Last year, I took on a full time position as a mental health support worker. The job was only temporary, but was a great chance for me to get a feeling for what ‘working’ was like after being home, mostly full time, for 17 years. I’d worked/studied/volunteered here and there, but only short stints and certainly not for 8 hour days.
Well let me say – it was an experience. The job was FULL ON and well beyond my capabilities at the time. I discovered that Case Management is not a strong suit of mine!
I was fortunate in that Catherine took some Long Service Leave and stayed home to homeschool my youngest and keep house, which turned out to be fortuitous as a relative of hers ended up needing some extra TLC at the time so it all worked out well. But at the end of each day I was zonked. My mind was fried. I felt unsupported in the role and as much as I LOVED working with my clients, I didn’t like the other aspects of the job. So when I finished up there I felt nothing but an overwhelming surge of relief!
I did miss one thing – the income. I was bringing in a fairly good wage and life was quite comfy there for a while. It was a bit hard to go back to our old budget initially, but it didn’t take too long to adapt.
Ever since that experience I’ve been feeling a little unsettled and unsure where to head to next. I knew that working full time wasn’t an option: Catherine recently got a full time position at the school, and homeschooling my youngest is something we are all still committed to, I’ve also realised that even though my eldest is now an ‘adult’ (how did THAT happen!) she still needs me around, to debrief about life and uni and plans for the future – and I want her to have that, as having a mum was never something I really got to experience, so being available to my kids in some way is something I need to be prepared to do for the forseeable future.
I finished the Diploma in Community Services in November last year and have been volunteering with ACON and recently signed up to do a telephone support course through Lifeline. I was determined that this year I would focus on homeschooling my youngest, do the lifeline course, continue volunteering with ACON (which I love) and focus on the home. But I still find myself searching for jobs. I am worried that if I don’t work now, then my Diploma will eventually become meaningless by the time I am free to start working again.
So the other day I was looking on SEEK and I discovered that a much more suitable position had opened up in my old workplace and that it is only 5 days a fortnight – and there was the potential for the days and hours to be quite flexible. I started thinking – I could homeschool in the mornings and go into work in the afternoons, the position was less intense so surely that would be manageable?
I wrestled with this for a few days – in theory it sounded perfect, some people I spoke with were like – yeah, go for it! Others were like – but you didn’t like it there! Why go back?. Catherine also pointed out that I really did want to focus on my youngest this year, he has recently been diagnosed with a severe issue (nothing life threatening but it is life altering) and it’s going to take him some time to adapt to some of the things that he has to do to manage this issue for the next 3- 4 years until he is old enough to have surgery to correct it. I couldn’t very well abandon him during this potentially difficult time.
So I made the difficult decision to let this job go. We are not destitute and we can make do for now, but it is hard letting go of what that extra work could have meant for our family – with both of us working, it would be a lot easier to get a loan for that much desired block of land, but the timing really is not right.
With my current commitments, life feels like it will be very manageable, I will be increasing my skills, doing valuable service in the community, being there for my kids and partner and will have time to focus on my other interests.
I still would like to work part time eventually, but I have to accept that now is not the time for that.
I do have plans to do short term, free online courses. I have an interest in becoming a Life Strategist of sorts. Ideally I would like to offer ongoing motivation and support for people who need help to reach their goals – I have a couple of strengths that would be well suited to a role such as this – I am an excellent listener, a great motivator and very persuasive when I need to be!
My next blog post will be about how I plan to make this happen, without spending money on expensive courses. ie Frugally.
Frugal Confessions 