2016, and the new sensation of not wanting anything new.

So, I’ve been holding out on writing my usual inevitable new year blog post.  Normally I can’t wait, and post it a few days after Christmas, overly eager for the new year and its attendant exciting air of, well, newness – as described in blogs passim, I’m usually all about the new.  I have craved change my whole life, which has led to lots of exciting things and some rather pointless dicking around as I treated my life choices like some sort of eternal Pizza Hut buffet, sampling this and that until suddenly realising that it’s 6PM, all the staff are waiting for you to leave, and there is no more deep pan Hawaiian left which you now know was the only one you ever really wanted in the first pla- OK, may be getting a little too far into this simile.  I just really like pizza.  And change.

However, 2015 was what you might call an embarrassment of riches in that regard.  Everything changed, then changed again.  The boyfriend and I, after saving money for as long as I can remember, finally bought a flat together – but not before the one our first offer was accepted on just after Christmas 2014 was whipped off the table at the last minute, resulting in a process that had been plodding judiciously along for years suddenly becoming an urgent imperative to find somewhere, anywhere of roughly the right location, size and price like NOW. Which we did, with a bit of blood, sweat and tears (lots of that last one on my part).

We eventually took possession in June, and spent two months completely redecorating – a lot of work, yet more change, and a process which plunged me (and, by association, poor long-suffering boyfriend) into some pretty deep neuroses.  It was whilst I was sitting on the floor of our new bedroom covered in paint and sobbing like a baby because we had run out of masking tape and what were we going to do that I worked out that just possibly there was more to my angst than our differences of opinion about home decor, and that I was in fact having a meltdown because the responsibility of co-owning a property was freaking me right the hell out, in a way I had entirely failed to anticipate during the whole slow burn build-up period.  We got through it, largely due to his common sense, forbearance, and ability to provide endless cups of tea whilst listening to my insecure monologuing without reaching for a carving knife (thanks for all that, by the way xxx).

And now, the flat is finished (for the most part), we have been living here for nearly 6 months, and it is my happy place. There is really nowhere I would rather be. But giving birth to my grown-up, home-owning self was a surprisingly draining process, and would have been more than enough to be getting on with as far as I was concerned.

However, while all this has been going on, I have also begun two new jobs in quick succession, each exponentially more challenging and responsible than the previous one, and both in institutions where constant change is the status quo. During the same period, my best friend since schooldays undertook a complete, radical career-and-life change which included her leaving the country. Although obviously this is her change and not mine (and is, by the way, fantastic and wonderful and the best decision she has ever made – go Lucie!), it nonetheless made a huge difference to my life too, because of the huge part she plays in it.  I miss her enormously, and her absence has made me suddenly, belatedly aware of how few really close relationships I have retained into adulthood, how small the circle is of people I feel I can turn to when I am happy, sad or scared and be absolutely confident they are going to be able to give me what I need in that moment. Which has actually been pretty good for me in some ways, as it means I’ve had to really think hard about what is and isn’t worth worrying about.  If I let myself get upset about every little thing, then without the immediate catharsis of ranting to a sympathetic ally – guess what? I’m just going to stay upset. So I have to be selective; I have to learn to shrug the small stuff off all on my own.  It’s been a ‘put-your-big-girl-pants-on’ kind of year in that respect as well.

So in every sphere – domestic, professional and personal – the winds of change have been a-howling through 2015 for me.  And so forgive me if, when considering 2016, I sound a wee bit lacking in ambition. But what I’m really hoping for this year is for things to stay the same.  For the foundations of my life as it is now, laboriously laid in the last year, to settle. When I really take the time to look at my life, I find that I am actually… content. And I want to get familiar with that feeling before the next whirlwind rides in, if that’s all the same to you, universe.  So this year I’ve got no resolutions, no goals to smash within the next twelve months. I’m just going to live a little while. I’ve changed my hair; surely that’s enough for one year?

A year of change… My happy place; my best girl; a modest to-do list; new hair

Happy new year everybody.  I hope you get all the changes (or not) that you are wishing for in 2016.

 

 

Come on 2015, let’s be having you

In a bit of a lull in the festive season, I have decided to get cracking on my new year’s resolutions.

I mentioned last year how I like to compartmentalise my past, and 2015 more than most years will give me ample opportunity to do so. This December has been very much a month of cutting off and letting go, and January will be a fresh start in more ways than one. I’m going to be so busy that if I manage to achieve anything at all, I’ll consider myself to be doing well, what with a couple of fairly hefty resolutions being more or less thrust upon me:

1. Do fantastically well in my first permanent post-qualification Library role.

The University of West London have very bravely agreed to take me on as Academic Support Librarian for their School of Nursing, Midwifery and Healthcare, and I will be starting on 5^th January. This is a logical sort of follow-up to my most recent role at LSHTM, but will also include a lot of new responsibilities, as well as a new institution in a new part of London, eventually within a new campus. I’m very excited, and a little bit terrified, but what I mostly am is grateful to be given such a great opportunity, and determined that UWL will have no reason to repent their choice. I plan to exceed their expectations and expand my own experience, and this is the main thing I intend to devote my energy and resources to this year.

2. Make a home

Having been saving about a third of our incomes for four years, my other half and I are finally ready, at 30, to join the adult population and buy our first home. I know this is something most people do, and often much earlier than we have managed it, but I am still unreasonably proud of us for having reached this point at last. Things are now moving fast – I put in an offer on a very nice flat just yesterday, and while that is of course no guarantee the whole thing is all sewn up, I’m excited by the idea that we may very soon be shutting our very own front door, growing weedy tomatoes in our very own back garden, and screaming blue murder when our very own boiler explodes and costs a small fortune of our very own money to repair. Ho for belated grown-up-ness!

Frankly, I think those two things together will be enough to be getting on with, don’t you? 

No?

Oh all right then…

3. Devise and keep up a new fitness regime

New job has the slight disadvantage of being the other side of bloody London to where I live (one and a half hour commute each way is looking likely). This is going to throw my fitness regimen (such as it is) all to hell – farewell, lovely scabby affordable ULU Energybase!

I’m going to have to come up with a new one that fits in with my new life, or resign myself to ever-encroaching blobbery. I fear that workout DVDs at sparrow’s fart may be involved (sorry, downstairs). And maybe even Kegels on the train (will have to learn not to make that funny face when doing them).

4. Make lots of jam and chutney and foist it upon my friends and loved ones.

Not much to enlarge on here. I have the kit, I have the jars, I have the time. Beware, oh friends, an avalanche of preserves is coming your way.

5. Get more involved in my profession

Conferences; articles; the Twittersphere. There’s a lot of library-based action going on out there, and I want a part of it.

6. Make some progress on my family photographs archive

Work on this was brought to a slight standstill last year when my laptop up and died. The Apple Genius said that it was the logic board, but I believe it was simply a dirty protest against having to receive so many scans of my gurning infant visage. New logic board is now in place, so we shall find out who was correct in the coming months.

7. Make a start on The Quilt

Along with the crates of photographs my mother offloaded on me (see blogs passim), I also received a rather lovely thing: the top half of a patchwork quilt. It’s in a thousand shades, with scraps of a huge range of vintage fabrics, all tacked with newspapers and magazines of the period it was made. It was pieced and stitched together by my mother and grandmother back in my mother’s late teens, a time when she and my nan could barely me in a room together without biting each other’s heads off. I like to imagine them stitching up the quilt together as a sort of stalemate or truce. A year or so ago Mum suggested I might like to finish it off, as I had been making a desultory attempt to learn quilting from my very gifted craftswoman, my boyfriend’s mother Pat Ashton-Smith. It has ever since been scrunched up in a bag under my desk. This year, I want at least to get it padded and pinned preparatory to stitching it up – in the long run, I’d like to give it to my niece, so that it will have passed through the hands of four generations of the family.

And those left over from last year…

8. Finish knitting this jumper…

…if only so I can start knitting something else. I am sick of the sight of the damn thing.

9. Learn French

If there’s one thing long commutes must be good for, it is surely listening assiduously to the adventures of Didier and Patrice and the improbable series of events that lead them into reciting irregular verbs by the hour. Oui je peux!

10. Write. Write write write write write!

It’s been a good year for writing. I’m going to keep it up. Watch this space for more gibberish, excerpts of novels in the works, book reviews and maybe even some poetry (oh God).

EDIT: and a few more…

11. Pass my driving test

Self-explanatory really.  This will seal the holy trinity of adulthood – employed, property-owning driver 😛

12. Birth Companions

I am doing some voluntary literature search work for Birth Companions, a very worthwhile organisation.  Finally have some time to devote to this over the holidays, and will be proud to get it done and hopefully help them extend their influence.

SECOND EDIT: and two more…

13. Self care

I am extremely bad at this.  I am going to make 2015 the year I give myself a thorough and long overdue MOT – actually register with a doctor and a dentist, and sort out a few niggling problems that have been hanging around (and no doubt getting worse) for years out of idleness.  I’m an old girl now, can’t just keep expecting things to sort themselves out.

14. Join the British Bone Marrow Registry

Saw an interesting feature about bone marrow donation on TV over Christmas, and read some more on t’interweb – it really doesn’t sound as horrible as I imagined it, and it offers a fairly unique opportunity to save somebody else’s life without having to do anything unreasonably heroic (I am a colossal wimp, so this is useful).  I’m already signed up for someone to have any of my bits and bobs once I am dead – no reason not to offer up the regenerating parts whilst still alive.

And one more for luck…

15.  Learn to jive

Got a swing dance class with Swing Patrol for a Christmas present, which I just cashed in.  I SUCK like the suckiest thing to ever suck, but I loved it.  I am going to follow this up and get splendid at dancing, like the fabulous ladies I saw tonight whose calves seem to be spring-loaded.