What was your lifelike a decade ago? How has your life changed since then? If you're not feelingwordy today, why not show us some then and now portraits of yourself?
How will you resound?
How will you resound?
My life has changed a great deal lately, but the interesting thing I noticed is that it appears to have looped back in some ways but not in others. Ten years ago I left my long time job following a series of incidents which kind of left me feeling I had no option but to go. The fall out from that I have dealt with and the issues concerned were not mine, but it was more about my feelings about a given situation and how I felt I was going against my core values by staying there. Having held down jobs for numbers of years, I suddenly found myself in the situation of being initially unemployed, then employed part-time. Whilst this fitted in with my daughter starting school and leaving all year around nursery, it meant a huge drop in salary (I was a Financial Director, with a good salary and benefits) to working part-time in education which is renowned for not paying so well and the lack of benefits, apart from the knowledge that every six weeks you get at least one week off. I was fortunate that my working part-time part-year was supported by my then husband, so we were fairly okay. I know what you do for a job does not define you, but there is this expectation that whenever we meet anyone new, their often first question is "And what do you do?" I believed for a very long time that I needed to have something of quality to be able to give as a response to this question, at the detriment of my own happiness which I now realise. I was a wife and a Mother, StepMother, someone's daughter, sister and friend. Fast forward today and I am a Mother, still a StepMother, someone's daughter, sister and friend. However although I am still all these things I like to think that I am a much better deal or quality than I was 10 years ago. In the past almost 18 months I have done lots of work on myself, have spent many hours looking inward and trying to figure out who I am and what makes me tick.
So I end these past ten years, older of course, although looking back at photos I don't appear to have changed much. My hair is longer, I have a few more lines, but my hair colour is the same as it ever was. I am now a single parent, which I in no way expected, but like most things in my life, I am getting on with it. I am trying desperately to be someone who gets things done and doesn't just keep adding to my "to do" list. I have learnt to be better with money, to rely on my own initiative and have honed my gut feeling. I refuse to be rude or take people for granted, but I won't suffer fools gladly. I realise I work best under pressure and can be one hell of a friend when needed, as recently tested.
So all in all, it's been okay, but I am looking forward to the next ten years and all that it will bring. At the end of those ten years, I will have been self-employed for ten years. My daughter will have completed university and unless she decides to stay on to do a PhD she will have finished her full-time education. We will have moved and will be living in a completely new area of the country. We will likely have another cat and possibly a dog, ideally a duck pond out back and a small group of ducks. There may be a someone significant in my life, but if there isn't I won't worry about it, as life as it is, is pretty good!
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