Day 12 (Part 2): Lostwithiel to Plymouth — Why All of This Matters

In my last blog, I wrote about the boundaries I have learned to set, the trust I have learned to recognise and the standard I now hold my own words to. All of those lessons are part of something larger, because this journey has never had only one purpose.

There have always been two journeys. One is the journey people can see, measured in miles between Land’s End and John O’Groats. The other is harder to measure. It is my own continued journey, and the hope that by speaking honestly about it, playing music and creating the PianoMission, somebody else might feel less alone in theirs.

The physical journey is the easier one to explain. It is the miles, the VOK, the piano, the weather, the breakdowns and the places I stop to busk along the way. It has a clear beginning, a clear destination and, hopefully, a day when I will finally arrive at John O’Groats. The second journey does not have a finish line. It began long before I left Land’s End and it will not end when I reach the other end of Britain.

It is the journey of understanding myself better, learning to live with ADHD instead of constantly fighting it, continuing my recovery and becoming the kind of person whose actions carry the same weight as his words.

Those two journeys are inseparable. Every mile I ride is part of both. Every conversation after somebody stops to listen is part of both. Every blog I write is part of both.

Recovery gave me another chance. Trust taught me how to build with other people. Boundaries helped me protect what we were building. At some point, I realised all of that came with a responsibility. If I have been fortunate enough to find purpose through music, then I have a responsibility to use it for something bigger than myself.

For years, music gave me somewhere to belong when I was not sure where I fitted into the world. It became a place where I did not have to pretend everything was okay or explain why my mind worked differently. As I travelled and busked, I slowly realised that people were not only stopping to listen to the piano.

For a few minutes, music gave them permission to slow down, smile, remember somebody they loved, tell a stranger something they had never said out loud before or simply stand there without feeling judged.

That changed the way I looked at what I was doing. I stopped seeing busking as simply playing the piano and started seeing it as creating opportunities for connection.

That is why the PianoMission exists.

Not because I believe a piano can change the world. It cannot. People do.

A piano is simply where conversations begin. It gives complete strangers a reason to stop, share a moment together and sometimes leave feeling a little less alone than they did a few minutes earlier.

If this journey ended only with me reaching John O’Groats, I do not think I could ever call it complete. The miles will eventually end, but the mission should not.

I hope that long after this journey is over, there will still be people discovering music through a PianoMission piano, still finding connection through conversations that began because somebody stopped to listen, and still being reminded that they matter.

Maybe that is what all of this has really been about. Not proving that I could cycle a piano across Britain, and not even proving that I could rebuild my own life. It has been about taking everything I have lived through and using it to build something that reaches beyond me.

Today, after several frustrating days, the VOK was finally repaired. I left Lostwithiel, travelled through Liskeard and continued on to Plymouth. I did not stop to busk because I wanted to make up some of the time I had lost, but it felt good simply to be moving again.

I am happy to be back on the road and looking forward to spending the next few days busking in Plymouth.

The miles will continue, and so will the other journey.

I hope that one never really ends.

— James

Day 12 Counter
Lostwithiel to Liskeard to Plymouth
Miles travelled: 33.3
Average speed: 11.8
Elevation gain: 2952 ft
Elevation loss: 2932 ft
Locations busked: 0

Journey Total
Total miles travelled: 122.6
Total locations busked: 6