Lego House

Image credit: Sweet Ice Cream Photography, via Unsplash 

I’m gonna pick up the pieces
And build a Lego house,
When things go wrong we can knock it down.

-Lego House, by Ed Sheeran.

He’s a clever guy Ed – writes all his own material, sings, plays several musical instruments and has a house made out of Lego. Funnily enough, so do I. Because Lego is cool. Lego is the future – and my Lego house rocks.

I bounced around a lot as I was growing up; as a child, as a teen, as an adult. I craved stability but I was looking in all of the wrong places, trusting the wrong people, and building my foundations on sand – I can see that now.

Because back then, every time I got settled and felt that finally, this time, things were going to be ok, along came the big bad wolf, huffing and puffing and blowing my little house down, leaving me stood, bewildered in the ruins of crumbling bricks and cement dust once more.

Things had to change.

My co-dependency and reliance on other people broke me. It helped to put me in hospital. And when I got out I swore that this would not happen to me again. So now I’m building my future with Lego. And it’s a revelation.

Those teeny, tiny unassuming little bricks that by themselves mean nothing, but as part of a grand design have infinite possibilities. These are what I’m building with. And I’m working on building my dream house.

These days I no longer rely on other people to give me stability – I’m too busy creating my own. Because before I discovered building with Lego, I slept on sofas, in derelict places and in hospitals – wherever I laid my hat, basically. I had no structure and was often unsafe in unfamiliar surroundings.

A complete mental breakdown took me to bad places with bad people who wanted bad things for me, and I just couldn’t get a handle on reality long enough to get away from that. I was caught in a cycle of self abuse, alcoholism and despair. Which resulted in a bed on a secure ward in a detox unit while I attempted to sort my shit out.

Now I have a Lego house in the middle of nowhere, and it’s perfect. It’s exactly where I need to be while I get used to living with this new, refurbished head of mine. I can add things or take them away a hundred times a day if I want to. Building this new little life of mine, baby step by baby step, brick by tiny brick….

Because I’m the architect from now on.

Just me.

Figuring out what I want and where I want to be and, like Ed says, “If things go wrong I can knock it down.” Start again. Try a new approach. No biggie. No drama.

I make the rules up as I go along. I’m winging it, and so far it seems to be working.

I have no idea how long I will stay here. Maybe six months. Maybe a year. Maybe forever. I’ve added a teeny little garden already so I am definitely putting down tentative roots. And it’s cool. I like it here. The village is friendly. I’m safe enough I think. I could make this happen.

Much more likely though is the realisation that I will wake up one day, when my life is finally back how it should be again, and I’ll find that I’ve outgrown it. And it will be time to move on.

And then I won’t rely on Lego anymore, because I will be ready to move into a real house again. And when I do I’ll get a cat.

Tiara wearing, cat-loving secret snapchat queen. Mental health writer. Passionate about ending stigma on addiction / homelessness and all things mental health related.