Barbican, London. February 2020. Photo credit: Alexander Hansez.
Wow… it’s December. Again. Wasn’t it just January?
Wasn’t it just that quiet introspective time where we tend to hibernation, contemplation & reflection on the past year? Where do we stand now? Where would we like to go? It was.. and now it’s all of a sudden crept up on us again. This year-end does hit a bit different. I don’t know about you, but 2024 has been a challenging one. One wrought with many twists and turns, deeply felt emotions and never-ending questioning, trusting, and surrendering. Yet.. it was also one of the most beautiful years I’ve ever had in my life. Hands down. I hear this is what having a child is like.. Parents are you with me? Highest highs and lowest lows. Hello to living a very BIG life.
I remember the lead up to the new year very well. London was showing its moody winter side, yet blessing us with warm-ish temperatures to help ease the howling winds and blowing rain. It felt like the perfect time to hunker down with a journal and a tea, staying cozy while setting intentions for the new year. London does do a cozy well, that is for sure. The summer and fall of 2023 had been full of positive reprogramming affirmations from the likes of trusted authors and happy go lucky you’ve got this girl manifestations. The theme coming into the new year was giving mega Quantum Leap vibes. I riding high on these beliefs and visualisations despite various living and working situation stresses that seemed to be recurring on the horizon since 2020. Somehow I always found a way, and the good opportunities came around. Going into 2024 I felt a total trust and genuine excitement. This was really gonna be the year “I made it” in London. I felt I had earned my stripes - I really knew the city; so well in fact that born and bred Londoners would laugh when they had no clue where I was talking about. Bethnal Green sure; Belgravia most definitely; but Sydenham?? “Where’s that!??” South East Baby! In September of 2023 I had decided it was time for me to move on from the cute cottage I had been living in and try and find my own flat. So I put the majority of my belongings into storage and moved in with my partner Rich until I could find a place. It was a wonderful autumnal season filled with getting to spend quality time with my friend Mark (another Calgarian) at his home in the English countryside, followed by a trip to visit family in Calgary before hopping down to Los Angeles to meet up with Rich and the Loyle Carner fam. It felt freeing and fabulous, especially after being somewhat bound to the central London zone for over a year. Back from the travels, I was a busy bee, doing all the things. Dance classes, community poetry nights, drumming, reconnecting with my actors group, picking up temp work at Abbey Road Studios, and even making new friends with talented piano players at Stratford shopping mall, (cause why not)?! The new year beckoned a big hell yes and I was here for it.
Come Christmas I was house sitting again back in beautiful Belgravia. A home I had become quite accustomed to over the last four years through friends from Calgary who had also moved to London the same year I had. My main role was to care for their wonderful dog Duke, the best British Bulldog ever. :) After Christmas I transitioned to yet another close Calgarian friends’ family home in the quaint and unassumingly posh Parsons Green. I stayed here for two weeks into the new year before moving to a live in landlord house share in Sydenham. Those first two weeks in January were a peaceful time. A lot of solitude bookended with misty river runs along the Thames taking me to Barnes and back or into Putney and Wandsworth. If I had more time, Richmond was only a 40 min lime bike ride away. I loved it. This is all I need I thought… Just a nice home in a nice neighbourhood that’s not too far out from it all. Add in a piano.. and all the other things we want for a comfortable home.. Oh and enough time to work on my own projects inspired by the things I absorbed everyday living in London, yet still having a cool job that provided security and stability. Was there room for me to set up a little studio? Why don’t we add in a few hot yoga and pilates classes while we’re at it and don’t forget about boxing training and outdoor time.. Too much to ask? Perhaps, but I wanted to see what was possible. :)
By the time I had to move to the house share situation a couple weeks later. I had decided I would find work at a big studio or agency and somehow also do acting auditions and work on music. In my mind that made perfect sense - BBC One Radio Archives Administrator? Cool! Audio Agent Assistant at United Talent? Great! Junior A&R at Sony Music? Amazing! Full time Events team at Abbey Road through Universal Music? Yes!
Well, I called, I emailed, I showed up, I wrote countless cover letters, and re-worked the many versions of my CV, and applied to every single position that I thought would be suitable for my skill set. I subscribed to LinkedIn Premium for way too long, sent countless messages to people whom I thought might have it in them to kindly message back... But nothing… If responses did come in they were usually plenty weeks later and the typical form letter of “sorry, you were not selected” or, “I received your application, but we do not accept in person applications, please apply online”. Obviously I had already done that.. This whole process was certainly not new to me since moving to London in summer 2019. What gave?
At a certain point, the hospitality jobs I was trying so hard to avoid did start to look appealing again, but this time even Soho House, where I had worked before and had a great record kept denying my applications, one after the other. WTF?? I reached out to my old manager who was now leading the whole UK team Operations; a kind man who had been the one to root for me three years prior. He reckoned that my Linkedin profile sounded “too creative.” Hmmm… Slightly crushed, I could see his point and promptly took out the words, “musician” and “actor”. It wasn’t really going well. To counteract the soul sucking job application scene I was also browsing Backstage and Mandy for Audition requests. My submissions were getting a good amount of responses, even a couple of callbacks, but usually these were student films, and unpaid. Naturally. Even so, the calls seemed to stop after the third audition. Back to the drawing board. It was feeling a bit bleak until my superior at Abbey Road Studios finally responded to my unread texts. She needed help, could I come tomorrow? Yes! Boy was I thankful for that work and for being able to step through those doors again every day. Gave me such a thrill to be able to walk past the throngs tourists and up those stairs I tell ya! As great as this was it didn’t take away the stress. Getting a wave hello from Thom Yorke can take you far, but I still needed more. Remaining optimistic, I remembered a kind British acquaintance I had met at the Calgary Stampede the summer I moved. He ran high end events in London. My message was well received and by the weekend I was serving Champagne in nice outfit (no penguin here) at No.1 Grosvenor Square for a relaxed crowd at a respectable hourly rate. Not only that but got to work with some fab people. Was doing another event in no time and meeting more kind souls - all actors, models, and musicians. Always made for a fun shift. One of these fine folk referred me to another high-end catering company and someone else asked me to audition for his movie he was working on. Fun!
By this time it was April and London was all birdsong and blossoms with plenty bits of beaming sunshine. The increase in daylight had me exploring new pathways in the area and I was well taking advantage of the parks and woods of Sydenham, Crystal Palace, and Dulwich. The winter cloud was lifting.
At this time I started to think about my UK ancestry visa renewal that was due mid July. It had almost been five years .. holy shit! I knew what the cost was going to be and had figured I would just renew it, instead of applying for the Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR). This would give me the chance to still stay and work in the UK as a resident but I wouldn’t have to give up my passport for 6 months like I would with the ILR. This option seemed like a rather daunting one to me with the way my working and living situations were panning out. I had my usual summer gig coming up which was great but in the meantime it was still feeling a bit too sparse for my peace of mind. I decided to move out of the house share in Sydenham and put everything back into storage again to save rent money. I’d stay with Rich again and make a visit home to Canada until I started the house sitting in the summer. At that point I would renew the visa and sort myself out for the fall. This was the plan.
Come mid July I prepared to renew my application online, thinking I had all my facts straight, the only issue was that the UK government had decided to change the NHS fee structure a few months prior, taking the cost up ten fold. This information was not announced to existing visa holders - had I been more on it I could have maybe found this out sooner and either planned for or avoided the price increase. Everything was filled out and ready to hit send until I saw the new NHS fee. If I wanted to renew the same visa for five years it would now cost me £6,300, not the original £2,120 I was prepared for. It was July 13th, giving me two days to make a decision before my current visa expired on the 15th. It was also a weekend… I had been under the impression that I might not even be eligible for the ILR because of not having consistent employment from when I arrived in 2019. The ILR was more in line with the original fee at £2880 but I would have to not travel for 6 months until the application was complete. This didn’t sit well with me with my current situation. I talked it over with my family, with Rich, with my close friends. I cried. A LOT. The decision weighed on me heavily. Wasn’t expecting this, and I didn’t really know what to do.
I loved living in London. The last five years living there had provided me with the best times in my entire life. Even despite all the tough parts I had gone through, I wasn’t ready to “give up”. What if I just took a break from it? Maybe I needed to take the path of least resistance. Maybe I just needed some ease for a little bit. The constant of looking for a home, not having enough space, and the uncertainty of it all was wearing me thin. But then again, I didn’t see myself going BACK. How could I go back? I left for good reason and still align with those reasons today. I didn’t want to go back. On the flip side I was craving a home that wouldn’t require my whole salary with an additional £200/ month storage fee. Living 60- 80 min away on transport from everyone I loved in the city hadn’t proved to be the best solution. I wanted a home with my partner. Somewhere we could play music together, cook together, watch movies together, somewhere I could dance and sing and just be in our own living room without worrying about when a roomate was getting home. I needed space to think and be. A safe place to recalibrate and regenerate from the stresses of the day. From the moment I arrived in London, and even well before I had believed this was all possible. The stakes were higher there and so were the payoffs. I felt so full of life and enthusiasm for creating my dream life there. I do know that it is still possible. But sometimes you have to let go of how you thought the story would play out. It’s hard to know whether it was the right decision. I still don’t know, but a few days after my deadline lapsed I saw something online that really resonated: Sometimes, you have to go back to go forward: https://www.tiktok.com/@hindzsight/video/7392830280937049350. In the deep sadness that I feel about it all, I just keep thinking of what he says, and it feels a little bit better.
As I write this from a very snowy & wintery day in Calgary part of me knows this is the right time to be here. Doesn’t mean I have to stay, and also doesn’t mean I have to be overly excited about it. I am just trying to be here NOW. The grief is real, my heart is heavy and and the tears are never far away. But I am trying to surrender to those things. Trying to let them be the juice that fires the desire to keep moving forward. Being able to spend quality time with family is a gift, especially when you have been living away for some time. I am enjoying the beautiful space, a little bit more ease, the big skies, and of course the sunshine. Has been just over six weeks of being back and already the perspective has been much clearer. Hard to see the big picture when you’re inside the frame.. isn’t that right..
SO.. for this solstice and new year 2025 I am looking forward to a clean slate. A building back up. A clearer focus. Creating more. Sharing more. Aligning more. Gathering more. Loving more. Life has definitely been lifeing and I don’t think it’s slowing down anytime soon. Counting my blessings. Hope you are too. Love to everyone who came and read this story. Thank you.
xx
LW
p.s. What does “Making it” really even mean? I think its better to always be in the pursuit of “making it” anyway. :)