Scenes from Village Life

I spent most of today washing my car. To put that into context, I don’t think I’ve washed my car since I came here. That was about six months ago, give or take. I used to live in a penthouse. Now I live in a village. The last few months seem to have gone by in a blur.

Babylon Revisited

I’m reminded of that old F Scott Fitzgerald short story about the man who lost his family while everyone else was losing their money in the Wall Street Crash.

“I heard that you lost a lot in the crash.” a wily bartender says.
“I did,” Charlie replies, “but I lost everything I wanted in the boom.”

I was very fortunate, in a way, to come of age in the boom. I had an easy ride, and there was always a soft landing. Credit was easy and money was so simple to make you couldn’t fall over yourself without landing on a tenner. I spent high and I lived hard. Life was good, or so I thought.

I turned twenty five soon after the credit crisis. I was too busy to notice. My life had fallen into disarray. I was involved with two women, I was drinking too much, for all the wrong reasons, I was no longer able to command a decent salary, and the novel I’d been working on for the past four years had been rejected by pretty much every publisher going. Too commercial. Not commercial enough. The characters are too mean. But nobody will believe the story if you make them nice.

Ultimately, I only cared about one thing. One of the girls I was involved with. The rest of the world, I said, could burn.

Burn

It did. While I was busy falling apart, so was the world. I lost the girl. I quit my job. I left town. I started again.

It’s easy to look back, in retrospect, and say yes, this was my quarter life crisis. It was certainly the moment when I realized the dreams I had as a child weren’t necessarily the life I was going to have as an adult.

I had to do a lot of growing up, very fast.

I had dreams of being a great novelist. Then I woke up. As it turns out, I’m a rather good creative director. We can’t all be F Scott Fitzgerald. I’ll settle for being Don Draper. At least Don Draper can pay his bills on time, and he isn’t trying to drink himself to death.

I think I’ve smiled more in the last six months than I’ve smiled in the last five years. I’ve come to terms with who I am, and what I really want in life. (Hint: it’s not to be a great writer. I just did that to get girls into bed. It worked.) It seems as if everybody has a crisis of confidence in their twenties, when they realize how hard it really is out there. Some go running for cover. They hide in perpetual childhood, living with their parents, hanging out with old school friends. Others, a lot of girls, go the other way. They run straight into the arms of older men, father figures who’ll protect them and pay for them. Until, of course, the men get tired of the girls and change them in for a younger model. Then you’re fucked.

Don’t be a child

My point is, I guess, that you can’t put off having a quarter life crisis forever. It’ll only make your mid-life worse. You have to face up to the responsibilities of the world and sometimes, you have to do it alone. I’m  happier being single than I ever was trying to juggle all those girls. Women are a headache. Even when they’re not trying to have you duffed up. I’m running a business, I’m earning a living, and I answer to nobody. Life is hard, but I never really enjoyed it when it was easy.

Having to work, having to struggle, having to beat the odds — that’s what life’s about. We had it handed to us on a silver platter when times were good. Now I see all the quarter lifers running for cover, trying to get those times back. They’re just delaying the inevitable. Those of us who lost everything and had to start again from scratch will be the real winners.

I finally got round to washing my car today. I bring this up because it’s been at least six months. Since I moved here. Since I began my life again.

Six months of dirt and grime. It felt like I was washing away a lot more. It felt like a purification, of sorts. Sweeping the trash away. Seeing the sparkling underneath.

I spend a lot of time in that car, commuting as I do through town and country. If there’s one thing I’ve learned as an adult, it’s that you’d better invest in a car you like. You’re going to be spending a lot of time in it.

Also: avoid mad women, don’t drink too much, put something by for a rainy day, no setback is ever permanent, no state of being lasts forever.

In fact, I’ve finally learned what my parents were trying to tell me all along.

Richard Allday