Thom Kofoed: This is everything there is
Meet Thom, the first of our new bloggers.
I'm 23, I'm a guy, I live in Hastings, I wear Clark Kent glasses and my hair looks like white candyfloss.
I collect books with dedications scrawled in front pages. I'm scared of dying, feet touching my face and the idea that the universe is an infinite space, stretching out forever. I talk to my dog like he's human, I sing loudly in my car to songs I wouldn't want people to hear and I like to eat the butter and sugar mixture when I make cakes. I'm a terrible time keeper.
I stole a pack of chocolate cigarettes when I was ten and the idea of turning thirty makes me break out in cold sweats. I'm flawed, neurotic and prone to panic attacks. I'm indecisive, frightfully awkward and revoltingly inappropriate.
But I like it here - people smile in the park.
I was supposed to move to London last September, Everything was planned - I'm still here. The reason I stayed doesn't matter but for a while I doubted I made the right decision, I still do...sometimes.
For now its right, an existence outside of here, for the time being, seems impossible.
That doesn't mean I'll stay here always. I want to be honest with you guys. If this relationship is going to work I need you to know all of me.
In truth, I'm actively looking for an out. This is nothing against Hastings - I like it here but I want to be a visitor to the town, a spectator, not a resident.
Whenever I see my future, as unsure as it is, I see it in Paris, Japan or.....Bexleyheath. I can't stay here. I'll get too big, resent the town, the people, my past. I don't want that. I want to keep Hastings contained in my memory as the fragile, sweetly nostalgic town by the sea from my youth. Trips to the West Hill with my brothers, ice creams, crazy golf. Rock climbing and trampolining. Saturday Cinema in yellow and green socks, jaffa cakes and pick and mix, ice skating and arcade games.
As I age though, as life becomes complicated and things don't work out the way 12 year old me thought they would, I think Hastings will become a crutch. Not Hastings as much as my connection to it, my dependence on its very existence. I need to leave to appreciate that I can come back, that, succeed or fail I canrely on it being here, to cradle me, without judgement or hurt feelings that I didn't visit as often as I could have, that I never called or emailed.
I didn't consider Hastings a big part of me until I decided to leave.When the idea of it seemed far away I realised that the very essence of it is weaved tightly to my insides. I trusted my time here and, when it ends, when mornings are spent on the Tube squeezed between men wearing excessive cologne and women in pant suits and platforms, I will think fondly of this town.
I don't look at Hastings through rose tinted glasses though. I realise it's not perfect, that like an old chair parts of it are battered and worn. But its charm, the thing I consider to be at its core, is the very fact that it is worn, that it's here in spite of the fact that some of the springs need repairing.
So there it is. I'd like to spend some time with you, talk about Hastings for a while, maybe share some stories if you'd like.
I hope to see you around.
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Weather for Hastings
Monday 28 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 13 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 18 mph
Wind direction: West
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: 11 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: South west
