Sometimes, it feels like life is not going the way I planned it. I plant stuff, it doesn’t grow. Other stuff, which I hadn’t intended to be so prolific, is prolific. It’s unexpected. Sometimes, it’s very disappointing. Sometimes, it’s very frustrating. Sometimes, it’s surprisingly rewarding in ways I hadn’t expected.
Sometimes, it feels like very little has happened in the last 12 years that has been positive at all. My career took off, then I crashed. At the height of my ‘achievements’, at that time when I was a force to be reckoned with, I’d never been so depressed. All that time in Japan, I just felt lost, like I was ticking off boxes of things to do before I died. I was going through the motions. I was thin, healthy, running, fighting fit, filled with vitamins and supplements, eating well, in a great job doing good things, mostly with people I respected, and I was utterly, utterly miserable.
A lot of that came back to work. I had the misfortune to bring out the worst in another team member and she did all she could to make my life difficult at work. My boss was so weak that she wouldn’t pick sides or stand up and say that what was happening was wrong. I made the mistake of showing her how I felt, and she told the woman who was tormenting me.
Nice.
And then, back in schools for the first time in three years, it felt like it was going somewhere, only for my life to be brought to a standstill on the back of someone else’s accusations. That all went away, in the end, but it took three years and over 1,000,000 pieces of evidence and data on my behalf, with not one single piece on theirs.
Then there’s been the move to France, which has not gone how I thought it would. I watch my world fall apart sometimes, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. Luckily, my friends and family have been nothing but loyal, calm, supportive and reasonable. I can’t say the same for everyone, but I know that once my elements are back under my control then it’s full steam ahead. I think life’s like that.
So, when I sat marking this morning, even though Heston had been up since 3 this morning with a poorly tummy, even though I was agitated by the software I’m using, the birds were singing, the animals were sleeping peacefully and I felt lucky again. Last night, driving home from Jake’s concert, the skies were beautiful. The sun set was perfect. The world felt in keeping with me. I felt like I could breathe, properly, deeply, and that the last 12 years of agitation are coming to an end. I hope so. I nearly went down for the count in the sixth round, but I feel like I’ve done 12 rounds with Tyson and that I can build up to my 40th birthday as if it is something marvellous. I have 40 parties more-or-less planned.
I want my 40th year to be the greatest of my life.
Now I need you all to cross your fingers and hope it too.
Lady Justine's Blog 
Best of luck, my fingers are crossed. Not sure anything in life can go to plan as such, life develops as we go along and we change with it. We have had some tough years here in France, but I think it has helped us find a way of life we are happy and content with. We will never be millionaires and I do now struggle when we are back in the UK as we don’t aspire to have all the must haves that our family and friends seem to have, but we are happy, and enjoy our time together as a family! Sounds like your 40th is going to be some year – have fun!
I hope it will be a great year – and yes, I wonder at all the needless spending I used to do. My priorities have shifted quite a bit!
It’s the waiting – waiting for something to end, to finish that is the difficult part. Intellectually you know it will, but it is difficult to accept the waste of time that waiting seems to be. The one thing you have to be careful of is not getting so low you don’t see the change when it comes. You need to have one eye half open to recognise the corner to dive off down to set things on a new path and mood.
You are so right, Susan. It’s strange how life works out, but it usually does as long as you bear all that in mind.
Having lost the battle with myself for the best part of my life, and now seeing the pattern repeat itself in my son, I still cling firmly to the mantra that what doesn’t break you will make you stronger…
So by my reckoning I should by now be invincible….. but I’m not! A triumph of hope over experience, perhaps??
However, to quote Sir Elton John, at least: “I’m still standing”…..
xx
Sometimes, I don’t feel invincible, I just feel tired! It’s so hard watching family members going through it though. I think any mother would rather suffer it themselves than watch their children go through it
Hoping, Emma, and crossing fingers, toes, many paws – from another mum who knows how difficult it all is to watch things seem to crumble …
Hug Heston the Hunk from me, and blonde and tubby but adorable
Tilly and so lucky Noireau and you, of course, as well ….