Walking Away

What I perhaps should have mentioned yesterday was that it was my last day at work for the foreseeable future.  Well, not all work, but certainly that lousy job that has been grinding me down for years now, undermining my health and self-confidence.  Basically, I'm on leave for the next three weeks, then, from September I'm on a six month unpaid 'career break'.  (For once in my life, I've decided to be sensible and not burn my bridges, leaving myself a safety net).  While I have more than enough money in the bank to comfortably survive six months without working, I'm hoping to spend at least part of the time doing some supply teaching, (I was contacted by a couple of agencies last month, after hawking my CV around the web).   It's a way to get back into the classroom, make some contacts and finally use my PGCE productively.  I'll also be looking into other possible alternative ways of earning money.  I'm in a position now where I don't have to work full time any more, so more casual work has become a possibility.  Ideally, I'd like to be like Travis McGee, or Hap and Leonard, fictional characters who work only when they need money.  (Although with less violence than McGee encounters, and perhaps less gay and bad assed as Leonard and less cynical than Hap). 

Of course as, technically, I'm still an employee, I can't really go into details about the sort of shit I've had to endure over the past few years.  But, when I'm finally completely free, I will write up a fuller account of it all.  In the meantime, I'm free.  At least, as free as the current Covid crisis allows any of us to be.  So, for the next three weeks I'm on holiday.  After that, I'll be exploring the world of alternative employment in earnest.  The funny thing is that I've fantasised for so long about doing this - walking away from this job - that now I've actually done it, it feels somewhat anti-climactic.  Which is normal when we make monumental personal changes - the rest of the world carries on regardless, unaware of what we've done.  Or, indeed, caring what we've done, because it is an entirely personal choice.  There's still a part of me which questions the wisdom of walking away - making me doubt whether swapping a regular income for uncertainty is the right thing to do.  But the fact is that something had to change - I really couldn't keep carrying on as 'normal'.  I hated what I was doing and that, in turn, was causing me stress which isn't good for my health, (as I found out a couple of years ago).  It's still sinking in that, when this holiday is over, I won't have to go back to the office and the routine again.  It's an uncertain future, but, for the first time in an age, an exciting one.