To my beloved 50A Fir Street

Tonight, I am too troubled for sleep for I cannot stop thinking that in two months time, my Sheffield home will be on sale (oh my beloved Sheffield home). Not too long ago, it robbed me of a peaceful night's sleep. Once, I even jolted up awake from this very real nightmare.

Let me paint you a realistic picture. Whilst I enjoy all of the privileges living alone, especially in a comfortable homely all-expenses-paid house that most people with a successful career will only indulge in in their late twenties, coming home to a deserted place is always a bummer. Once the novelty wears off, being alone most of the time is a drag. When you’ve had a terrible day of use and abuse at work or you wake up feeling just not that good in your self, there’s no-one else around to share your burden with, and if you call someone up, the chances are that they’re just not that involved to be bothered. At times like these, nothing beats a hug and a personal ‘you’ll be okay’. When you wake up, there’s no breakfast on the table for you. It’s a trip down to the local with a plethora of plastic bags when you’re feeling worse for wear. At two in the morning when you fall in late from work and exhausted, there’s no dinner in the microwave waiting for you to heat up. The weekly late-night drinking, smoking and rolling in at god knows what hour can only make up for a small amount of what living alone otherwise lacks. After sometime living alone, you really start to question the concreteness of your friendships, and why the fuck they’re not here visiting you everyday.

But once the nightmare of not having this place anymore dawns, all I can remember are the good. I even toss and turn late at night, worrying that I might never enjoy the privilege of being utterly free in such a way ever again and losing everything and being I hold dear to me now. For sure, never again will I find myself in a cozy place I call home alone with bills cared for. And the freedom, oh the freedom is incredible. Oh how romantic a view, of staying up late into the early hours, alone with my thoughts and creativity, disturbed by nay a single soul. All I can hear around me – shh - quiet, peace. In this place, I can roll out of bed at three in the afternoon, messy-haired, and spend the entire day photographing everything. It’s my prerogative to fritter away the day naked in bed deciphering a Cecil Beaton biography. If the mood takes me, heck, I’ll even hop on the latest train, disappear into some strange city for a couple of days, and when I come back, I know there’ll be no hassle about where I’ve been or having to explain myself about why the feeling took me. Needless to mention, there’s always the partying and coming home whenever you like, with whomever you like, doing whatever you prefer and not being disturbed in any single way. This is a haven I get away to, uninterrupted by human traffic from the outside world. Silence is its upmost beauty. And soon, I am to lose this haven, my refuge, and it fills me up with deep despair. It feels like utter bleakness.

I’ve thought of solutions out of this problem. If by miracle, the entire house is rented out within the next two months, it might rescue the situation. But even then, the rent would only balance the mortgage, and what my parents are looking for is to release all of the money from this home to put towards a house upgrade in Nottingham. That’s a hundred thousand plus I will never find. I know they’re doing it for good reasons, such as there are not enough rooms with go around when one day my sister is old enough to have her own and she ought to be in an area with a better school. But selfishly, I can’t help but think that if they only neglected her needs for three more years until I graduate, I could buy this house off them. She is only four after all. What are her needs for a separate room or a more decent primary school soon? Heck, I grew up in a communist state and didn’t have my own room until I was thirteen. It didn’t do me any harm. More pressingly (and perhaps thoughtlessly), this home holds all that I feel is dear. To me, this is my childhood house, the place in a city I’ve stayed for the longest and therefore hold all of my most precious memories. It represents such high sentimental values. Surely then three more years is not too outrageous to ask?

It’s thinking like this that I know will make for a more painful parting two months on. In a world where pragmatism is valued above sentimentality, my request is just too outrageous to be accepted. In the real world, the kid deserves her richer than me upbringing, and I deserve to relinquish my whimsical sentimentality. As much as it upsets me night after night, I’ll soon have to get used to saying, “Sheffield home, goodbye”.