Three years ago this week, I started working for Ebookers, down in London. It had all come through ridiculously fast, but I'd been able to sort out a deal where I shared a flat with a friend in Bath during the week, and came back up to Manchester on weekends. No matter what I was doing, it was going to be at least a two hour commute each way (including travelling to train stations etc.) which in hindsight was bloody insane, but at the time seemed reasonable.

  Looking back at it now, I really don't think I was even sane, taking on the job. But it was an escape from the situation I was in - and that was what I needed the most, regardless of how daft it was, I just needed something to change.

  So what was the situation? In short, it was a mess. I'd been living in Manchester for just about a year at the time, and sharing the house with a friend - well, with someone I'd thought was a friend. Mistake #1. Initially - until she moved in - we'd both thought there was more to it than just friends, but it never materialised after she came up to Manchester. Fair enough, these things happen. However, knowing what we'd talked about in terms of a future and so on, the real shittiness of the situation became apparent when she then found a new man in her life - and obviously had him staying over, along with all the accompanying sound effects etc. By the time I accepted the Ebookers job, he was pretty much living in the house too - working away from home was my way of getting the space to clear out my own head, and then get them to move out, let me get on with things my own way.

  It wasn't a perfect cure for the situation - a perfect one would have involved them leaving, and me not having to take on an utterly stupid work situation - and I still don't know the full extent of the harm it's done to me. A lot has changed in the interceding three years, I'm a very different person to the one I was before it all happened. Some of those changes have been for the better, some have been for the worse. As yet, I still don't know which way it'll all work out, whether it's on the plus or minus side.

  Since then, I've moved house - something I didn't agree with initially, but can now see the pros and cons of the entire thing - and really settled down a lot more. The entire Ebookers farce (as it's not so affectionately known here) pushed me to the limits where I was signed off work for three months in the end, prescribed anti-depressants, and left me teetering on the edge of a full-blown nervous breakdown. It forced me to be more aware of my own stress levels, of how tolerant I was of situations, and made me look the depression right between the eyes - again. I've put down some roots, I suppose - I know I'm going to stay around the Manchester area for a while yet, I'm not going to be blitzing around the country the way I used to. I've got something like a home here now, and for once I'm not in the mood to walk away from that the way I have done in the past.

  I don't know exactly what it is that I want now from life - but I'm working on finding out. And in the meantime, I also know some of the things I emphatically don't want from life too. Looking at the things I'll be doing over the next year or so are partly designed to make it harder for people to get into my life - wanting to buy a house, to get another pet - while it's also what I want, it's establishing my own space, ensuring that if anyone wants to get closer to me, they've got to accept certain things of my life too. Up 'til now I've maybe been too accessible, too willing to bend, and it hasn't done me any favours, so now I'm doing things differently. I'll see how it all works out, probably have to change plans again at some point before it all works out properly - as the man once said, "the best laid plans of mice and men often go wrong" (I'm paraphrasing from the original scots) but it'll be fun.

  There's a long way to go on this entire journey - some of it's not helped by looking back at how much things have changed, but paradoxically, it also helps a lot, seeing exactly what has altered between then and now. I'm a better person for it, and at the end of the day that's what matters. There's a long way to go - but I'm going to keep on with the journey, and see where it all leads in the end.