Crazy Extravagances

Continuing from My Story in London so far...Part 2

While I was looking for an office job I was trying to enjoy my single status for once in my life and with money in the bank I felt I had the world at my feet. I started going out every night and meeting lots of new people and new guys. I spent and spent my money on drinks and taxis. Oh, was I generous, I was the most generous person on the planet. Christmas came and I gave to all my friends and family the most expensive gifts. Expensive meals and hotels followed, clothes and shoes, cd's and everything imaginable. I was two months without working and enjoyed everything that life had to offer. The best memory of my time then, was a surprise weekend trip to Italy to see my mum. Just the joy in her face when she opened the door and saw me was worth all the money in the world.
Also good, I must admit, was the feeling of being powerful and to walk in a five star hotel in Kensington and just be a queen for a night. And did I tip? I tipped like there was no tomorrow. Money meant nothing to me, ironically.
Change in my pocket would just fly into waiters and chambermaids hands.
There was no stopping me.

But of course there was. And what did stop me was my empty bank account. It was a ride, the most exciting ride of my life and it ended like every ride, hard and bumpy.
The end was like crashing back to earth after a journey to the moon.

I badly adjusted to having no money and soon I had three credit cards to just keep up with what I got used to so fast.
I got a job in the midst of all this, a good job, badly paid, but a good job. In a very prestigious university in London as an admin assistant in the psychology dept, which for me, was a very good job after waitressing and bartending.
The pay was crap and the credit cards made up for the things I was suddenly missing in life, but soon the credit meant paying for my travel to work.

Life went on and I ended up with 8 thousand dollars debts. Hardly what anybody wishes for at 23 years old. I had nobody to blame, just my stupidity. I wasted all my money and now I deserved every debt I had, because I did not know how to stop. I tried to fill my empty soul with things. And that just did not work. I realized far too late.

My complete denial about everything at the time also affected my romantic life and my conquests were just fun and games. Another notch on the bed. I wanted to prove to the world that I didn't need anybody or need anything that I could not provide myself. After so many years with my ex-boyfriend and time in bed with my injury needing everything and everybody, I thought that now was MY time.
What I didn't realize at the time, was that what I needed more than any shoes or clothes, was love. And all the times I walked in a bar and looked around for my next conquest, even though I felt in control and the most desirable and beautiful person in the room, inside I was just a lonely and scared and insecure little girl in search of her one true love.

Next...the search for the ONE