Things, they are a changing....

I’m having one of those days when you feel about 150 years old and ridiculously tired. I had a rubbish night’s sleep, goodness knows why, and woke up as tired as I went to bed. As we all know, when you’re tired any physical aches and pains come to the fore (a sign of aging, sadly) and even the most mundane of problems seem too much of a mountain to climb.

It’s interesting that over the last year, when I haven’t done any shows or had much of an involvement in the theatre at all, I seem to have been as busy as ever and possibly more so. Goodness knows how I found time to appear in shows, let alone direct them with all the preparation and thinking through that involves. A year or so off of what has been my hobby for almost 40 years seems to have done nothing for my stress levels or energy.

In the spirit of remaining positive (mentioned in this blog last week) I’m trying not to let feeling totally knackered all the time get me down. After all, chores are getting done, the dog is getting walked (and I mean walked. I certainly don’t intend to go jogging with her), the house and garden are in good order and I’m managing to have some sort of a social life (although rather reduced from what it was). Paperwork and bureaucracy are being dealt with and I’m enjoying the radio presenting.

I thought your busiest times of life were meant to be from your mid to late twenties to about forty, when you had young children about the place and were climbing the greasy pole at work. So not in your fifties, when you might reasonably be expected to have reached the zenith of your career, to be able to slow things down a little and take some more time for yourself. But I’m exhausted.

Definitely it’s time for a major life change. I fully intend to have a ripe and fulfilling old(er) age and carrying on as I am really isn’t an option if am to achieve that. As I sit here now I can feel my shoulders aching due to computer work, my back playing up due to an uncomfortable train journey this morning, my sinuses congested due to the stuffy office atmosphere with no fresh air and my eyes wanting to nod because I sleep badly. All minor ailments, none of them life threatening or serious, individually hardly worth mentioning but collectively they really drag you down. The mental effect of cumulative small physical problems is significant.

So, plans are afoot which, if they come off in nine to twelve months time, will push me in a completely different direction and much, much closer towards what I want. I’d like to be free-er with less stress and angst, be able to do something creative, be able to work as much as I want, when I want and have a life with less moaning from others and more satisfaction. I’ll be so, so, so skint, but I’ve come around to the view that money isn’t everything and keeping the shoulder to the grindstone to achieve maximum pension or a house in a posh area or another promotion simply isn’t worth it in so many other ways.

The Hubby and I don’t entirely agree on this. Being more attached to Blighty than I am, he wants to work on with slightly different longer term ambitions. And for some bizarre reason, he thinks working in the public sector is worth it because it makes a difference (hmm - debate!). But he has been very supportive of my proposals and it’s safe to say that in the medium term (definitely not as far in the future as the long term) things will be very different. I have mixed feelings – “what have I done?” being one, bravery another and excitement underpinning it all.

But this time, I’m gonna do it!