Life, being the unpredictable beast it is, has been kind to me. I have often wondered if anyone would realize I am a fake. I’m largely mediocre at everything, and hideously self-conscious, and seriously unqualified in my area of work. And yet for 14 years I’ve sort of sailed on through with no one noticing. I sort of took the money and hid. Now though, my large company is terminating its R&D presence in the UK. My job is moving to China. Pretty soon, by Christmas or next March the bubble will pop and the end will come. It’s all ok. It’s a relief to tell you the truth. Fiscally speaking I won’t actually require gainful employment for 18 months or more.
Ultimately I have always felt rather short changed. The eternal compromise of being averagely middle class-ish took away my ability to just be a mum, I had no choice but to work. The precious hours between work and sleep don’t allow me to complete every chore or explore all the fun things I know and want to do. So I have my household rules which consist of the following:
- The toilets are spotless
- The cats tray is clean
- We eat good, home cooked food [of clean plates too – get me!]
- Personal hygiene
Other than that i fill our lives with love. Although consequently my washing pile resembles an obelisk, I half expect David Bellamy to appear from my overgrown erm meadow like back garden and I haven’t hovered the stairs in well over a year.
So … decisions decision decisions.
I am making a list – I can’t think what to call it. Hmmm. How about my Shiny List of happiness. Yes, from hence forth this will become my Shiny list.
So in the following order this is my Shiny List.
- To take 4 – 6 months off work to be a mum.
- In that time I want to
o Drop off my son and pick him up daily – although in order to guarantee my gold dust child minder will still be available when I have to return to work I need to keep on paying her. Sigh.
o Redecorate my entire house AND visit Ikea when few other people are there.
o Work on my illustrations and stories and web site.
o Take my husband and son away on an incredible holiday back to my husband’s country of Malaysia.
I don’t see my situation right now as being one I need to worry about. For me, I haven’t had a day out of employment since I was 12. I went from paper round, to dishwasher in the local Italian restaurant to working for several shoe shops to bar work, club work, cold calling double glazing sales person [for that I will always be eternally sorry] and finally I graduated and became somehow involved in IT. A natural progression, I feel, after obtaining a degree in politics. Obviously.
So having a certain pot of money to live off that if well nurtured and invested could last 2 years + leaves me in this stagnant void. I think I should rename that to a happy pause, as I am happy to be out of the rat race. The festering landscape of repetition that accompanies a ‘career’ in IT will soon be landscaped into a life free of futile life justifications and the eternal compromise that every working mum knows about.
Albeit temporarily.
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