This Easter I went back to Barking, my hometown, to spend some time with my parents, siblings, family and friends. It was a long old drive from South Devon to East London so I thought I'd listen to an audio book using my Audible subscription. I listened to The Midnight Library by Mike Haig, a modern version of It’s a Wonderful Life or, to be a little more modern, Sliding Doors (That was over 20 years ago and hardly constitutes 'modern'. Also, with was before Paltrow went all 'Earth mother' and Goop eggs on us so quite a while ago- Ed.)
Anyways, The Midnight Library is all about the various choices and opportunities we face and the paths we take. It seemed apt as I was staying with my family in the family home for the first time in 11 years. I've changed a lot in that time; married, learned to drive, had 2 kids, travelled and worked across the world and come back to Britain again. I've also gained a few pounds around the belly, lost a little more off top but I’m content really.
Arriving in Barking and parking up outside the family house, things didn't seem to have changed that much; the house had had a recent lick of paint but the streets seemed same old, same old. After seeing my parents briefly, I went into town with my dad and saw the scale of change; Barking had really become developed. So much of the old local council estate (the infamous Gascoigne Estate) was now low rise apartments and building sites of riverside abodes. The shops mainly constituted barbers, hairdressers, fast food places and mobile phone shops but also there was a Costa and Starbucks so obviously this town was changing with some city types moving in.
Barking has changed a lot over the past 10 years or so.
The library, which had been a formative part of my childhood and teenage years, was nearly unrecognisable to me as it had turned into one of those hybrid book lending/ study areas mixed with council functions such as PIP processing and police station mixes... A weird combo to be sure. It was busy but had the soulless strip lighting and jagged brightly coloured furniture of an office block. I had been living in Barking when it had changed but over the past 10 years the library seemed to have shrunk and the building seemed to be a veritable Swiss-Army knife of functions and rooms.
I then walked down Barking Road, past East Ham and Upton Park and, again, the sheer number of flats and apartments that had been knocked down with new ones going up was astonishing. So much was being built but the town itself had changed little with Queen’s Market given a coat of paint but looking generally the same as usual.
Walking back to Barking, I was reflecting on my walk and the Midnight Library about how we have life choices and chances and whether we would change anything if given the opportunity. Thinking about this multiverse of possibilities I'd say that, even though things haven't always worked out, I don't think I'd change anything as our journey leads us to where we are now and with that comes challenges but also the realisation that personal growth and life choices and chances gave us the potential ability to alter our future path.
I walked past the ghosts of my youth- shops, streets and houses- and thought of my old friends. I hadn't thought about some of them for so long because, well, life gets in the way. I speak to some but many others, well, we drifted away. I think this walk underlined a deep truth; relationships that run their course are not necessarily failures, another person can change your life without remaining a permanent part of it. People can leave an imprint on us, acting as a catalyst for (re) discovering something about ourselves. That's what makes life so interesting and powerful; our evolution as people.