A couple of weeks ago I somewhat unexpectedly found myself unemployed. While it's a temporary loss of income, it's unclear how long it'll be. This left me frantic and stressed and scrambling to find work. Any work. OK, almost any work. Finding something casual and temporary has proved difficult. And while I haven't given up hope, I've realised it's more practical for me to be putting my energy into finding new work in my field, even if it means forgoing an income for a little bit.
As stressful as this has been, having this time has made me realise how badly I needed a break. It's not exactly ideal to be taking a forced, unpaid, break, but, it's made me spend some time taking stock of my life.
Some other things have happened as well, one of those being that I finally let go of a relationship that I'd held on to for too long. You see, I've got a long history of staying in relationships for longer than I should. In fact, if my life was a Country Western song it'd be called 'I should have left you long ago (but I stayed)'.
Walking away wasn't easy (or pretty). It was painful and messy and left me with some things to process. Fortunately for me, I've also got plenty of time to sit and reflect on how I got myself into that mess and why I stayed for so long.
What I realised is, the year before I met my ex was insane. There was so much big life stuff happening, and on top of that lots of ridiculous bullshit stuff that I was responsible for dealing with, that I'd just been surviving in crisis mode. There were health issues, housemate issues, housing issues, relationship issues, family issues, thesis issues, friend issues, work issues, money issues, immigration issues... At baseline my life was pretty stressful, but there was always some additional thing I also had to deal with. And every time I'd overcome whatever calamity had arisen, a new one emerged.
Things were finally starting to settle down for me when I moved into my own place. My housing issues were coming to an end, as were the housemate issues. Work was stabilizing, my income was fairly steady, my health was improving, my thesis was being examined, I had a plan of action for my immigration stuff, my family and friends were alright, and I was single and excited about getting to be single in my own place. I hadn't quite gotten the balance back into my life of focusing on myself, but it was on the horizon.
A week after moving into my new place, I met someone. I hadn't planned on it becoming a thing, I wasn't looking for it to become a thing, but it became a thing. He was handsome and charming and after what had been a very difficult year, a perfect distraction from dealing with my own life.
So I focused on him and on our relationship and for awhile, forgot about myself. It didn't last though, the distracting myself from myself. Once the magic wore off, my life was still a mess and I had the added burden of an unsupportive partner to deal with.
There were some practical reasons for why I stayed longer than I should have. But mostly it was fear. Not fear of being alone; I've been single most of my adult life and know that that's quite a comfortable and fun place for me to be. No, the fear was of having to deal with the mess my life had become. I wanted someone to hold my hand, to tell me it was going to be OK. But what that resulted in was actually me holding myself back.
I've said it before, and I suspect it's a lesson I'm going to keep re-learning for a long time: life is much easier once you let go and just face the fear.
It's been hard. It's been really hard. And it's going to continue to be hard for awhile to come. But having the chance to get back in touch with myself is worth all the hardship that's made it happen. Being forced to take a step back, I feel like I can see clearly again. It's still early days, but I've got a much better sense of what I want for myself and what I don't. I can see the parts of my life that were allowing me to grow, and the things that were holding me back. I am coming up with a plan of action for how I want to live my life now. I am thinking about ways to rebuild that will allow me to have the balance that has so sorely been lacking for far too long.
For starters, I need to get back to writing.
