‘When are you coming back to London?’ is the question haunting me. Do I even want to go back? Me, the one who couldn’t imagine life outside of London, now shuddering at the very thought of living there again. 

When I first moved to London, it gave me the illusion of redefining myself. No family, no friends, no roots, I could be anyone. A true blank slate. I was young enough to buy into the sales pitch and delusional enough to forget who I really was, a lazy bum who conflated working smart with being a sloth. Luckily, I found my fellow idiots at a middling film school desperate enough to send admission letters to anyone who dared apply. We all thought we were just one good script away from being rewarded for our immense talent. Naturally, we made worse-than-mediocre films, believing that Sundance was just around the corner. Of course, Sundance never sent an invitation, nor did the women’s short film festival I’d never heard of. It got screened in a room above a pub in Southwark once. I didn’t even go to the screening. Why should I? Experience the humiliation in person? Stick around so people could confirm what a talentless hack I was? If I wasn’t Oscar material with my first attempt, then it was a futile endeavour to begin with.

Then the financial realities hit. I knocked on doors like a travelling salesperson, CV in hand, trying to find a job, a gig, a way into the production world. Most companies shooed me off, a couple let me in for tea and a chat, and then never called back. Then came the mandatory unpaid internships, where I washed the tighty whities of MDs. And finally, the ballad of the media-adjacent office jobs that sounded cool on paper, but paid a pittance barely enough to survive in a city that rewards who you know over anything else. And I knew nobody with power.  

For years, I moved from flat to flat like an unwanted foster kid, never able to afford my own place. Living with strangers started chipping away at my psyche. I was the one yelling “faker” through the walls at what sounded like a porn shoot taking place next door. Also, the psychopath who cleaned toilets with my flatmate’s new girlfriend’s toothbrush. Relax, I threw it away before she had a chance to use it. Eight years in, I was bawling my eyes out on a swing at a children’s playground in Sydenham, as concerned parents dragged their kids away from the deranged woman defying British societal norms.   

Was London the abusive boyfriend I couldn’t break free from? 

I always blamed London for not giving me a break, but now that we’re on a break, I can finally see it clearly. The main problem with London, as it turns out, was me. I was the one who didn’t finish the scripts and send them to competitions as I promised. I was the one who stopped applying to grants and programmes. And I stopped going to open-mics, stopped showing up at rehearsals, stopped creating altogether, because was there even a point? I was the dabbler, I was the flakey friend. I never truly committed. Never gave it my all to genuinely say ‘I did fucking try, and it still didn’t work out.’ The one thing I didn’t quit was London, and now I can see I bet on the wrong horse.  

Now I’m in Penang. Travelling. No set date to go back. Am I doing it all over again? Betting on the wrong horse?

A year ago, I was at the Tube station, crying, dragging my small duffel bag down the escalator. A staff member chased after me,  ‘Miss, what happened? Did you get harassed? I can’t let you get on the train like this.’ I whimpered, trying to convince him that I was OK, just upset and rushing to catch my flight. Perhaps this was London’s goodbye to me. And I’m in no rush to go back to it.