs and was rejected from all but one place I prayed for, because when I was on my knees begging for some help or answers, it came to me with nothing but a cheeky smile and a few signs.

I’m going with sober expectations of nothing, ready for the worst but hoping for the best. Right now, it’s all I need. Some hope and space. I was London’s most faithful and left a mark everywhere, from the top of a London Bridge office in an expensive dress to beer piss on my shoes on the floor of a dodgy pub. I keep reading the beautiful stories on this platform and I will miss this life. The energy to fight, the feeling that we’re in this together, trying to get by while pursuing dreams. But I won’t be teased any longer by a promise of an exciting life, by enormous fear of leaving friends who are like family, the promises of never being bored, never settling for less than the best…

But then, I remember I no longer care about this, my soul is already somewhere else, doing a Ceilidh dance in the middle of Scottish Highlands where no one but old Jacobites watch and lead the way. And maybe we’ll hate each other, but you know what? Hate is an emotion, a very strong one at that. And London? God knows it will always be there because as we say in Poland, devils don’t take the bad.

There is a great thing I heard a while ago: You’re not settled. Simple, right? Nice and easy. It has so much promise of change should one need it. So here: I hope you’re not settled and I hope that you have that one person as I did (will be thanking you for the rest of my life), to help you through tough times. If not, I’m here, I’m finally waking up, I’m almost back, happy to pick a bit of weight if someone needs it. And don't worry, I won’t tell you to embrace failure ;)

Sláinte.