I love the freedom of freelancing. But you never get used to the instability

I once interviewed Chris Difford of Squeeze – one of the greatest lyricists of his generation. He told me that everyone had a song inside them. I believed him and had a crack at writing some lyrics myself. They were rubbish.

I’ve always liked the idea of writing a song, but never quite backed myself to do it. Most of the songs I love are about love, and most love songs are about pain. If I were going to attempt one, it would need the realism of Difford, the tenderness of McCartney, the wit of Paul Simon or the pathos of Stevie Wonder. The trouble is, I’ve never had much romantic anguish to draw on.

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After a couple of short-lived teenage relationships that fizzled out without drama, I met the woman I’m still with today. We’ve jogged along happily ever since. We lived together, got married at 30, had children two years later, and now live in a suburban house with two teenagers, a cockapoo and a cat named Bobby. It makes me very happy. It does not scream “platinum-selling heartbreak ballad”.

What does it feel like to be torn apart from your soulmate? To yearn? To be dumped? I count myself extremely lucky not to know.

I do, however, know what rejection feels like. I sometimes think the absence of romantic chaos in my life has been offset by a surplus of professional uncertainty.

About 25 years ago, a magazine I worked for shut down abruptly and I drifted into freelancing. Aside from a few brief stints in “proper jobs”, I’ve been self-employed ever since. I love the freedom and variety. You never entirely get used to the instability.

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As a freelancer, you’re rarely dumped outright. Instead, you’re left hanging. Work that once arrived regularly, sometimes for years, simply stops. No explanation. No ceremony. Institutions move on. New faces, new ideas. People fall through the gaps.

You learn not to take it personally. You keep moving. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting. Even if it was a job you didn’t particularly love.

Last year I was offered some ad-hoc broadcasting work. It came out of the blue. It wasn’t something I’d pursued, but it paid, it sounded fun, and I had the time. So I did it for a few months. Then it stopped. No explanation. None required. Work is transactional.

Its disappearance made no material difference to my life. The money was negligible and it wasn’t central to my broader ambitions. But I’d enjoyed it. It had been pleasant to be asked. And when it faded away, I felt oddly bruised.

It’s not easy to admit that at my age. I’ve had a long career with bigger knockbacks than this. I once believed I’d developed skin so thick that nothing could touch me. Crying into your cornflakes over minor career hiccups was for amateurs.

I now realise that was just a story. Experience builds resilience, but it doesn’t erase the basic human desire to feel wanted. I liked being chosen. And I felt it, however mildly, when I wasn’t.

Perhaps it’s ego. Or perhaps it’s older echoes: feeling left out in the playground, getting knocked back at the disco. The specifics change; the feeling doesn’t.

I imagine something similar can happen with love. You can split from someone for all the right reasons, forget them for years, then hear an old song and feel a flicker of something: not devastation, just a reminder that once you were chosen by each other.

Maybe that’s the song I should write: not about heartbreak, but about the faint sting of no longer being selected. Though I suspect even Chris Difford might struggle to craft a hit from the loss of a modestly paid broadcasting contract.

Sam Delaney’s book Stop Sh**ting Yourself: 15 Life Lessons That Might Help You Calm the F*ck Down is out now (Little, Brown, £22) and is available from the Big Issue shop on bookshop.org, which helps to support Big Issue and independent bookshops.

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