20 years later

 There are some moments in our lives which, in retrospect, were the pivots that everything turned on. There are a few for me, but none which resonate as much as the 1st October 2002. A change came into my life, a change without which none of the rest of it would have happened, not in the way it did at least. It was a moment that had come for untold millions, but that doesn't change how important it was to me. 

I left my family home. 

I was 18 years old, and I moved away to university. I was the first person in my family to ever attend a university, but apart from that, there was nothing remarkable about it. But the moment itself was remarkable. I moved to a hall of residence called Sibly Hall (S to the I to the BLY), a monstrous 10 storey pile which I think was built in the 1960s. It had that curious smell of being washed a bit too often. And if anyone says a bad word about that place, I will fucking fight them. It was our home, and we had some of the best times there. It was where, I suspect, we became who we are. A friend of mine died in a tragic and grossly misreported accident there, but that does not poison it in my memory. Even in that dark time, we looked out for each other. Some of the people from Sibly remain my friends to this day. 

It grows on you. 

Sibly Hall is gone now, pounded down so that faux-affordable housing could be built, but it will always live on in our memories. And it was really the start for me. I used to half-joke that my life really started on 1st October 2002, but it wasn't far off the truth. That was the day I started living, finding out about myself and the world in a meaningful sense. 

I can't begin to summarise the last 20 years. Like everyone else, there were good times and bad times. Towering highs and crashing lows. I know some people who are more successful than me in any material metric, but I'm proud of these two decades. I'm proud of 2am takeaways, and distant lights over the lake, and the smell of airports, and the year I spent living in a 6' x 8' room. As I say, there are some who have technically achieved more than me, a lot more. But I feel like I've fulfilled the only metric that mattered to me. 

I've lived.