This is a tale of change. Of wanting, failing, getting, regretting, and growing. It’s a true story of searching for fulfillment in new places, only to realize that home and contentment were always within.

The view of the sea. There it is. It’s right there outside the window. If I lean a little to the left. 

I can see it from my bedroom window. If I drove, I could be there in 10 minutes. Toes in the sand. The wind all around me. Freezing cold but beautiful. Home.

From the room next to mine, I hear the sleepy infant lullaby as my newborn son sleeps soundly in his bed. Downstairs, my partner sits, legs crossed on the sofa watching an early evening comedy. Inoffensive and comforting, like a lot of UK sitcoms. The canned laughter provides a comforting background noise. 

The year is 2012. I am 30 years old. And I have everything I need.

Except I didn’t. Because we humans don’t work that way.

Even with this warm home, stability, and an albeit strained view of the sea, I still felt the overwhelming urge to seek change. 

Why? 

I didn’t want to overhaul life entirely—there were just a few pieces of the puzzle that weren’t aligned. 

Career, and my professional identity in general, have always been important to me. I needed a sense of progression and appreciation that, at the time, I just wasn’t getting. And it mattered to me. It really did.

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Chasing Change: Making the Decision to Leave

Four years of working with the same employer had finally brought me to a job interview. I’d worked hard to position myself as the frontrunner and had been led to believe the job was as good as mine. 

In my mind, getting that promotion would be the final piece in the puzzle. At 30 years of age, I would have completed life and all its goals. 

Then came the phone call saying they were going with another candidate. 

I wasn’t prepared, and I took it hard. So hard, in fact, that I felt ready to give up on not just that employer but on the safe, warm house and life my partner and I had known for the last four years. 

Watching me go through the emotional rollercoaster, my partner felt my frustration, and she was unsettled in her own way. 

So we agreed: We were ready to leave the area altogether and start afresh.

A New Start, or Just a New Struggle? 

A new place, a new job, a new start.

I got myself a promotion with a new employer hoping it would be a step in the right direction. But in my frustration, I hadn’t factored in the trade-off it required.

My commute time doubled, and the time with my family halved. The colleagues and friends I’d worked with had vanished, replaced with strangers. The sea view was gone. No matter which way I leaned or squinted when I looked out the window.

On only the second day of my new job, I found myself stuck in a traffic jam—and that’s when it hit me. 

“What have I done?” I asked the empty car aloud. My throat tightened and I tried to hide my face from the other passengers in their static cars around me. I began to cry. 

I drove home to my family and told my partner what I was thinking. We sat down, talked, and cried some more. “Isn’t this all supposed to be sorted by now? I’m 30!” I thought.

It doesn’t work like that.

My partner asked me if I knew the song The Gambler by Kenny Rogers. She knew that the lyrics suited our situation perfectly. Honestly, I didn’t know the song until she sang the chorus:

“You gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, and know when to run.”

Right then and there, we knew this new situation wasn’t right for us. 

It was time to fold. Time to walk away. 

The fresh start had been a false start—it was time to move again.

Loneliness in the Crowd: Feeling Isolated in a City Full of People

We decided to move from South Wales, my place of birth and spiritual home, to Nottingham, in the UK’s East Midlands. It’s not as if we’d moved continents or even countries (if you don’t count the difference between Wales and England), but it was enough to create that feeling of physical and emotional distance from the life we were leaving behind. 

It was a new place and a new start.

Here I go again: another new job; another new team; another new place to try and settle down. 

But this was harder than any other move before. The sense of individual isolation and loneliness hit almost instantly. 

I’d moved to the biggest place with the biggest population I’d personally ever lived in—and yet I felt totally alone. 

When “Home” Feels Like Nowhere: Dealing with Loneliness in My 30s

At 31 years old, I’d pictured myself being further along in my career, having a full social life, and excelling at new hobbies. I’d built up this narrative in my mind that this was my “prime” and that I was wasting it by moving to a new place “at the worst possible time.” In those moments, I saw it as a waste of my best years, squandered in isolation. 

I tried to listen to sayings like: “Home is where the heart is”; “Home is a feeling, not a place”; “Home is the people around you.”

But when you feel utterly alone, those sayings really don’t carry much weight. They’re perfect for embroidering on a cushion—but do nothing to help the feeling of a rock in your stomach.

I made new friends, sure. But some moved away to pursue their own directions in life. Some drifted, as people occasionally and inevitably do. Some offered friendship and then disappeared. It was embarrassing and stung at the time, but I was even stood up by some new “friends.”

All lessons in resilience. Gifts for personal growth.

The Moment Everything Changed—and I Stopped Resisting Solitude 

Things were getting harder. 

The novelty of moving to a new city had worn off, and I felt like I’d tried everything to adjust, adapt, and settle. Nothing had worked and a feeling of hopelessness began to set in.

But then one day came the biggest lesson from the smallest moment. 

Out of habit, I finished work as quickly as I could to return home to make plans. I walked through the door, took off my shoes and jacket—and then found myself just standing still in the hallway. Staring at the empty house around me. The plain white walls staring back.

I realized I actually had nothing to do, no one to see, and nothing to look forward to. 

I have no idea how long I stood there, but it was long enough to realize I’d become lost in that space. Physically and mentally. 

Long enough for that moment to become imprinted in my memory forever. An awareness growing in and around me.

I realized that nothing would change unless I decided to become active with my choices. So, the first choice I made was to accept my loneliness. 

The Art of Being Alone: Rediscovering Myself Through Solitude

By accepting where I was and the situation I was in, I began to make positive changes. 

I hadn’t realized before how much I’d sought the company and approval of others to give value to my days. Even though I’d always been happy in my own company as a child, I’d forgotten this through my teenage years when I started going out and expanding my circle of friends (a very normal thing for most teenagers to do). But this new period of loneliness in Nottingham brought me back to that quiet, self-assured place. 

I hadn’t realized before how much I’d sought the company and approval of others to give value to my days.

I rediscovered playfulness and curiosity. I began to read again. I began what would become a lifelong relationship with meditation. I became more patient, calm, and self-aware.

Aspects of myself that normally became closed off when I sought the company of others began to bloom.

I didn’t become a recluse, but I gravitated towards social activities that had an element of solo-ness. Martial arts has a great community, but when all’s said and done, it’s just me with me. Rock climbing, too. The climbing community is a wonderful place to be, and it’s where I’ve made my new and very dear circle of friends—but it’s also an activity that suits going alone when the time feels right. 

I felt the effects of my new perspective on solitude at home, too. I’ve always been family-oriented, but this new phase nurtured an even greater warmth and closeness with my wife and son. Not quite “us against the world,” but not far off.

Finding Home Within

I’ve been in Nottingham for 10 years now. The journey has been life-changing—or should I say, me-changing.

Living in a busy city felt lonely, so I looked for people. That search actually led me inward, and that’s what changed things for the better, outside too. I learned who I really was.

As I write today, Nottingham feels more like a home. A place where I’ve found a life of balance. I’m more outgoing and brave than I’ve ever been—and equally more content in my own company than ever before.

All my thoughts about wasting my life in its prime—absolute nonsense. 

Your prime is when you say it is. Your prime is today, and it’s tomorrow. Your prime is when you feel most alive.

The philosopher Soren Kierkegaard once said, “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”

So be it.

My new home is hours from the coastline in any direction. There’s no sea view from the bedroom window anymore. But the view inwards is the best it’s ever been.

Recommended Reading:

• How to Get Over Yourself and Go to that Damn Wedding, Gloriously Solo
• 5 New Things I Want to Do Alone This Year
• How to Balance Solitude and a Social Life: A Dual Guide for Introverts & Extroverts
• Did This French Writer Just Reveal the Secret to Happiness?
• In Defense of Laughing Alone

Gavin Williams is a freelance health & wellness writer with a 20-year background as a specialist physiotherapist. He’s passionate about functional health & personal growth. Gavin’s happiest when he’s rock climbing, reading a book, or spending time with his family. You can find out more about Gavin on his website, In the Moment Copywriting.