A phrase by Benjamin Franklin often runs through my mind when I ponder on life
"In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes". However, in my mind, I change it a little and add the word 'change', because just like death and taxes- change is unavoidable.
The latest-and one of the biggest- changes in my life happened last month. After months of talking about it, I packed up my family and moved to South Wales from the South-East of England. A move we had all anticipated and worked towards for the best part of 2017 finally became a reality on the last day of January 2018. I quit my job and ended the tenancy on the house I had rented for 9 years, and while a cross-country move seemed like the biggest challenge I had ever faced, it also seemed like the best decision I could make.
Where I grew up and raised my son has changed a great deal over the past few years, and the face and feel of it doesn't ring familiar with me anymore. Over the recent years, I had seen it degenerate, with knife and gun crime on our literal doorstep; houses being raided for people trafficking becoming the norm and the pavements being nothing more than a space for fly-tippers. That sense of 'Home' that used to cruise through my bones when I walked it's streets hadn't happened for years and the urge to escape the town became more urgent with every month that passed.
When my mother told me she was selling her flat, moving to Wales and giving me the money to do the same, I was ecstatic. Alone, it would have taken me years to save up enough to get a rental deposit. With a yearly rising rent and earning barely above minimum wage, I was just about keeping my financial head above water and it was an opportunity I couldn't turn down.
But selling a property takes time, especially as my mother's flat was on a short leasehold, and despite starting our plans in April, it took another nine months before the sale was complete and we could fully digest the changes that were about to happen.
Moving across the country takes an enormous amount of planning, especially with five cats, three people and two-households of furniture. Yet despite the physical move being a challenge; it wasn't the hardest to face. Living with my mother was.
For the time between the sale of her flat and the move down here- and for 2 weeks after our arrival- my son, my mother and I had to share bedrooms, a bathroom and bad moods. She was waiting on the completion of her house in the Rhonda Valley (about 20 mile from where we've moved to), so all three of us were crammed in to my cosy two-bedroom house. Her, her furniture and her collection of anything with a dog or a wolf on it.
But little over a week a go, she moved in to her house in the mountains and the biggest change of my life is starting to settle. I have my new home, my son is on a course and it's nearly time for me to find a job.
Plus, I start a new blog. Coincidently, my old blogging site ceased operation around the same time I received the money to move. With my new life, I create a new online outlet and hopefully, some new online friends.
