Time ticks on......

And life throws some curveballs and interesting surprises for everyone. No apologies or excuses here, just a tumultuous time recently. Some good, some brilliant and some just down right heartbreaking.

After a few false starts (mainly technological - What is going on with the Blogger App??), I felt the urge to write. Not to share anything in particular, but just a need to reacquaint myself with my inner voice and let it run free. So today is just an opening of the heart and mind. A chance to let some of those inner thoughts run free and see what comes out. 

It seems that life is always throwing something else at you. Since I last stopped by to share my thoughts (July last year can you believe?) the following have happened:

1. I've moved house
2. We began a tough journey (that still isn't complete)
3. I've loved and felt real love
4. I've lost
5. I resigned from my job (recently)
6. I have seen a great friend get married in Italy
7. I have baked (a lot)
8. I have masted the art of procrastination
9. I am making time for myself
10. I have learned to value myself and my health

I am sure there are many more big and small things that just don't come to mind at the moment. It has been a crazy wild journey that brings me to today. I always maintain the thought that we are the people we are because of the things we have experienced - good and bad - that make up our lives and can show the true strengths we possess. Our true character and sometimes our true calling. We become the people we are as we are shaped by the forces and experiences in our lives. These things test us in so many ways. I've always said 'shit things happen to good people', sometimes for no apparent reason. I try to never lose the lesson. It may take a day or 10 years but you will learn something from this experience. And without knowing it, that experience has shaped you. Made you a little different. Don't let those things close you off, but rather prepare you and open you up for the good that is yet to come. (Or something like that, depending on the day and my frame of mind).

So I sit here on day 16 (wow, already) after resigning from my job with no plan, a burning desire for change and a multitude of dreams and hopes floating around my head. And I wonder, not for the first time, was I crazy? What possessed me to do such a selfish thing with no regard to the consequences past my desperate need to stop being that person who is so consumed by the anger and angst of working with people who just don't get it that I had no room for anything else? I am sure you have been there. You spend 8 hours a day with these people only to come home and spend another 2-3 hours moaning about them. And before you know it, you have fallen into an exhausted and restless sleep only to get up, what feels like 5 minutes later, and do it all again. Sometimes realising that you have barely had time in your head to give the one you love more than 5 mins!! 

That was me a little over a month ago. After a terribly taxing day at work, I came home to dump all my angst on my man, who proceeded to listen (for the hundredth time) then tell me to run a bath and grab a drink and relax. It was while I was steaming away happily in the bath, with my wine, that I realised I couldn't do it anymore. I didn't want to be that person anymore and frankly if the people I worked with couldn't see the value in my experience, then that was their loss. I needed out and I needed it fast. Three days later I resigned.

The heavy weight has lifted from my shoulders, and been replaced by a mild sense of panic, but nonetheless, I feel better. While I have no idea what is next (and I have told anyone who will listen this, hoping that someone may just tell me the thing I should be doing that is so obvious to them). I do feel better by being in control and taking myself out of what felt like a dead end situation. I am pleased to say that I feel happier and now have more time for those I love. Gone are the nights spent groaning and reliving the injustices inflicted by others and have instead been replaced by a real want and need to know how others are. I ask 'how was your day' and I actually listen to the reply. I ask questions, not so I can chip in with my story, but because I want to know. I can care about others and have mental energy to be there for those that are important to me (Something that had been missing for the last few months).

I am, slowly, filling my days with things that matter to me. Some housework tasks that have been bugging me. Some therapy in the garden and a few days spent catching up with friends (strangely there are three people in social group who have resigned from their roles recently without anything else to go too, must be something in the air other than pollen) and now I am practicing some self love in the form of yoga and baking (lots of baking). Doing things that excite me and bring me joy. Little by little I can feel myself relax and slowly returning to the energetic and thoughtful person I have always been.

Now I plunge into the unknown and take on each day and each step with the thought in my mind of finding my purpose, the thing (or things as I believe in my case) that set my soul on fire. Another day I will ramble on about being multi-potential-ite (one who has many callings). But for now, know that I am back. Piece by piece I am pulling myself together and trying to live a full life that brings me joy. (Kinda full circle as I remember starting this blog after reading Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project, which I just finished rereading.) I am on a path of discovering what bring me joy and it brought me here today, back to writing.

So here's is to the journey ahead of being the best version of myself I can be.

xxx