Chav-ophobia?

As much as I hate to say it, I've recently joined the population of the East London massive, brap.

 

We moved house to Stratford (or to be more precise Bow) a week and a half ago. Apart from the fantastic view of the cars on the flyover and a large mound of tyres across the road, it's quite nice really. You can see the Olympic Stadium being built from the balcony, and near Stratford Station they're building a second Westfield. Yes, that's right, I won't even need to step onto Oxford Street any more.

 

The first few days of living there, I couldn't actually stay away from the West End! The next day I immediately went to central to get my hair cut, and I went to visit my friend who lives on Edgware Road the day after. I think I'm going to be like this for a while, it doesn't help that I'm commuting to Warren Street everyday.

 

Urgh, the commute.. it's particularly ugly. Its just so crowded, and you can hardly ever get a seat. It's reliable and fast though, it has to be said. But being on the tube made me very claustrophobic. I was really glad to get out on the weekend to wide open spaces.

 

In the first week I also started having bad dreams.  I've thought about this now and I reckon I'm just not very good at dealing with changes outside my control. Things that I know I am going to change I can deal with, but when I can do nothing about it something in me is never settled about it. It doesn't matter how much in advance I know it's going to happen, if it's not my decision to make I just get really unsettled. It's not like I get upset or anything, but subconciously I'm just not very accepting, even though the logical part of my brain says I'm fine.

 

It's like when my brother was born. I knew he was coming, but apparently I had major problems when he finally came into the world. Being an only child for 6 years, I'm not surprised that it was a shock to my system, even though I did WANT a younger sibling. I guess I spent too many years with things being all about me, and things being constant.

 

It's weird that I was fine with moving house last summer, and in Tanzania we were sleeping in a different town every night for a week on some occasions. Maybe that's because it was all temporary.

 

Ah, so now I've finally found something I'm afraid of. Irreversible, permanent change.