Much happier today, after the first thing I saw when I clicked on The Graun this morning was an article called Ready To Quit Your Job? Here are the 17 questions to ask yourself first.
Running through the checklist, I emerged entirely confident that I should not go back to the library. The 'how did I get here?', 'how long have I been feeling this way?' and 'what do I actually want to do?' questions were especially clarifying (the answers being 'by accident', 'six years', and 'ideally, nothing; realistically, anything that doesn't involve management-speak and customer service'.)
The final question - 'why can't I make a decision?' - sealed it. “There will never be a moment when everything aligns and every box is ticked,” says Tweddell. “At some point you have to just decide and trust yourself to make it work.”
Yes. I know this; in fact I used to be really really good at this. But twelve years of working in the same place has left me out of practice and afraid. It was good to be reminded that in the olden days I took this stuff in my stride.
None of this translated into actual action, of course, although I did email uni and ask them some questions about the re-enrolment process that have been bugging me. Like, when am I going to KNOW anything, when is anything going to be CONFIRMED? At the start of the summer break, a tutor said that next year's modules will be filled on a first come first served basis, and we needed to get our choices in by 10 July. I sent mine in late. How can I sleep at night if I don't know I got my choices? How do I know if it's safe to resign from my job?
Fortunately, I found another article to help with this train of thought: Why Uncertainty Freaks You Out.
(NB uncertainty is even worse when you're autistic.)
That done, I got stuck into planning a holiday. The van should be fixed by next week, so as long as I've sorted out the abovementioned life admin prior to departure, there's no reason not to go. Fear is not a reason!
I dug out all my bookmarks, scraps of paper, magazine cuttings, notes and jottings filed under 'Places I Want To Go', collated it all into a spreadsheet, then plotted points of interest onto a shonkily-drawn diagram of the UK so I know roughly where everything is in relation to everything else:
And no I don't have (or want) a sat nav; no I don't have (or want) a smartphone. Shut up - doing it this way makes me happy. I drove around north-western Europe navigating by the sun, a list like this, and a Philip's road atlas, and it suited me just fine, thank you.
This trip will include Beatle pilgrimages to Durness and Campbeltown. Other must-see destinations are the Branxton cement menagerie, Seaham to look for sea glass, the Kelpies, the Bridge over the Atlantic, the Dundee penguins, and the Milton Keynes light pyramid either on the way out or on the way home. Other than that, anything goes. It's very exciting. I haven't done an extended UK road trip since 2012.
After the holiday planning, I went online to buy someone a birthday gift and browse for ( - whisper it - ) Christmas presents. What usually happens is I start panicking about Christmas around now, get a few bits in, then think that task is complete, until I realise it isn't around the third week of December.
Today's Photo: Shadow Lands
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