Compartmentalising my life
Life isn't a highway, it's more of a series of interconnected but very distinct roads
A note to readers: this is somewhat of a rambling, self-centred article and does not have the same level of brevity or cohesiveness that you may have come to expect from me. In writing this, I’m trying to put into words a mostly intangible concept which has hitherto been confined only to my mind, but which may well apply to other people too.
I turn 32 next month. It’s a pretty unremarkable milestone, and birthdays get less and less exciting the older you get, but it has got me thinking about how I reflect back on my life so far. While age is indeed probably the most common way of segmenting one’s life, I’ve increasingly found that I instead separate my life into stages based around my occupation at any given time.
Take the teenage years. For many people, they represent a singular and formative part of one’s life, understandably so due to things like puberty, education and work. For me however, my teenage years actually form part of three wider and very much distinct eras. My early teenage years in secondary school were not particularly happy, but my late teens at university I remember very fondly, for example.
I’ve only lived in three different places in my entire life, and I’ve lived in the same house continuously since I was 6, so it’s probably logical that these unique eras tend to revolve around where I spent my weekdays and what I was doing in that time.
It’s hard to put into words, but to me these eras are extremely disparate from one another, and everything I did gets tied up with them, even completely unrelated things.
To give one example: in April 2024 I went with my step-father to see my team Aston Villa play in a European match at Villa Park. I then went to see them again with my step-father in another European match in October 2024. Same company, same team, same stadium and same outcome (we won both). Even most of our players were the same. And yet my memories of the April match are much fonder, simply because at the time I was in my incredibly happy “Parliament era”, whereas the October match was during the dark, gloomy and depressing post-Parliament era.
I’ve tried training myself to look back on my life in a more “normal” and less compartmentalised way, but it’s rather difficult. So instead, I’m just going to outline what these stages are and what makes them distinct from one another.
Pre-consciousness (1993-1997, age 0-4)
Although my earliest specific memory is probably of my 3rd birthday (my dad winning me a large dog stuffed toy at Thorpe Park, to be precise), I’d say the point at which my memories “began” properly was my 4th birthday in 1997. There isn’t really much to say about this stage, as I simply don’t remember the vast majority of it. There are a few scattered memories, but that’s about it. At this point in my life my world was very small: me, my parents and the house we lived in.
Rainham (1997-1999, age 4-6)
The summer of 1997 was a key point in my life for several reasons. My parents had decided to split up at the end of the previous year, and by the spring my mother had met a new man, Dave (now my step-father). My mum decided to move in with Dave and it was in that summer that I underwent my first relocation from my birthplace of Basingstoke in Hampshire to Rainham in Kent. It’s only about 70 miles away, but to me it felt like a different planet. Not only was I living in a different house in a different town, I also had to deal with a huge influx of new people and things: my step-father’s four children from previous marriages, his wider family, his dog, other kids in the neighbourhood and so on. In September 1997, I then started school.
Despite some initial acclimatisation issues, I have mostly good memories of this period in my life, as I suspect many do at that age. Even the painful experiences from this era, like falling head first down the stairs or getting stung by a nest of wasps in our back garden, I look back on with fondness or amusement.
Chilton (1999-2004, age 6-11)
In late 1999 we moved to Ramsgate, where I still live today. I call this the Chilton era because this was the name of the primary school I attended. For the most part, I didn’t particularly enjoy it, and I couldn’t wait to leave due to not getting along with a lot of the other kids.
Obviously, there were other big events in my life at the time (chief of which was probably my dad relocating to Australia for work in late 2001), but Chilton was the thread that tied it all together. Regardless of what happened elsewhere, it was where I spent every “working day”.
Sandwich (2004-2009, age 11-16)
I then went to secondary school in the nearby town of Sandwich. The school was far bigger than Chilton and so I didn’t feel quite so isolated, although I also suffered extensive bullying, which would have lasting psychological effects well into the following stages of my life, as Virgin Island viewers will know.
The early to mid teenage years are a crucial and unique part of almost everyone’s life, and I was no different. In some ways this was the single most formative stage of my life, and even into my 30s I still have dreams (or nightmares) about my time at Sandwich on a semi-regular basis. It would be impossible for this not to be its own separate era.
College (2009-2011, age 16-18)
This was the first new stage of my life where my world actually got smaller rather than bigger. I interacted with far less people, my “working week” was reduced from five days to three and I was now focused on just one area of study (in this case, business) rather than 6 or 7 as in school.
Despite being pleased to finally get away from Sandwich, it also took me a few months to adjust to not being in school any more. Even unpleasant experiences can gain nostalgic qualities if you’re in them long enough, and being away from what I’d known for so long was initially quite tough.
This was very much a transitional stage for me, but distinct enough to warrant its own category.
(Note to American readers: this is not what you know as simply “college”. Think of it as a cross between grades 11/12 and community college).
University (2011-2015, age 18-22)
This was probably the first time in my life where I actually felt truly content. I was finally studying something I was properly interested in (politics), and while every day at school had been a fight for survival in a ruthless jungle, at university I was accepted for who I was. I got on with basically everyone and there was no conflict full stop.
I didn’t actually live in at university, so my home life remained much the same, but finishing this wonderful experience was something I very much dreaded, to the extent that it was probably one of my main motivations for doing a Master’s degree (at the same university in basically the same subject).
No job (2015-2016, age 22)
During my Master’s year I’d finally figured out what I wanted to do with my career: work in Parliament. However, that was easier said than done, and it took me almost a year and a number of failed interviews to finally get in.
The defining aspect of this stage (and by far the worst part of it) was the uncertainty. Up until that point, my life had been neatly mapped out. School, college, university. Work was always on the horizon, but it was far enough in the distance that I didn’t worry about it too much. Now it was here and I had nothing. I was driving along a foggy road and I had no idea when or where the next exit was.
As I found out here (and would discover again later), stretches of unemployment have this uncanny ability to drain your confidence and make even the smallest tasks seem almost insurmountable. I’ve always been able to sleep fine, but I don’t think it’s any coincidence that almost all of my truly sleepless or near sleepless nights (outside of illness) were confined to this short but unmistakble period.
Parliament (2016-2024, age 22-30)
In early spring 2016 I sent out a speculative letter to the MP Michael Fabricant asking if he had any job vacancies. He invited me to meet him in Parliament and offered me a part-time job almost on the spot. And so began the Golden Age of my life thus far.
If university was an experience I paid for and enjoyed, Parliament was me getting paid to do something I loved. It was my dream job in almost every aspect. The work was interesting and varied but still left me plenty of time in my personal life. My boss was friendly, fair and generous. My colleagues were a pleasure, and although I initially started off part-time, within a few years I had taken on a lot of extra responsibilities and was paid very well indeed. On top of all that, my office was one of the most recognisable and iconic buildings on Earth.
The Parliament stage is notable not only for the immense happiness it brought me, but also for its longevity. And yet despite entering Parliament in my early 20s with few experiences or connections and leaving it in my 30s as a much more rounded person with a wealth of both experience and connections, it’s impossible for me to look back on this period as anything but one singular wonderful bloc.
Nothing lasts forever of course, and with Michael well into his 70s I knew I’d have to move on at some point, but this era was very cruelly cut short when Michael lost his seat during last year’s election. While most of my life stages have been planned turns, this one was a very sudden roadblock out of nowhere (although I did have some inkling this could happen, as the polling had been dire for quite some time).
Post-Parliament (2024-present, age 30 onwards)
The Post-Parliament era for me begun at 3:30am on the morning of 5th July when Michael informed me he had lost by 810 votes. Unfortunately, I’m still in that turgid stage a year later.
I actually did get another full-time job only a couple of weeks after losing my Parliament one, but the pay was much worse and it wasn’t something I found particularly interesting, and I left in December for various reasons that I won’t go into here. I also got a temporary job working from home for another MP between March and May of this year, but nothing long-term came of that.
What is most peculiar about this stage is that unlike the others, it isn’t defined by where I was or what I did during my working days, as in this relatively short space of time I’ve been permanently employed, temporarily employed and not employed at all. Instead it was defined by something I’d lost. Parliament still looms large over this time period precisely because I have yet to find something to fill that gaping void. Time has helped to heal a little, but I still desparately miss my old life every single day. Parliament continues to cast a long shadow over my life.
A new era could dawn at almost any time, I just hope the next turn is sooner rather than later.
P.S. - I’d be most interested to see if anybody else looks back on their life in stages like this, and if so how do you separate them?
