welcome back
@ladyfelsham 
thankyou for your words and well done for going through it all, when I'm around I realise I post LONG rambles lol.
This one may be the longest yet... be pre-warned haha
I love the energy of new moon, and doing my little fire ceremonies, so much so I have decided that going forwards I am going to NOT WORK on new moon night and take it as my own special time. I may be doing less night work generally anyway so I could still work in the days of new moon. I'm not as excited by the full moon strangely, I like it but I'm a 'new moon' chick.
So it's time for me to properly get started. I finished my last run of 5 rota nightshifts at old job yesterday morning. I was given a good luck card, lots of flowers, some candles, some hugs and LOTS of good wishes from my co-workers, even though I hope to be back now and then for bank shifts. I'm so grateful to have been allowed to leave with such good feelings and links in place.
2.5 years I have worked there, everything I know about care work they taught me, made some lovely friends and been helped through the trauma of losing my marriage.
Yesterday I found myself just filled with such relaxation and gratitude. I have absolutely no doubts about my future. I feel so secure in myself, I've turned corner after corner over the past couple of years. I've gone from feeling a real victim - I felt that my life was the consequence of nothing I'd chosen. My money worries, my heartbreak and lack of creativity all down to the choices my HUSBAND made. I had no choices, I was just left in the aftermath to deal with it all. Much as those feelings are all justified, I'm not trivialising the trauma or excusing my husbands behaviour - it was always MY choice, to forge my own path forwards.
It took some time, and I have forged that path. And oh my goodness I've changed so much. In the past each big change, each chance taken, etc was always filled with questions, anxiety, worry and panic, so much so that I often didn't bother to make the changes or take the chances in the first place. This set of changes - I feel nothing like that. I feel calm, relaxed, excited, in control.
I feel, finally, like my life is my own. My life is full of things and circumstances I've chosen for myself. I walk into my home and I instantly feel blessed. I'm surrounded by colours, furniture, arrangements that I have created and chosen myself. I am surrounded by an atmosphere I have created for myself. my relationship with my children that is all mine. My adoration for my dog, all mine (I wouldn't even have a dog if he hadn't left lol) My freedom to create, be around for my kids, to walk the dog, to work and play when I choose - all mine.
I don't think I have ever felt this content.
Workwise, things have taken an unexpected twist, I was offered extra training to be part of a complex care team looking after a family locally, this is all with the same new employer. Originally I didn't think I could, as I only want to work when son is at his Dads, but they have more flexibility than I thought. I told them when I could work over the next two weeks and they snapped up my hours. Each week I will offer them the hours first and if they are already taken by others in the team, I'll just go through the other channel and pick up care home shifts instead. Eventually they will probably establish a devoted regular team and there will be less room for me, but as I will by then be familiar with the family, I can step in when it works out to cover sickness and holidays. The extra training they gave me means I can do other complex care jobs as well, so all in all I've given myself another string to my bow as it were.
The shifts I'm doing over the next 2 weeks aren't nightshifts either. They are 1700-2230 but 2 of those most weeks would be enough for me. I'll always offer the complex care team my availability first, and if they've no hours that suit I'll just jump on the list of shifts for care homes and pick one up. It feels so free and flexible! I've kept an eye on the app and the shifts available over the past month, I had thought I'd need to book in advance to get shifts that suited me, but actually short notice there are always plenty. So I'll book complex care 3 weeks ahead but every thing else short notice.
I was chatting to my daughter about it the other day. I only really need 5 shifts per month to get by, so if I regularly do 2 in a week, I can often take a week off altogether, new moon week for example as mentioned at the start. I don't have to work that night. I can choose. In the winter I'll probably stockpile my shifts when I can, so that when the weather is bad I can choose not to work those weeks, or pick up bank shifts from the care home I just left which is walking distance, so I don't need to worry about car journeys over distance in bad weather. The complex care families are kept local too. In the run up to christmas when I may have lots of craft orders, I can take time off care work then too, to make sure I can stay on top of my orders.
I can pick and choose every aspect of this. I can decide I don't want to work with a particular family, or a particular care home if I don't like how they are, I can choose to offer more time to people I want to work with. I can choose to do whatever I want.
Home business is going well, I put out an advert just on my own pages on Facebook offering an art journal group and now have a group of 5 (which is as big a group as I wanted) lined up ready to start a week on Tuesday. It will run weekly 2 hours, paid in blocks of 4. I'm pondering starting other small groups, perhaps a craft one, and a sewing one. I'll see how it goes, I can try all these things out, some things will work out and some won't, that's ok.
I have had a fairly steady flow of orders just a few at a time but that's ok, it will take time to grow. I've started and that's all that matters.
Food wise, I've been BAD. But I am out of excuses now. I've finished my last long run of nightshifts. So I'm not going to say I'll start on Monday, I'm starting today. I've not weighed in yet and may not. Even on Monday I'm not sure I want to know haha. Having said that, I've still been wearing my smaller work clothes so it might not be too bad. I do notice that when I'm eating crap I feel so much more tired. I need to stop that sabotage. If I want to succeed in this new life I'm creating for myself, I need that energy and good health that eating well will bring.
On the 'restart' note. I plan to be smaller by next summer, and have my 2 maxi dresses that I made and love. I know it sounds counter intuitive but I feel like maxi dresses are really a summer thing. I don't much like my legs, but I wondered about cutting them down to either just above or just below the knee and wearing them with tights and boots for winter? I could cut one just below the knee to look, then pin it up higher to look again and decide before cutting further. Tights and boots would cover most of what I don't like to see. What do you guys think looks good on people like us? I don't have very shapely legs and do have chunky knees. It just seems a shame to otherwise end up losing them really. I could make a cosy shrug or two, to wear with them and other things.
Finally, I'd like to share this piece I wrote recently. May it serve to inspire any who read it. It isn't poetry in the manner I usually write, more a story of thoughts I guess, but it does have a rhythm to it.
A love story
I love you. Partly it was by accident but then… I didn’t know I’d love you
It started off as plain survival, finding ways to make it through a day
finding ways to believe there was a future with happiness in it.
I was partly forced into having you, no choice in being immersed in you
A life of disarray, discontent, confusion, with unknowns in every corner
but somehow, you brought me back to life.
Not the life of ‘before’ it was a sad imitation at times I just didn’t realise it!
I’d accepted ‘half happy’ or even a quarter or less for far too long.
I’d accepted far too much, which was really far too little.
Slowly, in the midst of my forced journey of confusion, I found moments of peace
dipping my toe, realising I liked not knowing what was happening later
slowly, I remembered who I really was.
Do you remember being a child? how every day was a voyage of discovery?
Wandering off into your imagination creating limitless realities?
finding new places you’d never been, corners of your world you’d never seen?
Do you remember how that felt? the magic, the mystery, the joy?
perhaps it’s true we need to become more like children to find our way
Adults are far too rigid, far too steeped in expectation.
As an adult I was doing well on the outside. All responsible. But all stuck and all mushed up
in the world and peoples expectations of me.
I wasn’t happy, not really, not in the way I could be.
I stayed too long in jobs I wasn’t happy with, in roles no longer authentic to my soul
I gave far too much to a relationship in which the other, well…
let’s just say I gave so much I faded. I wasn’t really here…
I was barely a whisper, became so quiet and lost that only a few could still hear me,
perhaps even see me.
was I even invisible? perhaps only to me?
Those who could still hear me, those who could still see me
when I was barely a shadow… you people are my tribe, my proven soldiers
I love you all, may I always hear and see you too.
But this journey was never really about the others, or the things.
It was always about the self and the within
who knew what lurked beneath my own illusions?
Then I truly found you. I fought so hard against being with you, I hated the idea…
you were so crazy, so dark, so unfathomable, so unreliable…
and yet you are all and none of those things.
The unknown. You keep coming up in my words because I feared you so much
perhaps I feared what I would find with you
perhaps I feared myself,
Regardless it was all fear, all helplessness, all mistrust and darkness
but it was all illusion and not real at all
really, with the unknown, I found everything.
I found me. I found my strength, and really the best thing was the trust in myself.
Knowing stuff doesn’t matter any more, because I know me.
I know I can, I know I will.
I don’t care who hears me anymore, I don’t care who sees me…
Now I hear and see myself.
it’s like a long lost reunion with an old friend.
No longer will she be denied, that inner child of mine is free
she’s taking me places I didn’t know I needed to go
finding joy in the playfulness of life, she was always at home in the unknown.
Enough of my adult can stay to keep our bills paid, but she’s such a small part of me now
we allow her rationality, we let her look after our mundane.
she is a part of us after all.
but the rest of us, well we’re all about being alive, and being happy, finding our joy and peace.
we want a nap? we’ll have one. we want a walk at the beach? we’re having one
we want to paint… we’re painting.
So here’s to the unknown. My loyal one. The most honest and pure partner in crime I could wish for.
My killer of illusions and finder of self.
The unstable place where I find I am most stable…
The fight against you is long over, I have learned to sit comfortably within you
you knew my strength when I did not
So now I invite you, to walk with me, into the next adventure.
No longer by accident, but by design, a chosen path of the unquantifiable
a path chosen by my childlike soul.
My dearest Unknown, I no longer fear you, I crave you, I love you.
It contained an ID card and lanyard, an insulated water bottle, a pen, a portable device charger, a bottle of hand sanitiser, a chocolate (because no gift is complete without chocolate) and a little pack of seed pods (watch these grow, symbolic of our new journey together committed to growth) and lastly, my new uniform. What a lovely thoughtful package I thought. They comment also about their business aims and commitment to being green (most of it is recyclable). Considering I haven't even worked a shift yet, they're certainly making me feel valued. Let's hope it continues!
