This is the last “review of the decade” blog (thank goodness, I hear you say).
While previous posts have been about things I’ve done, places I’ve seen or comments I’ve made, this last one is about something more straightforward.
This post is about me.
When I started the blog, I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do with it, just as I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life. There’s a stereotype about men in their twenties – they’re cocky, have a bit of a swagger to them and think they know everything. In March 2003 I was 20 years old and I was none of these things.
Three years earlier I had walked out of school mid-way through Sixth Form, because I was completely unable to cope with the pressure I was under. In the process I surprised my friends and disappointed my family. By leaving education and not doing my A-Levels, I had torpedoed – or so I thought at the time – any chance of a proper career or life for myself. I also cut myself off from the few friends I had made at school, so I was pretty much alone.
If you want evidence of my state at the time, go to the first blog from 22nd March 2003 (which, annoyingly, is numbered 2, but that’s a consequence of the way I transferred everything from Movable Type to WordPress).
Anyway, three years later and its time to answer that other question people have been asking: “what are you doing now?”. Up till now I’ve frustrated them by deliberately dodging the question. My reason for doing this is simple: the answer is: nothing
That’s right. For nearly two years since That Fateful Day, I lost all interest. I stopped updating my web site and eventually just took it down. To keep my parents quiet, I applied for jobs, but wasn’t too bothered about passing the interview. For months I didn’t even bother signing on for Jobseeker’s Allowance; it seemed a bit dishonest to describe myself as a Jobseeker.