The End
Posted by stephen on Wednesday, 10th May, 2006 @ 10:13
A last minute change of plan and instead of spending Bank Holiday Monday cycling 20 miles or so around Rutland Water with my Dad in what would have been pouring rain I instead ended up heading to my Mum's on Sunday afternoon ready for a busy day on Monday.
My mum moved out of home to live with her partner about a year after I left in 2000, leaving just my older brother Andrew to fend for himself. Last year he met the lovely Kate and a couple of weeks ago he moved in with her, leaving the family home empty. So on Monday we (Andrew, Dad, Kate, Mum and myself) descended upon the house with a truck in tow to empty it of stuff before it's done up and rented out.
It feels strange in a way. I've never considered that I'd move back home again anytime in the future, but knowing that the place is going does feel like one last childhood crutch is being removed. If I screw my life up to the point where I've got nowhere to live now, it feels like my main backup has gone. Of course I can still stay with Dad or Mum, but it'd only be temporary. And that's all it should be of course. As someone said to me the other day instead of thinking about it in those terms I should use it as a reminder of how far I've come. A much healthier way of looking at things!
Anyway, clearing out the house was certainly an interesting experience. It's the first time in many, many years that my whole immediate family has been together, and it was actually really nice. It was strange going through all my old cables, electronics and bits of computer. A definite reminder the geeky kid and teenager I was and all the little experiments I used to perform!
And something strange happened when old photos started to surface. I always thought I was a rather podgy kid, and a podgy teenager. But actually as a young kid I was pretty average. And the teenage me was much thinner than I remember! It definitely proves to me that self-image is 90% in my head. Though now I am a bit podgy and have a body mass index to prove it!
