Maybe I am Always Looking for the Next Thing.

Am I enough? Part 2.

'You are so fickle Paul'.

I have heard that so many times in my life and from many different people. And I am.

I want to try everything and anything.

Not always the 'on-trend' things, I mean I am never going to understand or be into Pokémon, or Dungeons and Dragons, I have never watched an episode of Game of Thrones or The West Wing.

I think Lost Lost (TV series) - Wikipedia ruined those types of shows for me.

Nikki and I invested in that show, we watched it as it was released between 2004 and 2010, getting excited for the new seasons, talking about what was happening and where it could be going. It went 'there' and a collective sigh of disappointment with grumbles of 'for fucks sake' were uttered in our home and across the globe.

But if something piqued my interest, I wanted to go all in, taste the adventure, until I got bored, or the next shiny thing came along. I am the Magpie!

Oooooooh shiny, new, me likey, me wants.

Balls, I went to find a link relating to Magpies and shiny things and it turns out it is a myth.

I love the Internet, AI and ChatGPT, but with all this knowledge at our disposal in a matter of seconds our lives are being changed, everything we always believed in and held dear is being proven to be wrong. Knowledge is Power, I believe that with my whole being, but we also need a little bit of 'magic' in our lives.

The worry that chewing gum will stay in our stomachs for seven years (why seven?) if swallowed, monsters live under our bed, magpies steal shiny things or if the wind changes when you pull a face it will stay that way. Ha, that last one, imagine if it were true what would happen if Jim Carey or Phil Cool Phil Cool - Google Search got caught in a gale during a performance!

Examples of my fickleness.

Nikki and I went to West Wittering one sunny summer's day, early 2000's and there were people Kite Surfing,

Massive kites, wake boards, water.

It was so fucking cool!

It was new! I was hooked! I was bought a 3m four line power kite for my birthday, to learn on, and soon progressed to a 12m kitesurfing kite, expensive handmade board and lessons with Chris Bull (a pioneer of the sport) down on Hayling Island. CBK Hayling Island | Kitesurfing School, Shop & Club

I bought a land depower kite and land board (think off road skateboard) other power kites and all the gear that went with it.

I had a huge accident on the beach, in front of Nikki, cut my head open quite badly, cuts and bruises all over, hospital visit, stitches and that was that...

I still have one power kite, somewhere.

Then I wanted to be a photographer, bought all the expensive gear (three digital camera bodies, lenses, flashguns, iMac), did my City and Guilds, spent five years doing wedding photography as a side line with my good friend Shaun (we were actually quite good) then one day, I simply got bored.

I no longer own a camera.

I have owned kayaks.

I own two paddleboards.

I have three mountain bikes.

I have wild camping gear, some of it is still in its packaging nearly two years later.

I wanted to qualify as a mountain leader. I didn't.

I did this! https://www.my11yearplan.com/post/the-van-months

Since May 2012 I have lived in (including the van) nine homes in four different counties. I have a longboard, a cruising skateboard, it lives on my wall and has never seen tarmac under its wheels. Ok, I have to be honest, it scares the shit out of me, ha ha.

I do still paddleboard and mountain bike, but not as regularly as I should, they will always be in my life though.

My work is the same, I have been or worked as:

A soldier, a carpenter, a bench joiner, window cleaner, steel erector, account manager for a cut flower company, double glazing, estate agent, bar work.

For the last 23 years I have been in Insurance and that has been and will remain my constant, but even in that industry I have, in those years, worked for no fewer than twelve companies, sometimes not even lasting the probation period of six months.

One of my current colleagues, Charlotte, says 'you have a story about and for everything' and I do.

This statement will come back in a future post. You get the gist. I struggle to stick at anything.

I get itchy feet.

Niggles.

I am constantly on the hunt.

Are you with me dear faithful? Have you worked it out?

This is the relationships post.

I indicated here https://www.my11yearplan.com/post/am-i-enough-part-1 that I wanted to take a slight deviation on this blog, and dissect five areas of my life;

Money. Health. Relationships. Identity and Regret.

Then here we did Part 1, my health

https://www.my11yearplan.com/post/am-i-enough-part-1

It has been edited, which I try to avoid, but I missed a huge section out and as such, please go back and have a re-read. Sorry to my ever faithful for the edit and the admitting to not wanting to be old, I am not going anywhere soon, do not worry.

But I am not here for a long time, just a good one.

Those astute faithful will note something else, names are creeping in my posts, and in this post, one name in particular. Nikki. I have to use caution, as I do not want to upset anyone or cause problems, although I do seem to be bloody apt at doing just that. Sam is getting married in a little under three weeks, the legal one in America ahead of the party in Scotland later this year.

Annie and Sam have a website for the Scotland weekend and she has written the most stunning piece about how they met and she alludes to fate playing a part. She talks about how their paths crossed, but didn't, as in they were in the same parts of the world at the same time, even lived in the same apartment (not together), or enjoyed the same experiences in a foreign country but at different times. I am explaining it poorly, sorry, essentially they are fated. It made me cry, I am not going to lie.

Anything that is to do with Sam succeeding or being happy makes me tear up.

I know Sam was scared to tell me of Annie, and for that I feel some guilt, for as far as I am concerned he can tell me anything. I love him with all that I have and I only want him to be happy. But I must have given him reason in the past to be wary of announcing that he had found his one and I hate knowing and realising that, so here we are, dealing with Paul being a different person to who he was historically.

I am a huge believer in fate.

Everything for a reason. Nikki and I were fated to be together. Like Sam and Annie, our paths crossed, but didn't, I was based in the Army, near Andover, she lived there at the same time. She finished Uni and took a year out and lived in Boston (I know!) when she returned to the UK she took a job some thirty plus miles away from her home, at the school my brothers were at. Now, there is another twist.

Sam and Luke were not meant to be at that school, they were out of the catchment area, Harry (dad) and I pushed to get them in. Had we failed then I would have not met her. I walked into her classroom on her first day in her first teaching job and then fate took over. It took us the best part of three years to actually get together, I have detailed how that came about in previous posts, the first date and everyone knowing that we should be together.

We ran away to Gran Canaria in 1999, she had a holiday booked with her then boyfriend, I wasn't meant to be a part of that, clearly, I can still remember getting the text from her asking me to join her on that trip, I was useless for the whole day afterwards. I can remember our first kiss. Andover, behind the shops and worrying that we would be seen. I can remember her introducing me to a friend of hers, as a 'friend' and the look on her face as she said those words.

I was not a friend in her eyes. I remember the Radio 1 Roadshow at Southsea, her outfit, her hair, her eyes.

I can see me wrapping her engagement ring around a miniature bottle of Schnapps with ribbon and hiding it in a cracker to be pulled on Boxing Day. I had met her parents that day for the first time. I can see her face as she walks down the aisle of St John The Baptist Church, Shedfield on our wedding day. I was blown away, I looked at Lynn, her mum and simply said 'beautiful'. I was the luckiest man. I still have the book on Tigers she bought me and wrote in for that day. There it is.

The wedding day.

3rd August 2001. You've done the maths.

Today is 1st August 2026, it is a Saturday.

Monday is 3rd August.

25 Years later. Monday coming should be our Silver Wedding Anniversary. I came back to writing this post after food and felt the need to put Dire Straits on.

And, there is some subliminal reason for that choice. It is not Making Movies, which those of you ever faithful that have been along with me on this journey would have expected.

No R&J here. I have Brothers in Arms playing

Your Latest Trick.

My forties were shit because I threw away the best thing that had ever happened to me at the start of them.

My wife.

I let Katie back in.

Now, this is nobody's fault but mine. I let all of this happen.

Katie did not want it, she was petrified about my choices, Nikki certainly didn't, but I let it happen anyway. I saw the 'shiny'. It turned out to not be shiny. Katie and I had just under four years together, it was turbulent. We also tried again in 2023 for six months, but no.

I met another lady in 2016 and we had just over three years together, we bought a house, up here in Shropshire, and then split up soon after. I knew we would, there was talk of getting married, from the outset, but I always knew, deep down, that we wouldn't. There have been the odd three to four months 'thing' since, but always I was never really invested. I have mentioned ladies that I thought could be the one, but that was Paul the Fickle talking, they were shiny, they were cathartic.

They piqued my interest, but did not hold it.

Since May 2012 I have not settled.

I have not ever found anyone that I want to be with full time. I never will. See, I have only ever asked one person to marry me, and she said Yes. I cannot see me ever asking that question again, to anyone. Ok I could, of course, ask her again.

But that cannot ever happen.

We are full circle.

Paul the Fickle One, found his thing and then he let the shiny take it away. I am struggling with Monday 3rd August 2026.

It is a date, when we got married, I was actually looking forward to, saying that it was our Silver Wedding, although I was in no rush to get there of course. Now it has arrived, but it is not the celebration I expected. I am OK, I am.

I promise. I am melancholy and I am allowed to be, this time. But only forever...