Career Nomads

Why Some People Never Leave Home

You’ve got to get out of the playground first

Remember the school playground where you knew everybody and everyone knew you? You may not have liked them, or even knew their names, but they were there all the same.

Fast forward 15 years to adulthood, and the playground is still there, along with the people in it. It’s just not called the playground anymore, it’s called your hometown.

The old friendships and gangs remain intact, but instead of fighting in the playground, they now fight in the pubs, or on the sports field every Saturday. Same girls, same boys, same dickheads, same freaks, same jerks.

Nothing changes. The brainboxes get the decent jobs. The schmoozers get the girls. The duds do all the work. And once in a while, everyone gets together for a wedding. Or if someone is unlucky, a funeral.

Sound familiar?

Perhaps not. Perhaps you lived in a hamlet or on an island. Or grew up in a thriving liberal town where everyone read Keats and Byron from birth and started having dinner parties at puberty.

I didn’t.

I grew up in a dreary town on the English/Welsh border whose only shop was a Gateway. Gateway being a now defunct British supermarket chain that specialized in instant noodles, grapes, dried mashed potato, hard liquor, and white bread.

The town didn't even have a cinema. Or a sports centre, a swimming pool, a train station, a library, or a shopping mall. Instead, it had forty pubs, fifteen off-licences, two very bad nightclubs, five Chinese takeaways, ten chippies, and a sweet shop. Plus a couple of amusement arcades in which you could score shit drugs in.

I could go back there tomorrow, go to any of the pubs, and there would be people there I know.

‘Alright, Phil! Haven’t seen you around for a while. Been on holiday?’

There was no way I was going to end up like that. So the minute the final school bell sounded, I was out of there. There would be no eternal hopscotch for me.

After many years of travelling and moving about, I now live and work in Normandy, picking up what work I can. People know who I am — L’Anglais — and they respect me. But I’m still an outsider.

I’m still the kid who got sent to school for one term and hid in the bike shed every break time. I’m not part of the playground gang, and never will be. I didn’t grow up here, didn’t marry here, and even if I died here, I’d just be tipped into a skip marked: For General Disposal.

Or get a spot in the corner of the cemetery furthest from the gate, too far for anyone to bring me flowers. Not that I’m bothered, as I’m horribly allergic to pollen…and cats.

I lived in Spain for a while in my early twenties. I quickly learned the language, got some work, and was intent on settling down. But the town I lived in felt too familiar. Everyone knew each other, and everyone was afraid of outsiders. So I moved on.

Twenty-five years later, I’ve ended up here, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that wherever you go, however remote, you’re always in someone else’s backyard.

And perhaps the only place you truly belong is where you’re from….

I often wonder what my old chums are doing now. And with the benefit of social media, I can tell you.

Exactly what I said they would be doing at the top of this piece.

They have jobs. They have houses, wives, families. And at the weekends, they play football or get obliterated down the pub with the same folk they played conkers or hopscotch with forty years ago.

And I miss it. I admit it.

There’s sometimes nothing more I’d like than to wander down the boozer and knock back a few pints with some old friends. Maybe get a Chinese, see if the drugs have got any better down the arcade, or simply go back home to watch the football or have a barbecue.

Why not?

It’s a perfectly understandable human attribute. Something we’ve evolved to love from Neolithic times. The more guys hanging out together, the less chance of the neighbouring cave launching an attack. Safety in numbers.

Sometimes, I wish I’d stayed. Easy street. No need to make new friends. Just continue with the ones I already had.

Because if nothing else, at least there would be a crowd at my funeral. Instead of: Here lies L’Anglais. Died in Peace. Alone.

Thanks for reading this nomadic introspection. For more nomadic based pieces, check out: