There are some days when the thought of giving up my secure job and going to live in France with no guaranteed income fills me with fear. To a risk adverse person such as me this is a big step. There are also some days when I think I will miss the intellectual stimulation that my working life has to offer. However, today was not one of those days and I am writing about it now so that I can look back and remind myself (on the good days) as to why I think it is time to go!
Arriving this morning another colleague was off sick. Not their fault but that left me and one other staff member out of the five tutors who had originally been assigned to teach this module. First thing was spent running around trying to see who was available to cover teaching and looking for misplaced teaching files. The rest of the morning was spent teaching between two groups; half an hour with one and then switching to the next one and then back and so on. After that it was straight into a meeting for an hour and a half (grabbing my sandwich on the way but no time to get a drink or go to the toilet). From there I left the meeting before the end to cover another teaching session for the sick colleague. The session was fun and the students were good to be with (I know that they are not the reason that I am keen to go) but it finished with just time to quickly check my emails and go home. The other urgent jobs that I had to do today were pushed on to some day in the future.
The other thing that brightened my day was the email from my manager announcing that she would be away at a conference/holiday from next week. Now I have no problems with this as we all need holidays and she has other important demands on her time. What I do have a problem with is not being informed about it until 48 hours before it happens at a time when her agreed deputy is off sick and as far as I can tell nothing has been organised in the way of deputising. As my job as module leader is to deal with all the sh*t that happens in relation to the day to day running of the module you can guess who will be left with the can! It would have at least been polite for me to have been given some warning, rather than an email sent from Europe!
Still..the end is in sight and when I allow myself to picture it, along with the sense of terror, I feel the beginning of a huge weight being lifted from my shoulders!
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5 comments:
It's a good idea to remind yourself about these things. I make an effort even now to think about what I'd be doing at certain times of the day if I was still at work in England. It is surprising how quickly it all fades, and how easy it is to take for granted the life we have here.
Reading this post brought it all back to me - the insanely hectic days when you run just to stand still, and other people's lack of consideration makes the pressure seem even worse.
You will not regret your change of life one bit, so long as you take the odd moment to remember, and be grateful. But the wind down to leaving it all behind is not as easy as people might expect. It's hard to let go of such big a part of your identity, even if it is a part that is causing you damage.
I wish you well on your journey to the finish line :-)
Thanks Val. Yes, I don't think giving up my job will be easy but I am quite clear that it is the right thing to do. I also don't expect that my life in France will be stress free either but just different. I have done the same thing since I was 18 years old and I would like to get to the end of my life and know that I have done more than one thing in it! It's great to read about your life in France and to get a glimpse of what it could be like!
Giving up the vetting and changing continent was equally daunting at the time. Looking back now, the pros of our new and very different lifestyle outweigh the cons by a significant margin.
Bit like bungee jumping- great fun once you throw yourself off the scary building.
Fx
Strangely enough I often think of where I am now as being on the edge of the cliff waiting to jump!
Really interesting to read the above thoughts and observations, having been through similar changes a while ago. I would hate to go back to that old life, hassled by others and pulled in all directions all the time, but I would love the financial security that went with it! i think i only stood on that cliff top for a short time before the jump, so there was less time to contemplate the leap ahead! Definitely good to do more than one thing in life.
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