Happy New Year

Here we are again, embarking on a whole new year. A year of new projects, new adventures and new people to meet and places to visit.

We didn't do a whole lot visiting new places last year. Probably a throw back from Covid and being busy at work for the first half of the year. In the latter part of the year, work has again prevented us from going away much, but now I've earned some annual leave, I should be able to take some time off at some point and get away for a few days, even if it's only back to Yorkshire to see family. Getting out of London from time to time can be very therapeutic.

2022 has been a strange year. A year of big changes. The first part of the year was difficult. I was in a job I wasn't enjoying, where I didn't feel I was being treated very fairly. In hindsight, I'm happy that I walked away. It was a wrench, but I know it was the right thing to do for me and our family. The experience has made me think a lot about boundaries and how I need to implement and maintain them in my life and I'm trying to do this in my new job. It's also made me careful about some of the choices I make in life.

It's strange how I didn't go into 2022 intending to leave my job, but how these decisions can be made for you in some ways, by other people, whose actions you have absolutely no control over. I try to see it as a positive thing. The experience has liberated me to explore new worlds and meet new people and work in ways and in places that I would never have done before. 

It also provided me with a few months of freedom to stay at home and spend time with my family, and more especially with LB before she headed off to University.

This has been another big change that I've had to negotiate this year. LB not living at home for most of the year has been a difficult thing to get used too. I miss her when she's not here, but I'm happy for her that she is venturing out and exploring new worlds herself. Having her back this Christmas and seeing some changes in her, has made me realise how this has been good for her.  It will be a wrench to take her back again later this week, but I know that it benefits her in the long term.

Finding a new job later in 2022, was an interesting experience. Applying for jobs and attending interviews gave me some idea of how things have changed in the employment market in recent years with video interviews and different kinds of interview booking systems. Although I opted for the first job I was offered, I don't think this was necessarily a bad decision. I needed to earn money to afford the costs of Christmas and although I've had to work a lot over the festive season, where I'm working now isn't a difficult place to work. 

There was a lot to learn in the first month, but I feel that I'm getting to grips with the work okay. There's still a lot more to learn, but I am currently enjoying not having responsibility for anyone but myself and having a straightforward job to do. There is some variation too, to keep my interest. It means that when I'm not at work, I don't think about work, my mind is free to pursue the things I want to do in my life outside of work. I was way too heavily invested in my previous job, to the point that it wasn't healthy.

The time I spent without a job this year, was also a useful lesson in being more resourceful, managing on very little money and learning to really prioritise what I spend money on. Hopefully, now Christmas is over, this experience will continue to feed into my daily life and I will be more careful this year what I spend money on and will hopefully buy less stuff that I don't really need.

Time away from working this year, also allowed me to explore my creativity a bit more in 2022 and do more of the things that I love, such as sewing. This seems to be continuing too, despite working again. I had very little time to do creative things when I was working in my previous job, as I got out of the habit of being creative in my spare time. Sewing is my happy place, it helps me get out of my head and just live in the now. It's almost meditative for me. I'm hoping to do a lot more of it in 2023.

In conclusion, 2022 has provided me with a big learning curve. You go about your business, thinking that you know where you are going and thinking that things are moving along okay, not even realising that the rug your sitting on can be pulled from beneath you at any time. It's been a wake up call, to take off the blinkers and not to get too comfortable and complacent. It's taught me to focus more on my own priorities, to keep on learning, to keep my eyes wide open and be aware of what is going on around me. It's also taught me that when I no longer enjoy what I am doing, to go find something that I do enjoy. I'm hoping to continue to remember this in 2023.