Well, it’s been a while! I have been intending to come back to writing a blog/stream of consciousness/gibberish for months, but never got round to it, until the other day when I had a bit of a triggering moment on the school run and it made me think.
So I was walking home from dropping the kids at school on Monday (2 days ago) and it was a gorgeous frosty morning, everything was white and sparkling and cold. There was a car parked on the side of the road with the engine running while the driver waited for the windscreen to defrost. For no reason at all, I was hit with a wave of panic as I remembered the cold and frosty mornings where I would do the same, before 8am, trying to get Peter into the car, possibly Toby too, having to go to work which made me panicky on its own, having to drop the kids at my mother in law’s, which I hated doing, because I don’t like her (let’s be honest here, if I can’t be honest on something like this, then what’s the point?).
Now, I don’t do that anymore. Thanks to Covid I work from home 4 days a week in a job that is repetitive but I enjoy nonetheless, with a boss I really get on with. Not that I didn’t get on with my previous colleagues, in the main, but still… She’s a good friend as well as a boss, even if she does support the worst football team in the world! I rarely get that sinking, sick feeling in my tummy these days so when I did, it took me a moment to work out what the problem was.
The last time I can remember feeling that way, since leaving my last job, was when I was driving across the Downs, which was my journey to work then. Not an area I go to very often, as I live and work some miles to the south of the city and rarely go that way. The only things on that side of the city are my in laws, and I avoid going there as much as possible – and we go a different way anyway, up the river rather than through town. I remember coming out of a turning at the top of Whiteladies Road sometime last year, or possibly even 2020, and being hit with a wave of panic as I remembered what it was like being in that area, going to and from work or appointments.
It’s rubbish because I enjoyed working there for such a long time. I still don’t know exactly what caused my “breakdown” in 2019; possibly just a combination of lots of little things. Monday.com was a big part of it! 😂
I don’t know whether I will always be bothered by these little reminders. But if I am, that’s OK. Because as rubbish as it made me feel for a moment (and the fact it’s still on my mind 2 days later), the fact that I was walking HOME, to my house where I am safe, is massive. I wasn’t going to work, to a job that had become a chore. I wasn’t going to my mother in law’s house, who, while I will never like her, I can tolerate much more now. My children were safe and happy at school. I was going home to spend my much-loved day off lying in bed reading, watching TV and sewing (not all at once!), before heading to ReBounce later that evening, which is one of my favourite things to do.
Life is far from easy, but I am nonetheless blessed beyond imagination some days. 🥰
Jackie's jottings 