The stealing of Orange’s tagline is not really intentional (and a little ironic since yesterday I switched from having Orange as my mobile service provider after 8 years), but really it’s kind of true – the future is bright and it is decidedly orange. That is, orange with a special reflective strip: cone after cone after cone on (seemingly) all the roadways of Britain.
I feel like I have been home for months. Australia feels like a distant dream. I have only been home for 20 days. I am dog-tired. Everything feels very ‘untidy’. I am not sure when I went from being organised and under-control, to being so chaotic. Maybe I should slow things down. But knowing me, that’s highly unlikely.
I’m not the only one. Something seems to have happened in the last few years and suddenly everyone is incredibly busy. Is that just the way life is? Is this just what happens as you get older? Or is it just a coincidence? One thing I have found interesting recently – from reading a few of my friends’ blogs and generally talking to people – is that I am definitely not the only one who is coming to conclusions about what I want to do with my life (or maybe just ‘next’ in my life), and feeling exhilarated by the freedom making those decisions/realisations brings, then being filled with doubt about the rightness of that decision because things are rarely what you expect them to be.
My decision to go back to university, and doing another A Level? Absolutely right. I am not wavering. In fact, my resolve grows every day. However, also growing every day is the niggling feeling that I may have gotten myself in for more than I bargained for. For some reason in my mind, starting an A Level at 29 seemed easy. After all, I already have 3, which I did at a time when I had no direction at all. Having begun to read the course material, I realise that working full time and studying a subject I have not looked at for 14 years is no small undertaking. I have no memory of the basics, and all that ‘life’ experience apparently didn’t necessitate use of my brain. Instead, it has been replaced with mush. A flippant comment I made about having completed my first degree whilst partying a lot, so “how hard could it be to go back to uni and do a degree when I am not partying (so much) and actually paying attention?” may well come back to haunt me. Still, this is all for the good. It is good for me. I’ll keep telling myself that.
Meanwhile, back in the whirlwind, it’s been a great few weeks of catching up with friends – some of whom I haven’t seen in years – in Nottingham and Oxford; getting back into climbing at the new Newcastle climbing wall; starting to catch up with my friends in the North; catching up with family; getting back into the gym; planning more trips; studying; getting back into work; and watching some great live music. Life is very different, but still good.
Next, I’m back on the house hunt…
