Well, this is it! Three more days on the job and I’m off to start a new life. Again. On average, I start a new life about as often as I buy new shoes, and with about the same amount of consideration and forethought. I figure hey, life’s a crapshoot anyway; why waste time doing silly things like ‘planning ahead’? Planning ahead is for the weak! And the sane!
As far as this job is concerned, part of me is sorry to leave because finally, after six months, I’m starting to feel like maybe I’m getting a handle on things. However, the rest of me can’t get out the door fast enough. This has been the single most stressful, demanding, and continuously aggravating job I’ve ever had, and not the highest paid either. I don’t mind being thrown in the deep end, but this was like being thrown in the deep end and then whacked on the head with a canoe paddle every time I resurfaced. I’ve been doing my best to train my successor and do a decent handover, but I have a million projects on the go and every single one of them is turning into a massive clusterfuck, so at this point I’m pretty much in the ‘Ah, screw it’ frame of mind. It’s not like I need a good reference.
BECAUSE! Did I tell you what I will be doing for a living now? I will be designing the marketing materials, website, etc for SiC’s company, part-time, from home, and the rest of the time I will be working on my painting and writing. I don’t know what I did to deserve an opportunity like this, but it must have been pretty good. (I bet it was a blow job.) I feel a bit like I’m being given a handout, and I’m not very big on accepting handouts, but on the other hand, NO MORE ALARM CLOCKS! How can I say no to that??
I do have mixed feelings about leaving London. London has been extremely good to me. I don’t generally make friends easily and I’ve made a lot of really wonderful ones since I’ve been here. And who wouldn’t miss a neighbourhood where on an average day you might see two pirate DVD sellers duking it out in the middle of a busy intersection, or a crazy woman attempting to steal a broom from a hardware store? Or where you see one of the pub regulars wearing a suit and you jokingly say, “Hey, looking good – been to court?” and they say, “Yeah”?
Indeed, things are going to be very different out in the wilderness of upper-middle-class English country life. When we went up to the new house this weekend to drop off most of our stuff, we found a flyer from the local church with a hand-written welcome note on it. In Kilburn the only flyers you get are for takeaway food and hookers. We introduced ourselves to our new next-door neighbour, who was a very nice lady and who stared so fixedly at EVERYTHING EXCEPT MY ENORMOUS TATTOO that I thought her neck would get a cramp. We figure the entire village already knows that there are two Londoners (gasp!) moving in and when we officially arrive on Thursday we’ll find a lovely welcome basket with some homemade jams, a box of biscuits, an assortment of local produce and a can of delousing spray.