Apparently, this is my life now
My notes after I finally found some stability and immediately began wondering what comes next
A few weeks ago, I received the news that I had got the job.
Not just the temporary version of the job I have already been doing for nearly a year, but the real, official, grown-up version.
An indefinite contract…
It starts on the first of September, which means I currently have an indefinite contract that has not actually started yet, and I still need to sign on the dotted line.
For the entire month of August, I am therefore permanently employed in the future, at my forever job.
I guess it feels rather appropriate for someone who has spent a significant amount of her life living inside plans, possibilities and things that may or may not happen.
Still, it’s official!
There is paperwork to be done.
I’ve received congratulations.
I sent tonnes of heart emoticons and far too many exclamation marks in emails and messages which - to those of you who don’t know me all that well - is usually how I indicate either enormous happiness or a mild emergency.
So on the first of September, I will walk into exactly the same building, sit at exactly the same desk and do exactly the same work, but with the comforting knowledge that I am no longer one administrative decision away from having to reinvent my entire life before breakfast.
I had needed this job very badly.
There were tests, points, approximately fifty candidates (not to mention all the other jobs I applied for but just didn’t get the part) and the slightly surreal experience of having to prove that I was officially capable of doing the work I had already been doing for nearly a year.
Job application procedures are a true test of character.
You can spend months welcoming people, helping them, explaining things and remaining pleasant while someone tells you a complicated story at 9:01 in the morning, but eventually you must sit in a room and answer questions about how you would hypothetically welcome ‘the angry people’. That’s what they test - really, how you manage yourself during the hard bits. Will you survive a rant from an angry citizen? Or can you tell someone that they had to make an appointment and that you can’t let them through otherwise.
Fortunately, I have a lot of experience in that field and it all went well.
I passed.
I got the job.
I was - and still am - genuinely, enormously HAPPY about that.
There was relief, pride and a distinct feeling that perhaps life had finally handed me one solid brick after several years of expecting me to build a house from emotional rubble and positive thinking.
And then, after the cheering had quietened, I found myself sitting in my little house thinking:
Right. So this is my life now.
Not in a disappointed way but more in the way you might arrive at a hotel, put down your suitcase, look around the room and wonder how long you’ll be staying.
Because this is the curious thing about getting what you wanted: sometimes it solves the exact problem you asked it to solve and leaves all the other questions unanswered when you secretly expected them to have found answers as well.
From September onwards, I know where I will be on Monday morning.
But I do not necessarily know what I am doing with the rest of my life.
I have a steady part-time job. I have a cosy home that I love. My children are living their lives. My granddaughter is thriving, and I still don’t really know which path to take in life, and that sounds both daunting and mildly ridiculous because I’ve reached midlife and I should know better.
I have workdays and free days.
I have ideas.
Many, many ideas.
My ideas arrive fully dressed, wearing perfume and carrying an overnight bag. They want websites. Newsletters. Writing groups. Books. Workshops. Beautiful spaces with large wooden tables and warm lighting where women gather to discuss life over cake.
Yes, let’s talk about life over cake.
My bank account generally looks at these ideas and suggests I stick to my sliced apple for snack time at work.
Which I do.
The apple is sensible, affordable and cut into neat little pieces. It is possibly the most organised element of my professional life.
There is a part of me that feels I should now be planning the next sensible thing.
More hours. Extra income. A financially viable project. A five-year plan, preferably presented in Excel with colour-coded cells and (at the moment) absolutely no room for an unexpected car repair.
There is another part of me that wants to matter, read, write, cook something nice, potter around my home, see my children, cuddle my granddaughter and be left alone by all sentences containing the words scalable business model.
These two parts of me are not currently on speaking terms. One thinks I must create more security. The other is still recovering from the amount of life it took to get here.
A few weeks ago, I drove to the South of France entirely on my own - thirteen and a half hours there and eleven and a half hours back - and somewhere along that long stretch of motorway, I felt something inside me loosen. I had not done it to prove anything to anyone. I think I simply needed to know that I could decide to do something difficult, feel nervous about it and still carry it through. With every kilometre, I felt a little more capable, a little more independent and wonderfully free. The trip did me a world of good, not because France transformed me into a braver woman, but because the drive reminded me that she is already here. I am her.
Perhaps that is why stability feels so strange.
When you’ve spent years worrying about what might happen next, you imagine that safety will feel like a grand arrival.
Trumpets.
Confetti.
A deep inner voice announcing that everything is all right now. Instead, it sometimes feels like an ordinary Tuesday. I make coffee. I empty the dishwasher. I worry about the car. I remember that I need toothpaste. I feel deeply grateful and then slightly guilty because gratitude has not magically removed my longing for more.
More financial breathing room, perhaps.
More purpose.
More companionship.
More confidence.
More life.
I think we are often told that gratitude and longing are opposites. That once something good happens, we should stop looking beyond it and simply be thankful.
And I am thankful.
Very much so.
But apparently gratitude does not prevent me from standing in my kitchen wondering whether this is the beginning of my new chapter or merely the paragraph in which I finally receive a proper employment contract.
Maybe that is the difficulty with beginnings: we usually only recognise them in hindsight.
Nobody rings the doorbell and says:
“Good afternoon. This is the new phase of your life. Could you sign here?”
They each begin quietly.
With a new work schedule waiting to go on the fridge.
With grown children who live their own lives.
With a granddaughter’s photograph in the living-room.
With a rental home that is slowly becoming my own.
With the realisation that there may be more time behind me than ahead of me, which sounds terribly dramatic but is also becoming statistically difficult to argue with.
Maybe that is why I feel the need to write it all down. And keep this diary of this phase in my life. Not because I know what this chapter means, but precisely because I don’t. I want to remember the house as it is at every single moment.
The meals I cooked.
The books I read.
The view from the sofa.
The plants in the summer.
And the sunlight beaming through the windows.
I want to remember what I worried about and what turned out not to matter.
Who came by.
Who didn’t.
What changed.
What remained.
Perhaps this journal will become a record of me reinventing myself.
Perhaps it will become a horribly desperate attempt at repeatedly trying to reinvent myself and then needing space to recover from those attempts by taking mid-day-naps.
Both seem equally possible. I’ve been there and I’ve done that.
I do know that I want what I share here to be honest, cheerful and maybe even sometimes slightly too revealing for my own good.
Some entries will remain open for everyone to read. In time, a few may live behind the paid-subscriber door - partly because I would love to create a smaller, closer circle here and partly because, regrettably, my electricity company does not currently accept personal growth as payment.
Paid subscriptions will help me continue writing these weekly letters and earn a little much-needed extra income while doing something I genuinely love.
BUT: don’t worry, there is no pressure to pay.
Reading, responding and sharing these entries will already help enormously.
Should you decide to become a paid subscriber, please know that you will not only be supporting the writing. You will also be making a modest but meaningful contribution to the sliced-apple fund.
For now, I have found some solid ground.
I have a job that officially becomes permanent on 1 September.
I have a home.
People I love.
Ideas that refuse to behave.
Questions that remain unanswered.
And perhaps a life does not have to feel finished to be going well.
Perhaps the unfinished part is where a lot of life is waiting to happen.
Still, I couldn’t help but wonder:
How do we know when we have arrived, if we are already wondering where to go next?
This week, I…
Cooked:
Spaghetti for all of us - as the kids and their partners came over for dinner on Saturday.
Watched or read:
I’m reading Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke - it’s our bookclub read for this month.
I watched a couple of episodes of FURIOUS (Hulu on Disney+) - it made me deeply aware of the rage a woman can feel after being abused.
Worried unnecessarily about:
Whether securing one permanent job means I should immediately - desperately - begin inventing three more.
Was surprisingly grateful for:
The quietness of my cosy little house after a working day.
Still haven’t figured out:
Whether stability is a destination, a resting place or simply the bit where you finally have time to notice your other questions.
I’ll be back!
Love, Mies