her real world

By: Melanie

Feb 01 2010

tags: apartment, cat, cats, cup and saucer, emotional health, federal public service, golden handcuffs, hiking, kitten, kittens, manitoulin island, mental health, moving, physical health, public service, work, work life balance

Category: housekeeping, mental health, navel gazing

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Well, it’s been too long. Thirteen posts ago it was springtime. Hopefully spring is coming again soon. A lot has changed between then and now and mostly all of it for the better.

Let me explain.

Last March I met Him. Now, those of you who know me, know me well. Those who don’t can go to…well. Those of you who know me know that when I speak of Him, I’m not talking about Jesus. But He kind of thinks it’s amusing that I refer to Him just as…I’m off track.

He’s a rather awesome guy who just happened to live in another city. And who hated to talk on the phone, but who talked to me on the phone almost every day for nine months. He’s a rather awesome guy who I’d only see when I went to Toronto or when he went to Ottawa. Which meant if we were lucky, we’d see each other twice a month for a weekend.

This photo was taken by Him just after noon, three days before my 28th birthday. It was taken on one of the first extended visits we’d had with each other.

I wasn’t feeling the greatest, but I was feeling well enough to make it to the top of the Cup & Saucer, a lovely hiking trail on Manitoulin Island. One of the main reasons that I was feeling up to it was that I wasn’t carrying around 50lbs that was there the year before. Which is why you get to see a full body shot.

We were visiting his family camp as I was on my week long birthday celebration holiday. We spent Labour Day at camp, went back to Toronto and dealt with me exhausting myself while I was still a bit under the weather. But it was a great week. Photos will be going up on Flickr, but I’ve not uploaded since *mumblemumblemumble*…..

Suffice it to say, I’ve been a bit busy. Life changing busy.

I started this blog (I know, you’ve heard this before) in April 2005 as a way for me to document my adventures in the “real world”. It wasn’t long before I began working for the federal public service.

And here we are, 4 years and 5 months later. Don’t worry if it’s kind of a blur to you. It’s kind of a blur to me as well. During that time I had one major nervous breakdown and a couple of smaller ones. If you feel like exploring, I did my best to document what I could. But everything before today? That was Chapter 1.

Chapter 2 promises to be more interesting. I’m happier than I’ve ever been, and boy do I have stories to tell.

On New Year’s Eve He came to Ottawa and whisked me (and my kittens) away on his black steed (okay it was a black hatchback) to Toronto. We arrived at 11:30 pm. Enough time to go to Jug Town for a bottle of orange pop and a box of kitty litter. We toasted the new year and promptly fell into bed. Well, onto the futon mattress on the floor. I had hired movers, so my stuff arrived the following Tuesday. It’s still kind of not unpacked. So no photos have been taken. But He, the kittens, and I are very happy in our well located, reasonably priced Toronto apartment. Even if it is a mess.

I’d had enough with the job I was in. I felt like I’d become wallpaper and couldn’t get ahead. Or a break. When I made the decision to move, I was coming up on the end of an acting assignment and there was really no hope for anything after that. Management had done what they could, but it really looked as though I was going back to being a junior analyst after I’d spent a year and a half as a “full” program (and even Senior) officer. With the long distance relationship I was using my already too expensive apartment like a hotel. I was able to walk to and from work, but I was so exhausted/depressed/disheartened that the five blocks seemed like an eternity.

It was a good choice. A few weeks ago I learned that I’d failed the competition I’d been in for my branch. I’m rather fond of the saying “if you don’t have anything nice to say…” so I’ll leave it at that. But had I been in Ottawa for that and had He been away from me for that, I probably still would be bawling on the floor. My experiences in the public service had very much been of the “If anything bad can happen, it will happen” variety. It probably isn’t that way for everyone. But it was my reality. Well, at least until last Friday.

This morning I woke up for the first time on a Monday morning (okay, afternoon) and didn’t feel a ball of dread in my stomach. Even though I’ve taken off the golden handcuffs (for a year less a day) and given up all the security and benefits that go along with them, I feel more free than I’ve ever felt. I’m glad that I can say that a chapter of my life has come and gone.

Now, on to Chapter 2.