When I was 24, I left my permanent job of two years, my flat and my steady life in Ireland to move to London. I made the decision, booked my ticket, quit my job (a job I was probably going to get fired from anyway, thanks to my comically obvious lack of interest in it) and left, all in the same month. I quite suddenly upended my world, mostly because I was in love with a nervy, unpredictable artist who winced at my full-time admin role at a medical institution. This was probably because he was snobby and found it embarrassing to be sleeping with someone so ostensibly basic. I think he was puzzled by how well he got along with me, how long he could spend speaking to me, when I was, on paper, far more “normal” than the kinds of women he usually chose to spend time with.
But I think he also really did find it strange that I had to spend forty hours a week in a place I neither liked nor really contributed anything of value to – and being around him made me think it strange too. Being in love with him was terrible in many ways – the most painful thing that’s ever happened to me – but I will also never stop owing him my life. He was the first person to suggest to me that work wasn’t a thing I should accept unquestioningly, that I didn’t have to simply identify which place would give me the most money and then spend the rest of my life there.
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