When I was working at my retail job as assistant manager, I was moving with the confidence of someone who had lived a much bigger life.
God, if I am honest, I was moving like such a man.
I was in with the tiniest bit of power, so I thought I knew shit about shit.
Acting as an ad hoc therapist both at home and at work.
At 9am, I am telling a colleague why I think they are resentful of their father, and then at 8pm, I’m trying to help my flatmate decipher why her boyfriend wouldn’t make her finish.
It wasn’t until I left my job and was no longer managing anything that I realised I really don’t have a fucking clue, do I?
I went from being someone so sure of reality to playing all-sides McGee when confronted with something that required an opinion.
I had lost all confidence in my ability to make a decision.
What was the real me?
Was it this emotionally self-assured boss or the diplomat virgin in the corner?
Well, reader, I mean, it wasn’t like those were my only two options, was it?
I had to stop pushing it.
Looking in the mirror and screaming:
“WHO AM I?”
Although Shakespearean, not entirely helpful.
Something that landed for me when I finally left work was that you can’t be too sure of anything.
That the only constant I can point to in the last six years has been change.
Therefore, how I feel today won’t be how I feel tomorrow, and if it is, it won’t be how I feel next week.
You know, some days I wake up wanting to run a 10k. Other days, I wake up just to go back to sleep.
It felt like I was travelling through the no man’s land of my personality.
Meeting people for the first time after leaving my job was actually a good test for me to see how I was feeling about myself.
Sometimes I would tell people that I had just left my retail job to launch my own publication and allow them to be genuinely impressed by this.
Sometimes I would tell people that I am just unemployed and holding it down on Minecraft.
Weirdly, both of these things are true to me.
Both statements are factually correct.
But then, it would always lead to me saying that I had just launched my own publication, and their face would shift. There would be genuine shock because, in actuality, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t downplay this huge risk I had just taken.
Not that it makes me better than anyone or somehow superior, but we all hear stories of the person who took the risk and achieved their goals.
The reason I sometimes try not to bring it up is because what if I don’t succeed?
What if I am not the guy who quits his job and launches into a new, successful career?
That scared me.
It still does, actually.
But I had to dig deep and understand that I would rather fail publicly than live a life that was never meant for me.
I have learned a lot about myself since leaving retail.
I am not that competitive.
My perfect morning is coffee and a ciggy at my open window, doing my Gaelic Duolingo.
I’m probably never going to be an Olympian.
Nor a model.
But when I am 50, I can actually say that once I was a writer, even if it was short-lived.
I will get to be the guy who says, “Yeah, that risk didn’t pay off,” or I’ll be the guy who is flying in my PJ to my residence in Italy.
I don’t think any of the experiences I have had in these past few months mean I am now more qualified to give advice.
If anything, they have taught me that advice should have an expiration date on it.
Advice is given for a specific point in time.
It is not a declaration or manifesto on how to live your life going forward.
So, if I told you that you can’t be friends with an ex-I am friends with mine.
If I told you that all men are inherently evil, I live with a straight man.
If I told you that soap brows looked good, they don’t.
People change. The longer someone is in your life, the more gradual the change can seem.
But sometimes someone shaves their head or quits their job, and suddenly they have our attention.
Our advice needs to be tailored to the version of the person we know standing before us.
I would tell my best friend now that I think she should buy that house. Six months ago, I would have told her to put her bank card down.
It is okay to change.
It is okay to not know.
Fuck knows, how many of these have I written, and still I am not at the point where I feel like I know exactly who I am?
Perhaps I never will.
But I think I am becoming more comfortable with the idea that I don’t have to.
I was once a man who thought he had the answers to everyone else’s problems. Now I am a man who isn’t entirely sure what he is doing with his own life.
And weirdly, I think I prefer that version of myself.
Although, if you do need advice about your relationship with your father, I am still available for consultation.
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