Tangle me in spaghetti, I'll eat my way out
That's if indigestion – more likely reality – doesn't get me first
LIFE isn't so much at a crossroads, right now, as at a spaghetti junction.
Somehow, I've got to figure out how to navigate the tangle on the fly, with one hand on the wheel, the other on the map, and my eyes crossed in confusion; sure enough, it's a terrible metaphor – I can't even drive.
The last three years have proved a strange time. There was covid and lockdown; there was my dad's dementia. Between them, they've kept me pretty much housebound even as the world has returned to some kind of normal and left me crawling bewildered in its wake.
Back in March 2020, I stepped down from the old day job to become my father's unpaid carer. It wasn't an easy decision. I knew I'd be gambling with my future; possibly guaranteeing a fast-track to the scrapheap, but needs must.
By then, I'd already spent a good few years looking after my dad. The dementia was eating him away; progressively transforming a capable, independent and articulate adult into a geriatric toddler.
My dad was convinced otherwise, but he was no longer capable of looking after himself, so I stepped into the breach. It's a common enough story; one that's set to become horribly more familiar as this disease tightens its grip on the human condition.
Around 900,000 people currently have some form of the degenerative disease. By the 2030s, that number is expected to swell to some 1.4 million (evaporating) souls. The burden of care typically falls – in one way or another – on the families.
Myself, I'm something of an outlier from the norm. I know that. The assumptions and inequalities festering in our society would typically place this arduous task on women: on wives, daughters, sisters.
Caring is another of those unfairly gendered aspects of human life; meaning as a bloke I am less likely to have become a carer, but maybe more likely to bounce back once I did. I can only hope.
Meanwhile, indulge me a little anger in solidarity with women whose lives are potentially – and unnecessarily – ruined as a result; the same might be said of childcare too. None of it should cost a future, but I digress.
When all is said and done, dealing with dementia is a labour of love, but that makes it no less crushing; the costs and risks of dealing with the condition are outsourced to those least able to bear it. There's always a care home, of course, but the sector is notoriously understaffed, underpaid, fragmented and on its knees; ruinously expensive, too.
No, my dad deserved better. Hell, we all do.
In any case, it never felt right to offload him that way, so I took the leap to keep him home.
And that's where it ended. Earlier this year, the situation reached its tragic and inevitable conclusion. My dad passed away peacefully in March, right here at home. My watch has ended.
Now, my own future beckons. Time to get back in the world; time to resurrect my future. Now, where did I put it? Maybe it's down the back of the sofa? Hope I didn't bin it. I jest (I hope).
Ideally, I'll be back to my chosen trade: journalism.
That's a long-shot, though, it has to be said. Most of the jobs in my game are concentrated in London and the South East. That's a no-go. One thing 11 years writing about the affordability crisis for a housing magazine has taught me – the capital and its hinterland are out of bounds.
Frankly, I'm too old to be paying half a salary for a flatshare with six strangers in a converted broom cupboard; having first had to offer up my soul, my firstborn, and my tradeable organs as a deposit, of course. No thanks. I'll pass.
Well, there's always freelancing. If only I knew where to start. There's not a day gone by these last three years that I haven't contemplated taking the leap. Well, I say “contemplated”, I mean stressed myself out.
Picture me curled up under my desk with my head in my hands, whimpering; it's not a pretty sight, I can tell you. Okay, so that's an exaggeration, but it's not as if I have any experience. I've always been a staffer, so I'd be approaching the whole thing from scratch.
Well, I'm not giving up. I intend to keep plugging away, even if it turns out to be around any old day job to tide me over.
There's always my Substack ventures. Again, that's a long-shot; the longest of long-shots in fact. Even if I were ready right now to launch paid subscription levels, there's no guarantee of attracting people willing to part with some quids for my efforts; still less enough to earn my keep.
People do. There are plenty of writers earning a living out of this. To my understanding, though, they tend to have come to this site with a pre-existing profile, and a reservoir of readers, fans and followers gained through brands and platforms elsewhere.
Authors who have already secured their name brand; newspaper columnists with a track-record and a following gained over years and decades in the traditional media; they – I gather – have very much led the charge.
That's not to say the less well-known can't – indeed haven't – made an impact and earned a steady audience. But for someone like me, with no established profile, no real core specialism, I think I must acknowledge that the odds are way off making it.
Nope. Me, I've always been a jobbing hack, ploughing away in obscurity, working away in the background of niche B2B publications aimed at a narrow audience. As an author, well I'm just one of legions shouting into the void, hoping to be noticed.
But you gotta try; I'll keep plugging away.
As with so much in life, it's all a work in progress. Everything is up in the air, I know that; the future is in flux. There's so much to consider and resolve; a way forward to find. All I can do is take it one day at a time.
So, yeah, I'm currently floundering in a steaming bowl of spaghetti, wondering which of those tangled strands will bind me to some viable tomorrow, but I'll get there (ahaha, he says). I'll just have to suck it up and see.
At least I know one thing: come what may, I remain a writer – and a writer I shall be.
MC