I think that it fair to say that I have always found myself searching for somewhere to settle down and in order to understand this I have been through some pretty challenging soul searches over the years. Recently it has become more visible to me as to why this might be and why now I am only just in a position to say that I have finally found somewhere that actually feels like it could be home.
As a child my parents were divorced, so from a very early age (5) I was the eldest son of a single mum with a 20 months’ younger sister, living in a council house in a village in the South Pennines. ADHD was not even a thing back then and being left-handed and dyslexic was neither allowed nor recognised, just a disobedient little boy growing up in the 60s and 70s in a village stuck in the 50s. It’s quiet easy to judge with today’s understanding, but back then this understanding just wasn’t available and it “is was what it was”. I certainly wasn’t the only one fighting with things I didn’t understand. Imagine Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” playing out in real life and you’ll not be far away from the recollection of my early childhood.
By my early teens things had taken quite a sinister turn and from about the age of 14 I have very few clear memories of that time until I left the village and joined the Army aged 17 1/2.
All of this is just a tiny insight into some of the soul searching needed to forge an understanding as to why it has been so difficult to actually find somewhere I can potentially call home.
For a long time now being by, and better still, in the water has always been a place where my ADHD brain finds a way to slow down. Much in the same way as being in the mountains, the wild raw feeling of being at one with nature gives me the space to observe and absorb it. I spend nearly all of my time, when I’m not running or meditating, chasing a thousand thoughts a minute most of which are on repeat. It’s something that I’ve found a variety of coping mechanism for over the years but to this day, it is something that still rules my everyday life. being by the sea or in the hills and mountains is like a soothing balm for my crazy mind and knowing this has made me realise why I am so clearly drawn towards both.
Despite being brought up in the wonderful South Pennines, surrounded by majestic hills, clear streams, wildlife filled rivers and freezing cold reservoirs, the events of my past have made it difficult for me to truly call this amazing part of the world home. You may recall from a previous post how much this place has shaped my love of the outdoors and this is still true despite all I’ve had to endure here, but all my life I have battled to find somewhere which can give me all this but where the darkness of my past doesn’t keep rearing its’ ugly head and thereby allow me peace within nature without the trauma of years gone by.
Since then I’ve had the good fortune of visiting and living in many parts of the world and on each occasion, like a teenage boy chasing and securing a new girlfriend, I have been desperate to settle down and call it my forever place. Eventually though my heart overrode my brain, disappointment and rejection ensued and the nomad that I’d become moved on. A handful of failed relationships added to the trauma and these too forge a link to my past. Life was really making things difficult for the search for a forever home.
Eventual I did return to the South Pennines and inevitably the pattern of search and disappointment continued. It wasn’t until I found Buddhism, meditation and my soul mate that I began to realise that to find a true home I had to start on the inside. This wasn’t easy a dark and traumatic journey uncovered so many hidden sources of discontentment, hurt, rejection and many more negative seeds of life. All of these I’ve watered far too much with my relentless search for a place I could call home but all of which I have needed to accept in order to see where this place might be. So on our most recent holiday, like a bolt out of the blue, something changed.
We were on our way back from an amazing coastal run and made a point to stop off in a town we have driven past a number of times but never visited. It was mid afternoon, we were tired but our cups were full after the events of the morning and afternoon run. We’d already eaten post run so now was going to be a time to relax and just absorb the “feel” of this new place. Expectations were not set other than we’d heard it was a nice place.
We both took in the town with an openness that only comes from long meditation session or a post run glow. It was the perfect time to visit.
ADHD has many by-products but one of them is both a curse and a blessing, being an empath. It’s incredible how easy it is to be taken in by the feelings of others but not just people; places and spaces too, sadly being able to switch this off requires both training and energy and is absolutely exhausting, especially at gigs, events, shopping centres and the likes. So already being tired from our run we both agreed that a short visit was likely all we would be able to cope with. This turned out to not be the case, we left the town feeling energised after a number of very pleasant encounters and could have stayed much longer. In fact we could have just set up home there and lived happily ever after. (Getting a little ahead of myself here I think). It’s true though, we both aired our absolute joy about the place upon our return to the campsite and later in our holiday met a really bubbly waitress who lives there and has done for over 15 years and who is still totally in love with the place. Don’t get me wrong here, as spontaneous as I can be sometimes, history has already demonstrated to me how things don’t always turn out the way we think they will, but there’s something a little different here. It’s by the sea, it’s near the mountains and has a backdrop of rather spectacular hills a little further in the distance but, most importantly for me, it doesn’t have those negative links to my past. This could become a trauma-free-place I can call home.
