How it started

Do you ever have those moments where you think life is working for you? I know, for most of us those moments are rare but I had finally found one! I had landed what I thought would be an amazing job with great opportunities and a hip cool office space. It was a small pay cut but as I was only working part time, this full time opportunity would more than make up for the small reduction in hourly rate. The extra pay would help with the huge city rent we were paying and the rest would go into the house fund for the home I had been dreaming about for as long as I could remember. It all seemed perfect, at the age of thirty something I had started a ‘career’. Then two weeks into my new dream job, the powers that be weren’t happy with my performance. I was devastated! I wasn’t fast enough, wasn’t outgoing enough, wasn’t vocal enough. “It has been two weeks”, I told them, “I’m still finding my feet and getting to know everyone”‘ I told them. I thought I had been doing a good job, I thought I had been picking it up quickly, I thought I had been friendly and cheerful with everyone. Unfortunately there had been a few dramas in the team and some explosive arguments that I had witnessed and a dramatic resignation from the person that was training and mentoring me and who I had become friendly with. So maybe I was really bad at the job and maybe I was seen as tainted, either way, after that meeting where I was told that they were not happy, I was given no further training or tasks to do. I spent the next 3 days in a small panic and felt that any approaching footsteps was the executioner ready to swing the firing sword. It did happen. Thursday morning I was called in, told that they know from experience I wouldn’t work out, I would be paid for another two weeks, would you like us to collect your stuff for you? I was in tears (dammit) but there was no way I would slip quietly out the side door. I went and collected my stuff, said goodbye and it was great working with you to my team, all through those silent racking sobs that make it hard to catch your breath . . . not one of my more dignified moments.

A bucket of soggy (from the tears) popcorn chicken and tub of gravy later I was over it. What had initially appeared to be a great place to work quickly soured into a very negative environment. No one there seemed happy and I think I was about the 6th person in my position that year. What bugged me the most was that I had left a job I loved as a library officer to take the role. The only downside with the library role was that it was only 13 hrs a week which was not enough to sustain my bank account. I considered calling up the library to plead for my old job back but I also started to think about what opportunity this could bring. My husband had recently been made redundant, had started working from home and with my current (*choking) firing we had nothing tying us to the city we didn’t love. The lease was due to be up in a couple of months, maybe now was the time to do what we always talked about doing yet never did?!

My mother has around 200 acres and had wanted to build a house on it but had never graduated beyond living in the shed that was supposed to be temporary while her house was being built. Husband and I had always discussed retiring there but often talked about throwing it all in, quitting jobs and moving there to live off the land. Empty threats really as we both like our creature comforts and are not risk takers. Now, with me out of work and Husband able to work from anywhere, the idea of moving rural didn’t seem so silly. We could move in with Mother while we built, sharing the land with her. It seemed like such a natural thing to do that we had the movers loading our stuff into the truck before really stopping to think “should we do this? Are we crazy?” It all happened so organically and naturally that it makes me question my theories on fate (I’m not sure fate is a thing).

So now, Husband and I are living with my mother, in a shed, I’m unemployed and yet life seems so much better. Scary? Yes! But this is an interesting journey I have started and I hope I will get some readers to enjoy along with me. Don’t think you won’t have to work for it though, I have very little knowledge on what I am doing so I really hope that you will all provide input, feedback and share your own knowledge with me.