Searching for Myself

When I was younger, I tried to learn juggling. It was a total non starter due to my dyspraxia and my general lack of fine motor skills and coordination! Once I had three items to juggle it all just fell apart, and to be honest ‘juggling’ two items was often a stretch! The same is true of my approach to life.

When you think about it, in its simplest form, life has three components, Work, family life and personal needs. From 18 to 22 I only needed to concentrate on two things, work and personal. When Janet and I moved in together the focus shifted to home and personal, because I was studying at Polytechnic and then Teacher Training college, although the personal was now just as focused on what she needed. However, when I had to start juggling, it made perfect sense for work and family to take the lead as we had young children, were often abroad in unfamiliar and stressful environments and very much flying by the seat of our pants.

Work and family, quite rightly, became my complete focus for 30 years or so. When I stepped back from full time work at the beginning of this month I found that I wasn’t really sure who I was as an individual or what I need to thrive. I have loads of ideas but none have coalesced as yet. Not really surprising of course, as I haven’t lived on my own since 1990. I remember the, perhaps apocryphal, story about Jon Pertwee, my Doctor Who as a child and still my favourite, who was advised to play the character as Jon Pertwee. His reply was ‘Who the hell’s that?’ and I can totally understand what he meant!!

So, the area of my life that needs the most attention is me. I need to find out who I am, without work but with time to fill. Once I get the answer to that I will know what to do next. I will be reflecting on this at greater length in another post this weekend as I review my first month post full-time work. Wish me luck!