Hello, Woollydaze here…
It’s always busy here on the farm, but the last few months have been particularly, crazily busy. This was prompted by me being made redundant two-thirds of the way through my maternity leave. There’s nothing quite like a series of meetings where you are read at from a piece of paper ‘in order to keep the message consistent’ to demonstrate exactly how little you mean as an individual, even after five years working somewhere. And when you work for the only big company of that type in your town and they don’t want you any more, the prospects of finding a similar job are remote. I’m the ‘foundation parent’ (i.e. the one who does all the running around after) for two pre-school children so I do not have the time available for a long commute, and I can’t relocate because the 500 sheep and Mr Woollydaze don’t want to move. In short, whilst it was me who was made redundant, the possibilities for my future job are about a whole lot more than just me at this moment in time. I’ve also got a bit cynical about the idea of a ‘career’ – I’d worked my way through three different companies and four different jobs in the same area, and just like that it’s over.
So, what next? This is where it all got a bit silly. Unwilling to let any future possibilities escape, I tried to do four different jobs/roles at once. Now officially a stay at home mum, I also continued with a childcare course, did freelance work in my previous profession and thought long and hard about a small craft-based business I could run for a few extra pennies. This translated as not earning a lot of money, because staying at home looking after your own children doesn’t pay well, whilst spending a lot of hours working. All day was being a mother, all evening was everything else and occasionally, when I had to, sleep was optional. This is not a way of living life that can continue for long.
So the time has come to sit back, relax, sigh deeply and, for now, drop a couple of the balls I’m juggling. The childcare idea continues because that’s something I can do whilst looking after my own children and earning a little bit of money. I have to trust that in the future I will be employable in whatever field I choose to work in, once the children are a little older and more independent and don’t need me so much. It’s not a decision I ever imagined I’d have to take but then life isn’t predictable and ‘being resilient’ is one of the greatest skills we can teach our children. So I hope I’ll have a bit more time to do the things I want to do – like writing this blog – rather than only doing things I have to do. I think it will make me a happier mummy and a happier Woollydaze and, darn it, I have a Very Special Project that I’ve been working on since February that urgently needs to be finished. There’s a lovely little story attached, but it’s not my story to tell…
Woollydaze 