To Leave or To Remain...in non-EU Britain? This is the question.

Life I love :) 

I wasn't sure whether to write this post. After all, emotions can be volatile, we feel overwhelmed or angry or sad but it passes and perhaps best to keep that private.
But then I thought, hey it would be good to look back and realise I was all wrong and everything turned up to be just fine. I thought, it might be a small thing for many people but had a huge impact on me, so maybe it will be good to write indeed.

The full of hate aftermath of the EU Referendum makes me worried and anxious in a way I have never felt before. Right now, everything is "most likely", "probably". Uncertain. I should be used to it being self-employed. It feels different though.

Queuing for a coffee next to a couple chatting away about the joy of leaving EU and stopping "foreign invasion" I quietly hope my parents don't chose that moment to call me so I don't have to speak Polish. This thought alone makes me think, what the hell am I doing here. Makes me want to leave the queue and go home and sit in a field with my dog, watch horses graze peacefully with no people around me.

At first, I wanted to keep up with the news and stay informed but I feel more and more worried the more I read.
I can somewhat understand the reasons of both sides for voting for their respective visions of the future but the after effect leaves me cold.
All this hatred spilling on the streets, on social media, in newspapers.
Someone vandalises Polish Community Centre in London on Sunday morning. Then this happens - Anti-Polish cards in Cambridgeshire after Referendum.   I wake up to posters like "Fit in or Fuck Off" and "Stop immigration start repatriation" on my Facebook wall.

I've lived in this country for over thirteen years. It's a long time with many friendships, love and lifetime events. There were times when it seemed difficult to be foreign but I tend to just get on with things, enjoy the company of people who matter and keep doing what I'm driven to do.

This feels different. Intense and hard to rationalise, understand, ignore. As I read in disbelief more and more comments about non-white British people being "racially" assaulted and told to leave, I know the problems are not superficial. For someone brought up with Grandparents who lived through horrors of two wars, I find the situation worrying.

I hope it passes. I hope the country I've loved living in and where so many things have seemed possible is back. I hope that British people, regardless how they voted, heal that hatred within the nation. I hope it will be enough to have people around me who share my values.

Legally, from what I read, it will be "most likely" possible for settled EU nationals to remain in England. Lack of information is stressful.
But what's more worrying right now is what kind of life will this be.

I hope...I will look back at this post in several months time and laugh at my worries.

Wx

Missing the Invincible

From my book that I decided not to go ahead with publishing:

Rochester, UK 2002

I didn't plan to arrive so late. Now it's midnight and besides a piece of paper with an address, I have nothing to guide me to my destination. There are no taxis outside the train station. The night is warm but I can feel first drops of rain landing on my head. I have no map and there is nobody around to ask for directions. I walk down the station approach but it's so freaking dark everywhere that I find myself escaping back to the station gates where at least there is a little light. 
I dial the number of the person I came over for but there's no reply. I don't know whether I am worried or desperate but when my eyes adjust to the darkness beyond a dim glow of the only street lamp I can see and I can make out a shape of a car parked at the end of the road, I do one thing that comes to my mind - I walk towards it. 

It's an old, red car full of stuff that obstruct the back window so even though I am now only few steps away I can't tell if there is anyone inside at all. There is. Two guys, one at the wheel and the other at the passenger seat, smile as I stop by their car. The window goes down. 

- Hey - I say - do you happen to know where this road is? - I pass the folded piece of paper I'd been holding in my hand to the guy in a passenger seat. and as I do so tens of thoughts run through my mind. I hope he knows where it is. I hope he doesn't. What the hell am I doing. It's midnight. I don't know these guys. They are probably going to kidnap me and sell at whatever market they are going to. Don't be ridiculous. 

- Yeah, cool, will get you there, jump in - the driver says with a smile. 

Cool. Great. Shit. I don't want to sleep at the station. The car is full of random stuff. Shit. 

The rain is getting stronger now so I grab the handle, open the car door and get in. I learn they are from Egypt and they're waiting for someone who is to arrive later so they have the time to drop me off. They learn I pretty much have no idea where I am, that I came to visit someone I really want to visit and that nobody answers the phone. They basically learn I would be easy to rob and nobody would know a thing. The drive takes just few minutes, they stop the car and show me the house I am looking for. 

We say goodbye about ten times, they wish me luck and as I watch their packed up car disappear round the corner I am pretty sure this is the dumbest, stupidest thing I have ever done and maybe ever will but I am alive and nobody kidnapped me or tried to kill me and I am standing at the door I needed to find. 

Invincible, that's how I feel. 

And right now, as I sit here with good few things on my mind, I damn wish I had the same belief in people, in circumstances, that I had back then. It would make everything a little less complicated.

Because jumping right in is often the best way to get to that destination...

Jazz, my crazy pup who thinks she is invincible indeed ;) 

Them lucky people....

Imagine, if there really was something such as "pure luck"... It would mean that no matter what you do, you have no real control over the outcome of your situation. It would mean, no amount of effort on your part could steer you in the direction of your choosing because all was down to luck.
It would mean you might as well not try...not fight for what you want, believe in, dream of experiencing. It would mean you might as well give up trying and resign yourself to watching all them other lucky people who have everything handled to them on golden plates.  All you had left was some form of hope that luck would turn for you.

Now, imagine, if believing in luck (or lack of it) was what was stopping many people from doing their best in what they wish to focus their life on.

You know that saying - It takes 10 years of focused effort to achieve an overnight success? I like it. I think it sounds like said by someone who didn't believe in luck but who got up and barefoot walked a path others couldn't be bothered to walk. It sounds like said by someone who knew there would be many who chose not to notice the scars, the bruises, the cuts but instead saw someone arriving with an effortless smile on their face, happy to have found something of value.

I don't believe in luck. I prefer to believe in invisible but powerful hustle instead ;)