Disturbing the Status Quo

It's been an odd month, January. It always is for me. Many people are coming to the end of a month without alcohol, most others are merely a day away from a much-needed pay day while some have long left behind the idea of a gym regime, favouring the comfort of their sofas with a bowl of popcorn. I've just carried on as normal, trying to keep my head above water.

I got promoted. Although the job search was triggered by events out of my control, I have ended up in a job that pays more and just a ten-minute walk down the road. From band three to band four in the ever disputed NHS pay scale, and of course a bit more responsibility, my NHS career continues to move at an alarming pace. I found out on Friday, thinking I'd destroyed my chances at the interview the day before, and was greeted by enthusiastic congratulations from far and wide, yet unfortunately I have yet to find the same joyfulness in the news.

It feels strange, not feeling happy about a positive life event. I'm not sad about it. Just... ambivalent. For the first time ever I had found myself in a job that I found bearable, with colleagues that are great people and in an environment that supported me through absolutely everything. My manager is the best manager I have ever had, for she understands the inner workings of my brain. I felt stable. All of that has been thrown up in the air, in circumstances I am unable to control, and now I find myself at a new juncture in my life and a career I am not certain can sustain more uncertainty. A pay rise is unable to trump the modicum of stability I found myself in. Sure, it may all end up being like before, with a bit more money in the bank but I'd take happiness and stability over a few more quid any day of the week.

I fear change.

And it's all happening so fast. I start on Monday, after thinking I had to work a notice period, but no. I am to be thrown into a lion's den of uncertainty once more and all of this while I continue to bury things in the back of my mind, not learning lessons of the past. But what else can one do except carry on?

I woke up this morning with the devil's headache, a dizziness that was a good metaphor for the state of my brain and feeling physically sick. I think it's a result of fear and anxiety; of going through change once again. Life has a funny way of disturbing the silence.

Yet outside of work, I continue to pile in to anything and everything, in any attempt to stop me thinking. "Keep busy and you won't have time to think", as my Mum would say. I've taken on even more at the cricket club, heading up communications along with the whole adult cricket side of things. I've began to shape an ambitious idea into helping gay footballers, with the help of Plymouth Argyle and (hopefully) the FA and Stonewall. I don't even want to think about how badly the novel is going. My ultimate dream, going up in smoke along with my confidence and self-belief I briefly once had when it comes to fictional writing.

For that is the one thing in life that escapes me. Maybe it's why I feel so empty about this promotion. A career in the NHS, as rewarding as it can be, isn't what I truly want. What I truly want is currently so far away, it may as well not exist and that hurts.