Louisa Simmonds

Terrace Houses

So, we are leaving the Beaches in search of streets paved with gold (and no doubt littered with syringes) in the Big Smoke. The choice is one of circumstance, not because we are in any way unhappy here, which makes it emotionally harder.

For me.

I would be lying if I didn’t mention that, of course, when we held our annual Christmas drinks last Sunday, the old man was rubbing his hands with glee in the secret knowledge that none of our guests realised that this was actually a drinks/farewell party, as well as a seasonal jolly.

I’ve mentioned the old man’s social anxiety (here), which dovetails rather nicely with my propensity for itchy feet. We have to have nurtured this five to seven year ‘flight’ plan during our over-extended marriage. We move, we settle, we make friends and then we f*ck off to pastures new. It is a behavior that sates my need for adventure and impulsivity and the old man’s need for anonymity….for a precious short time. It is possibly the singular most important factor for keeping our marriage just shy of the ‘green mould’ stage, (apart from secret passion for Macdonalds).

And each time we decide to move (and even though I have generally precipitated it), when the decision has been approved and the lease signed, and I finally consider the consequences of the impulsivity of my rash behavior and throw my hands in the air and have one of my prima donna hissy fits about not having any friends AGAIN, (and no doubt rant and wail about how absolutely hopeless the old man is in cultivating friends and how I simply don’t have the energy this time to go through the whole faking rigmarole another time), he just smiles knowingly.

And rubs his hands with glee, again. Because he knows that for a while he will have his safe little lost unit of four, depending on him again. No new faces = no stress in his world, other than the stress of having to listen to me despair every Saturday night about how boring he is and how we have become nomads with no mates, and how will I cope?

This will be a tough one, this move. This house was supposed to be our last before we retired to our palatial penthouse apartment in Palm Beach once the rock star has earned his fortune and repaid his debts; the house with the in-built coffee machine, customized sofas and matching remote controlled reclining armchairs.

The old man, in an uncharacteristically benevolent mood, has promised me new sofas from Domayne if our existing ones don’t fit through the dolls house doors of our new terraced rental and promised to take me to the cinema once a month to counterbalance our new status of social outcasts.

Terrace Houses courtesy of Bjarte Sorensen at www.flickr.com

#socialanxiety #Friendship #Friends #movinghouse #Marriage #Relationships