Sad story

Sad, sad day

I’ve been rather down in the dumps the last few weeks; I put it down to the unusually wet and cold weather we have had in May and early June, but the scaremongering and Armageddon predictions tumbling out of my mother country have not helped my mood either. You see, I am one of the disenfranchised British citizens who stood to lose a lot with an exit of the UK from Europe, but who were not allowed to vote.

As it got closer to the 23rd (referendum day) I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. I still hoped that (what I deemed to be) reason would prevail. As I got up in the early hours of Friday to watch live streaming of the results of the referendum, that sinking feeling proved to be justified. The British people, had decided that they wanted to leave the European Union.

The new Europe

It brought back a memory of my early days in continental Europe, when I would moan about Dutch bureaucracy or another “European” oddity that I couldn’t grasp and a colleague would say to me “why don’t you just f.. off back to your little island”. That was a cue to me to rethink what I was moaning about and see if maybe, just maybe, it was me and my way of thinking that could do with a tweak and maybe, just maybe I could learn something from another way of thinking.

Now the British population has spat out its collective dummy and f..ed off back to its little island and pulled up the drawbridge to boot. I fail to see how this will help them, but as I have come to realise, I am no longer really British and as I have felt more and more on each visit back to my homeland, I am well and truly out of step with this current British mentality.

I wish them well and as they sort out their messy divorce, I must now also start the process of extracting myself financially and emotionally from the island that no longer wants me or my kind.

Yesterday the weather was heavy and oppressive, matching my mood after the vote, and last night we had one humdinger of a storm. Scary though the storm was, it cleared the air and today has dawned sunny and calm. A new start for everyone. Let’s hope the British population does not live to regret its decision, but whatever happens to them, I am very grateful that I have a passport from a real European country and not just a British one, so that I can continue to live in a great community of countries, striving to work together to make a better life for all their citizens, not just the rich and petulant ones.