phase one

Phase one of my PLAN has been completed. I quit my job.

I wrote at the beginning of the year that things needed to change. I think I had visions of myself calmly and confidently taking charge of everything, making difficult decisions in a cool, considered way, and leaving my problems further and further behind, despite the fact that I was obviously already getting ill. None of that happened, and instead I got the two things I didn't want - my health collapsing, and things with work reaching crisis point. It's been a lot to handle. But the main drive behind that post, and many posts before and since, was to not end the year still doing this shitty job I hate. Same destination, slightly unpleasant detour on the journey.

I have absolutely no idea what's going to happen next, but I'm convinced this is the right thing to do. It was never the ideal job for me, but once it had served its purpose of getting me out of my last job and into London, I never quite had the impetus to look for something else. It was stable, undemanding, vaguely unsatisfying. My motivation, when I had it, went to learning new things and acquiring myself a social life. But over the last couple of years, the rut became gradually less and less comfortable until it went entirely to shit earlier this year and made me very ill. I'm not leaving on quite the "goodbye everyone, I have to go and be a millionaire on the Cote d'Azure" note that my unrealistic brain liked to picture; I'm not even leaving because I found something better. But it's not about finding something better first. It's about this not being good enough. Life has taught me that lesson over and over again, and I really ought to start listening to it.

Things are going to be tough. I've been with the same company all my working life. I have no experience of job hunting or interviews or what people want you to say in a CV. I am really bad at not having any money. But I have to remind myself that I'm also really bad at not having my own space, but I managed to be homeless for two months. I beat myself up at the time for not doing enough, for being too fussy (I mean, come on, if you really wanted somewhere to live you would have taken the £160-a-week-plus-bills room in the drug den), and when I did find somewhere it wasn't exactly plain sailing, but I was right to go with my instinct. I'm still living with two of the girls I moved in with two years ago and it's the best living arrangement I've ever had.

Phase two is undefined. Phase three will be profit.