On being in water

I was wondering where I am. I use ‘was’, because ‘am’ would convey a false sense of consistency: the tidal surges of menopause hormones mean that some days all I do is wonder and other days I’m working so hard at staying afloat that I’m barely conscious. Such is being a woman. Like me. I can only imagine your raging envy. 

Anyway. The ‘where?’. Figurative, not literal. 

Tho I am often taken aback by time, space and where I seem to have landed in it. ‘Was that only/really yesterday/last week/nearly six months ago?’ I find myself questioning. 

I think the process of applying for jobs (which I have been - well, a very select few) and the way you have to imagine yourself actually in them, can emphasise this sense of movement, impermanence and change. And yet I observe synchronicities - I started some part-time work for a charity a week to the day after I left my last job. (Which was at a workplace I entered the day my youngest started school. Doing a job that a woman I worked with in the job before that found for me.)

And I have been visiting places: my ex-mother in law in Albania (a final farewell), skiing in Austria with the boys (an ambition accomplished), regularish trips to Dorset… and other trips here and there, more of which, perhaps, another time.  

No, my question as to my whereabouts has been more in the sense of ‘post-caravan, what’s next?’. I like to have a sense of where in the universe I am, and where I’m headed. 

Back in the summer, I realised I had emerged from the dusty, quiet interior of my caravan, and was sitting up top, seeing where the pony took me. Wow, I had really needed that long rest from the workplace that I took. 

What I hadn’t had, however, was the bolt of lightning/cymbal-clashing/really cool electric doorbell-type moment of realisation as to what I was going to do next, that I’d expected. In fact, I realised I quite missed doing what I had been, before I stopped: being the boss, sorting stuff out, making shit happen, being creative now and then, being with people, having a team. Ok, so I also quite fancied some hard physical labour, such as picking grapes in the south of France, rather than sit at a desk all day, but not taking full-time work in order to maintain some kind of work-life balance feels like something of a compromise in this department. 

Which I did, when a job fell into my lap at the end of last year, and I’m starting a new job, similar to the last one but less full on, in the next couple of weeks. Fixed term for one year - perfect. I’m excited :) (I’m also glossing over the genuine freefall I experienced at the end of last year when I realised just how much I needed to earn in order to make ends meet and the stomach-clenching fear and self-doubt I fell into. Briefly.)

So where is this headed? Me, wondering where I was/am. Needing to know. Because that’s the kind of girl I am.

I’ve come across various prompts for reflection. ‘Imagine yourself on a hilltop, what can you see?’

More often than not, I find myself eyeballing my unblinking Phoenix, when I enter this space. I’m not sure if that’s helpful or not. I find being sure tricky these days. Is that wisdom? Or hormones?

Anyway, there I was, preparing myself for some yoga mat time. Thinking that since *stuff* constantly interrupts me when I’m sat there and trying NOT to think, perhaps I’ll have one of my ‘paradigm shift’ moments BECAUSE I DON’T WANT TO. I was sitting on my bed, amidst the small pile of stuff I was getting together for my next weekend away. And it came to me. Unbidden. I’m in the sea! 

Hmmm. I immediately started to (again, not literally) flail around. Scary, deep waters. Nope, that’s no good. I switched the backdrop: still, Aegean blue. That’s more like it. 

I observed that I was in control. 

Then I noticed an island, not too far away. And I knew, in the same way that I knew my Phoenix was perched in one of the pine trees thereof, that at some point my Skylark is going to land in those trees. (My Skylark - for those of you who don’t know, and why would you? -  being the full evolution of my gypsy caravan.)

So, I think I’m going to be ok. I mean, as long as there’s a well and internet and I’m not returning to, or leaving, the world as Noah. Or Nelly. Ooooof!!! The Skylark! Arghhhh! See what I did there, without even trying? (If you’re not a child of the seventies I don’t expect you to know what I’m on about, just know that I’m not losing my shit (completely).)

And all that, notwithstanding, my tussle of the moment is this: how quickly the waves and the undercurrents change! Who really is in control? And why does my Phoenix keep deserting me? 

To be continued…