The labels I gave myself.
I wasn’t a traveller for the first 60 years of my life.
That’s not to say I didn’t travel. I did extensively in the UK and from my 30s onwards in Europe and South America – but it was for work or holidays, and (in the case of Brazil) for romance.
I’ve worn many hats over the decades. Husband, gambler, various work hats, student, tarot reader, writer … sometimes two or three at once. But I’ve often felt that I’ve lacked focus, that I was floundering in my job, my relationships and in my addiction.
Tackling my gambling addiction was defining. At Gamblers’ Anonymous the meeting starts with each person present saying, ‘I’m X and I’m a compulsive gambler.’ After some time attending meetings I wanted to add to that label by prefixing it with ‘recovering.’ I needed to feel that the label wasn’t stuck to me.
My recovery meant changing my life completely. I was newly single and able to do this, so I changed jobs and moved to another part of the country. I sold my cottage near the Peak District and was able to buy a three-bedroom home in the city. Three bedrooms – because I thought I could wear the hat ‘landlord’, which would give me the income to pay off my gambling debts. But landlord wasn’t a label that stuck very well. I didn’t want the responsibility and living alone for some years meant I had grown to like my solitude.
A house full of stuff.
So the room that was meant for the lodger became a room full of stuff. I had plenty. My recent divorce meant taking in half a home’s worth and my mother’s recent death meant I took on almost another houseful. I would get around to sorting it – one day.
Days turned into years. Working more than one job at a time in order to pay off the still high debts left little time to sift through things. I also felt that the task was overwhelming. If I managed to keep going for 20-30 minutes, that would be a lot but then my brain would just freeze at the mountain I needed to climb.
My gambling recovery wasn’t linear either. I would fall back at times and it was only when I met my second wife online that I was able to stop for good. Eli moved in with me and helped me to get rid of some of the stuff – enough to move her possessions in. Luckily she didn’t bring that much over from Brazil.
We lived together for three years, when it ended I was devastated. At that point I had dark thoughts about going back to gambling, but I also knew I would only be hurting myself more. It would only make my life more impossible than it was becoming. Frequent trips to Brazil were not cheap.
I found it difficult to continue in work. I took time out for depression and came back on a part-time basis (which later I found out affected my pension.) The workplace offered me voluntary redundancy. I accepted and used some of the money to pay off debts but also decided to try and be self-employed, an entrepreneur, well an online bookseller.
I started buying books (and other stuff) at auctions and charity shops and selling for a profit. Slowly the house began to fill up again. Books are much easier to buy than to sell and my stock was expanding.
I was also falling behind with my debt repayments. It was becoming clear that the only way out was to remortgage the house, sell and buy somewhere smaller or … and this was the novel idea … sell and not buy another home at all.
This idea connected to something that had been festering in my mind for some time – since 2001 in Brazil. I was waiting for Eli outside a market and began to think that instead of flying across the Atlantic to Florianopolis, I could try and go overland by road, rail and ship from East to West. Now some fifteen years later that idea resurfaced and without a house what could stop me?
Just me in a field with a pylon.
Another thread was that as part of my recovery from depression, I had started to walk. First along the Chesterfield Canal some 46 miles (in 2-3 hour chunks) often turning back to reach the transport I’d arrived on. Later I decided to tackle the Trans-Pennine walking trail from Penistone to Hull – a distance of just under 100 miles. This involved some overnight stays, and that gave me a concerning realisation. I didn’t deserve to be doing this.
I felt this partly because I was still in debt, so paying for a room overnight was an extravagance, but it went deeper than that. I was concerned that a part of me (which part?) didn’t feel I deserved to have the life I wanted. That whatever I did had to be for the good of my health, my finances or my relationship.
But it was often on these walks in the middle of nowhere that I worked out how I could go about getting to a point where I would be homeless. Just me in a field with a pylon and a plan.
Speed became more important than money.
The first step was emptying the house.
So I tried. I was still a bookseller so I read books about ‘how to clear a house’ and started to accept the word, ‘declutter.’ I started to journal on it – writing in the guise of a coach to help me through it.
It helped but it was not enough. I contacted a declutter coach (I didn’t know the job title existed and I used to be a careers adviser!) She came, she saw, she counselled. As well as that she gave me some practical advice about the brain freezes and how to deal with them. I tried to sell the books as a job lot – but the sellers who came to look wanted to just pick a few, so I decided to give all of them away to charity. Speed became more important than money.
Heather, the coach, had made it clear that I didn’t need to have an empty house for viewing – just cleared enough so that I would feel comfortable that complete strangers were seeing it. People I would never meet again.
Things progressed more quickly after her visits, and the fast and easy sale for more than the asking price spurred me on. Christmas came and went and the buyers were anxious to get in, but I really wanted to leave after my birthday in February and to give myself more clearing time. They agreed and the push was on. The day before my birthday I got rid of my bed. As I looked at the empty bedroom for the first time in nearly thirty years it felt like an ending.
From house to backpack and case.
I made the move into my first ever Airbnb for a couple of nights until the handover was complete. I was now the lodger that I decided not to have all those years earlier.
The next day, with two friends helping and a hired van to get stuff into storage, I managed the clearance just before the buyers moved in. It wasn’t totally empty and I wouldn’t have managed it alone. It was good enough and my friends took away my anxiety by saying that the buyers would probably be gutting and renovating the place before moving in.
I stayed in the Airbnb a few more nights before making the first journey of my travels down to Reading – the largest UK town I’d never visited. I stayed in Airbnb number two. I am now at 147 stays as well as some direct bookings and hotels. My storage unit has been emptied and the remainder is in the corner of a friend’s garage, one of the friends who was with me on that last day. The stuff that I need day to day is in a wheeled suitcase and a backpack.
I haven’t missed my place, my stuff, though I do miss my friends (I go back to see them every year or so). I can’t say I feel any more free – just that I have all the stuff I need with me. Now, I collect experiences: chatting with someone from the town I’m in over coffee, trying a meal I’ve never heard of before (and often don’t know what it contains), or seeing water buffalo and egrets from a train window.”
I never took on the label hoarder. I think I might be ready to take on the label traveller by now.
