End of an era

Not sure why I didn’t post this before. My pre-Christmas musings on life…non weight related.

So my last teaching and marking has been done last week. My keys and ID are handed over, my classroom is no longer mine and my space in the staff room has been cleared ready for its new occupant.

I was sad to leave, not the job or the colleagues but the kids. I love teaching and I’m good at it but I had to think of teaching in a different way, where I and the student have more control over outcomes and objectives than government bodies and managers. My new venture will be successful and I will get to teach in a much more humanistic manner, which suits me. It’s just a shame that the people who I teach will not need inspiration as much as the kids I used to teach did and I feel in some sense that I’ve let them down, not just the ones I was currently teaching but others to come but I had to do what was right for myself ultimately and my days of sticking at a job out of loyalty to anyone else and feeling myself sink into a bog of misery, frustration and stress are over.

I’ve made the right decision. My new business has already started to take shape and I can’t wait to give it my undivided attention. I’ve felt a little bad that Nick has been holding things together for me, he’s loved it but it was my ‘baby’ and I feel like I gave birth and then handed it straight over to a nanny. I had done all of the prep for its arrival though and it made the nanny’s life easier but even so… it wasn’t ideal. It wasn’t a bad thing, I just didn’t expect to have customers and clients so soon in the numbers they came and so that was a little bit of an underestimation of the market on my part. But anyway after Christmas break I am 100% at the helm and now that I have effectively set up two new businesses I need to be at that helm more than ever.

I couldn’t help it, I had two ideas and couldn’t make my mind up which to choose and then while getting the one I went with into shape I was offered opportunities relevant to my other choice too and so I did definitely bite off more than I could chew at that point with still having a job and other things going on in my life.

So now it’s time for the chill out over Christmas. My daughter arrives tomorrow so I’m hugely looking forward to that. Most of my prep for the festivities is done and I think I’m just at the point where I have to check the schedule to make sure I can fit in all of the visits I’ve arranged, both to other people and of other people to me and we’re good to go.

Nick’s kids are coming to us for parts of Christmas. They are coming on Christmas Day, being dropped off by their mother on her way to a city just north of us to visit her friends and they are being collected later on the same day which is wonderful for everyone, we didn’t think it was going to happen. There had been some animosity spring back up between them but fortunately it has been resolved. I think it’s always tough when our lives change, Nick’s has changed too, he’s not in London as much as he was and so hasn’t been around as much to have the kids dropped off with him as he was. He has told the kids that if they want or need him to just call and he will be there but they are happy as things are and are doing their own thing and like the arrangement they’ve made with their dad. Unfortunately that arrangement doesn’t suit their mum and so that’s where the problems have arisen and I can understand her but at the same time I can understand him and I’m just glad that they have resolved things without it affecting our relationship. Dating a divorced parent has many issues…Maybe I’ll write about some of those next year. From both perspectives.

We’re going to spend a couple of days in London closer to with my kids too at Nick’s house and we’ve got some treats lined up for them all which should be fun. Nick asked his brood if they wanted to spend time alone with him but they said they like when we’re all together and so that’s good for us.

I’m just amazed at how different life is for me this year, it doesn’t stop astonishing me how far I’ve come and how different I am, in my head I’m in a much happier place, I truly didn’t realise how depressed I was and how much it was affecting everything in my life. The most noticeable difference is my energy, I am filled with it, bursting at the seams, I find it hard to stay still and am constantly on the go which is so much like the me of old. I thought that sprightly young thing had long gone but it appears she has had a revival. Hallelujah!

For everything which has happened, all of the lovely things which have come my way and made this massive change in me, for the people who inspire and support me and have patience with me, I’m so grateful. I feel blessed to have been opened up to the opportunities which have presented themselves and for the ability to see what was wrong with my life and remove or change it. I could never have made this progress alone, that was always my big mistake, I thought I could, but sometimes we have to accept that we do need people, we just do.