Time for change

Here are two recent entries in my notebook. Funny how quickly our lives can turn around.

Saturday 23^rd November

I’m appalled at how little writing I’ve done this year. This notebook is less than half full, my novel untouched for months (and months), my thoughts embroiled with work. And now this promotion to a management role. Have I made the right decision taking on more work? I know there will be lots to do and big changes to be made. My mind will be preoccupied and distracted. What will this mean for my writing? Will I ever find time to put pen to paper, to think it matters enough? My writing plays second, third, fourth fiddle to everything else in my life – family, job, household chores. Why can’t I prioritise it and find the space for it? How do others manage it? One friend says I’m not selfish enough. Is that what it takes – selfishness? Perhaps on some level it does require a certain selfish attitude. It requires me to think that my writing is more important than anything else at that moment. And that is an exceptionally hard thing to do.

Tuesday 10^th December

Ha! I wrote that piece just a couple of weeks ago and the change in my situation has been dramatic. Sitting in this empty café, overlooking a dreary, blustery grey sea, the voice of a young Michael Jackson chirping in my ear about Santa coming to town, I’m wondering what on earth happened. I’m shell-shocked, a turmoil of thoughts and emotions in my heart and head. An occasional anxious panic grips my chest and sets my pulse aflutter. Within two weeks of promotion, I am jobless again. Me being me, I’m questioning whether I made a mistake in resigning. If I hurtled headlong into something, whether I considered it for long enough. But deep in the pit of my roiling stomach, I know. This is for the best. This is the right decision. I know that I could not have continued working for an organisation whose professional values did not really match my own, despite what outward appearances suggested. But, what now? I have no real idea. Some time for relaxation and reflection. Everything happens for a reason; I truly believe that. I rushed into a job when my home education days ended. The void was huge and I was afraid. I panicked. I have always found it easier to think about and help other people rather than face myself, so perhaps the job was a way of running away – from the idea of writing, of being creative, of doing something for me. I don’t know. One thing I’m certain of, I’m going to enjoy Christmas.