I woke up this morning on a new mattress. I ordered it just before Christmas, it arrived on Wednesday afternoon and the last three night’s sleep have been blissful.
I wasn’t sure whether I’d notice a difference in the morning straight away; my last mattress was eleven years old and had cost about £150 when I’d bought it, it’s lumpy and horrible and so I’ve spent the last month trying not to worry too much about what a terrible affect it might have been having on my back and my physical health.
But I did notice the difference straight off. When I woke up on Thursday morning I felt more relaxed than I usually do in the morning, my body felt more rested and my energy levels were higher. So I’m hoping that over the next month or so this affect will continue and I can go back to feeling more like my real age and less like a decrepit 90 year old.
As I have quoted in the title- “the times they are a’changing.” Wednesday was a good day- I am finally sleeping on a good mattress, and I got offered a new job.
My fixed term contract comes to an end at the end of March, and the service I work for is being disbanded and merged into three other services in the borough. We lost the bid to run and operate that new service, and so everyone in my office is out of a job come the end of March. I’ve been very uncertain about what I was going to do next; I started looking for jobs, somewhat half-heartedly, and applied for one back at the start of December.
I then made the decision that I would take a month, after leaving where I work now, to finish my book and put together my proposal to send off to agents. I wouldn’t start looking for jobs in earnest until mid-April, and take the risk that I’d still be able to find something with a 6 week long gap in my employment history.
Then, I got an email telling me I’d been shortlisted for an interview, for the one job I had applied for back in December. It seemed as though the moment I made a concrete decision, something came through to undermine the validity of said decision. The universe definitely has a sense of humour.
Due to a mix-up with emails, I only got one days notice for this interview, and wasn’t too enthusiastic because all I really wanted to do that evening was go home and watch GOT, not start studying up for an interview. Moreover I could hardly remember what the job entailed because I’d applied for it weeks ago.
I did a little bit of research, and went to the interview in a fairly fatalistic and halfhearted frame-of-mind, which ended up working really well for me. I presented well, better than I have done in previous interviews, and ended up being offered the position.
So.. everything is changing. Everything is starting to move again.
I’m excited, overwhelmed, nervous- but actually sensing how all of these feelings are positives. Getting this job is a massive step in the direction I want to be going in, and highlights for me how much my years of volunteering, and part time work have finally got me somewhere that I really want to be.
For many years I followed the path-way which seemed to make the most sense, never with a real sense of being anywhere I really wanted to be, or doing anything I really wanted to be doing. Everything I did was presented to me as “something for me to do”, “something for me to fill in my time,” and something which would contribute to my future in a sort of vague and abstract way.
I’m finally at a point now where I can actually feel a sense of achievement over those years, and grasp the fact that they were in fact beneficial years and beneficial pursuits. It all feels as if it was for something now.. in a way it hasn’t done before.
Moreover, I feel as though I was largely offered the job I’ve been doing for the last year and a half on the recommendation of my boss who had seen the way the I presented during my volunteering with her, and probably noticed that I could do an assistant support worker role easily enough.
I feel as though, with this new job, I’ve flown the safety nest; I’ve been hired by an organisation purely on my merits as presented in one interview. I’ve broken away from my volunteering positions entirely and the baby-step procession of all my other positions. This doesn’t feel like all my other roles and positions- it feels like the first step into an entirely new arena.
I will still continue writing- this is my only worry, that I won’t have the time now to finish off my book. I’m hoping a can take a few weeks break between finishing where I am now and starting this new job to allow me to finally get this “self-help” book finished, and put together the proposal letter to send it off to agents. I need to get this book finished and sent off to publishers soon- it’s like the thorn in my side which I can’t pull out.
Hopefully I can take a few weeks and get some good work done, and then start the new job with this dam book completed. I feel like- after being offered this job- perhaps anything really is possible.
Mad new world 