- Moved (again), giving me the opportunity to once again face all the things I no longer need, all the hobbies I no longer do, all the passions I no longer follow, and to choose, once again, the most important things in my life to pack up and carry with me (a few blocks down the road this time, rather than several hundred kilometres)
- Applied for seven jobs, and got one
- Learned how to use iMovie
- Prepared a presentation for my mother's 75th birthday and realized once again how little photographic evidence there is of me
- Turned 48 (see previous post)
- Made plans
- Worried about plans
- Changed plans
- Made new plans
It has been a hard month. And the worst/best news is also the best/worst - I have a new part time job. I applied because... well, because it was a job and I have been under-employed for nearly a year and my employment insurance is about to run out.
But I would be lying if I said that I felt good about it - it is a job that sits on the fence between deadly boring and deeply engrossing (have to see where that falls out); it is in an area of town that makes me very nervous; and it is not a job that uses my gifts, merely my skills.
Yes, that might change. No, I don't actually expect it to.
When being interviewed, I was asked where I see myself in 5 years. I hate that question. I never have any plans that go further than a week if I can help it. No matter what plans I have ever made, someone else has always changed them. When you are in a family of six, four of whom are young enough to look to you for every kind of support, there is little point in making plans. I have a friend who asks me to commit to events happening three or four weeks ahead - I always feel sick when I agree. I never know what is going to happen, but I am always sure that my plans, at the end of the day, are the ones which will have to adjust.
That sounds whiny (and it is), but at the same time, it is reality, I think, for many of us. When a child needs the family to pull together, the family pulls together. When a partner needs more time or more support, that happens. When the whole family is affected, there has to be one person who pays attention to that. In my family, I am the one whose plans come at the bottom of a long list. Practicality, finances, time, and priorities: all have an effect.
So here I sit, at that place in my life I could never have planned for because I never really expected to be here. And the only thing I can think about is, "What will I wear tomorrow when it is supposed to be even hotter than today?"
Because that's as much planning as I can manage.
