It is a question I often ask myself when laying in bed or sitting on the throne, if I could go back to (and then I think some random date) would I go back and I ponder how happy I was at that time compared to how I am now etc. Well in the interests of a blog post I thought I’d look back at how I was at the end of April every year for the past ten years and see if I’d go back to that time or not.
Note: Obviously I’d go back in time and just before the huge EuroMillions jackpots were drawn go back and play the winning numbers so lets ignore that.
2003. I would have been coming towards the end of my first year at university in Farnham. I was happy where I lived and had made some pretty good friends. University was going along ok and I was cruising towards passing the first year. At this point in 2003 I had actually had a few dates with someone (cue SitCom studio audience going ‘ooooo’) but it would not go any further due to her meeting someone else (ahhhh) but I had just witnessed Pompey winning the league so that was good. Would I swap 2013 for 2003? Maybe I would but only because I would like another crack at the whole uni thing.
2004. I would be just days away from doing Jury Duty and I genuinely enjoyed that. I would be just a couple of days away from handing in my final assignment of my second year so I’m probably sitting at my PC trying to string together 3,000 words of cohesive text about some rubbish. No love interests at this point in 2004 and that I fear will become a recurring theme as I rack my brains. I’d swap 2013 for 2004 only because of Jury Duty and I’d be set for my last summer with my IoW based friends before never returning there on a full-time basis, which still shocks me now.
2005. At this point I was arguably at my most lost throughout this blog post. I was coming to the end of my degree and had fallen out of love with Journalism. I had no idea what the future held and the real world was actually pretty scary certainly when it became clear that I would not be able to move back to the IoW. No love interests at this point and certainly no reason to swap 2013 for 2005.
2006. I was lost in 2005 but by 2006 I had found myself. Volunteering in a charity shop had given me a large self-esteem boost and more of a purpose. At this point I had very few friends that I would actually see though and this I suspect was the start of my more reclusive nature socially. I didn’t really know where my life was going at this point but I was more comfortable with the journey. Wouldn’t swap 2013 for 2006 though despite being relatively happy at this point.
2007. Bizarrely enough despite being unemployed at this point in 2007 I was immensely positive that something good was just around the corner. I had got down to the final two for a job at The Sun which strangely enough a friend of mine actually does these days. Knowing that a large company like that could have some interest in me I felt positive something good was around the corner career wise. However yet again I wouldn’t swap 2013 for 2007. Notice no love (or potential love) interest since 2003, that has to change shortly right? Err…
2008. All change please. All change! Well for the fifth consecutive year on April 29 I was living in a different place and this time I had an exciting job to go with it. Hurrah! I was living in Aldershot working as a Sports Editor (right up my street) and was more than comfortable with my home situation. Smallest double bedroom ever but heck cheap rent, Sky TV and good housemates. Yep good times. However the job whilst being great on paper had one or two drawbacks, mainly stemming from essentially working solo on a project and having no one to bounce any ideas or just talk sport with in my office. When you work in an office full of people who genuinely dislike you then you struggle to stay motivated. Pompey are about to win the FA Cup but that is still a surreal day in my memory and not the exciting one I would have imagined it would be as a kid. Would I swap 2013 for 2008? Possibly but only because I have learned so much since then that I could make a bigger success of that project than I did.
2009. No more Sports Editor for Neil as I had moved on to become part of the SEO team at a well known company on a contractor basis. Still living in the same place and still happy with that situation although I was looking to move solely because I now worked from home and needed space for a PC etc… Still no love interests. What was April doing to me through the years? Had some good times though around this point and was pretty contented however I would not swap 2013 for 2009.
2010. In a stunner I had moved back home for a few months to save some dollary-do’s as it were. I was still working in the same position and low rent and no bills really does help your bank balance. Living back in an area where you don’t really know anyone my social life went to the dogs again. I doubt I’d swap 2013 for 2010 though.
2011. So I’d moved out again and into my own place where I still currently reside. Same employment situation but now I had finally thrown my hat into the ring and just joined the Liberal Democrats. I would be three weeks away from writing the blog post that announced this blog to a wider audience. However I see nothing of too much value or interest happening in my life at this point in 2011 so no swapping here.
2012. This was not a good time in my life. My dad had just passed away and I was fighting an election campaign that deep down I just wanted to get out of because my head was elsewhere. This is the biggest no to swapping years that I have come across on this little journey to how I saw life on this (or around this) date in the past ten years. I’d hate to go back to where I was at this point last year.
So in the ten years the only years I’d think about going back to would be the first two uni years as I wish I had made more of that experience and possibly 2008 as knowing what I know now I am pretty sure that I could have made that project far more of a success (and I have more self-confidence now than I did then) so instead of just seething at certain things I’d face them head-on and hopefully be able to change the direction that the project was heading in.
In those ten years from 2003 through 2012 there was just the one occasion (2003) where there was something going on in my personal life and in all honesty that had finished but I wasn’t aware of this at the time. April has not been a great month for my personal life (although as we all know no month has really been a stream of successes) but for the record I think December/January can hold the claim for best month on this front with both of them laying claim to three years where I’ve had some form of interest on that front in the past ten years.
What I think this shows is in the main I wouldn’t like to go back in time although I wouldn’t mind giving uni another go around and that project from mid 2007-early 2009 could have been so much better but such is life. On April 29 from 2003 to 2012 I lived at seven different addresses (although one of them was twice in two different stints) so I have gotten around a bit on that front but I have actually stayed put at my current location for just under three years now.
So all in all for this addition of ‘If I could go back to…would I?’ I think in general I’d say no, no I wouldn’t.
