Thursday, August 30, 2007

A few months

Another facebook article here. God, I'm relentless.

Have been talking a lot recently about last October, when I was feeling trapped and unhappy. Six months earlier the Ours and I had finally got the keys for our apartment, and after the excitement had worn off it dawned on me that we couldn't rent it out for five years under our terms as first time buyers.

Until we'd moved back to Ireland we had done a lot of travelling, and I couldn't imagine being happy doing anything else. We would work for a year, then travel for a year. We talked about living and working in the US eventually. At that stage I was on my eighth job and had changed career four times. 'Easily bored' was an understatement. Being shackled to the one place for five years seemed like a life sentence.

And then there was my job. I'd moved onto my fifth career now (and stuck with it for three years - a record) and was now working in the city centre. Great location, stressful job. I was overworked, underpaid and unappreciated. By October I'd frequently disappear into the toilets for a brief cry, just to prevent the stress from curdling my stomach or robbing me of sleep. And, worst of all, it didn't have to be that way. I was not saving lives, nor was I doing anything of great importance to humanity. I was a little cog in a huge money making machine.

So back to last October, when the trapped feeling had grown to a crisis. And then it became a revelation. I decided that I would take control of my life as best I could. If I could not travel, I would write. We started putting more money away. I gave up work at the end of December and started planning my novel in January.

What a difference a few months make.

4 comments:

laurie said...

wow. i love how you seized control.

and i love all the adventures you'd had up until then. clearly, you will continue to have adventures....

(and this explains why you have so many friends in so many places.)

Angie said...

It's nice to hear more about how you came to writing. I think we have a lot in common: travel bug, writing bug, crying in the bathroom at old jobs....Just think, if you hadn't quit, you wouldn't have finished a novel or met writing/bloggy friends online. :)

Yvonne said...

Awh thanks Laurie, I certainly hope so!

Angie, we do have a lot in common, I prefer to remember the bugs rather than the toilet crying! Am so delighted that I started blogging, it's so great to have the support network!

Beccy said...

You've cetainly seized the bull by the horns and taken control.