Forsterian Exit

The Perils of ‘Doing a Durham’

Maurice (1987)

If I’m being honest, I’m not sure why I did it. Maybe I don’t want to confront why I did.
When I speak of living abroad, I talk of Paris, Kraków, Gdańsk and Wrocław. I tend not to mention Athens.

I don’t speak of my time there often, but the first anniversary of my arrival seems a good time to look back.

I was only there for a month so I appreciate ‘lived’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting, but at the same time, I find it strange to have the layout of a city memorised, to have its roads and alleys be a part of myself, and know that I may never tread them again, that my life could pass quite comfortably without ever returning.

My reasons for going were dubious. Last March, I finally got a literary agent, but when I ended my literary exile and came back to London, my life didn’t really come together in the way I hoped it would. After so much anxiety, I resented the sudden stillness of having to wait for progression. I could have maybe tried to forge more of a career in journalism, but that seemed like a vulnerable undertaking and I felt like I’d been vulnerable enough. Instead, I decided to wait for others to make my life better, but not being gifted with the virtue of patience, and quickly bored of waiting for a new life that was in sight, but yet to arrive, I did the reasonable thing and ran away.