Six months ago, I left London, where I had lived for the past five years, to return to my home town. I’d been living with my long-term girlfriend and we had spoken at length about where we wanted to eventually settle down. We thought that our relationship could cope with a year or so of being long-distance before she eventually moved out to join me. At the time there seemed clear reasons for me wanting to leave with the hope of a better quality of life outside of the city.
Since then, I’ve really struggled to settle in. I haven’t made any friends and miss those I left behind. I miss the excitement of my old job and my new one has far fewer opportunities for progression. Worst of all, shortly after I moved out, my girlfriend broke up with me and made it clear that my stubbornness in fleeing London with no regards to her was a big factor.
I have become depressed in my new life. I’m struggling to remember my reasons for leaving and deeply regret the decision. I’m getting older and seeing all my friends settling down adds an extra element of pressure. I’m now trying to decide whether to uproot my life for a further time and move back to London or to accept my new situation and try to make the best of it. At the moment, I’m torn.
I genuinely can’t see myself ever settling down here and want to try to recapture the life I had before. But I’m also aware that feeling like this is stopping me making any real effort to build a new life here. I recognise that me feeling negative about everything means I’m not necessarily in the best state of mind to make yet another big life decision, but I can’t see that I’ll ever feel more positive remaining where I am.
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