Where life takes you?

Returning to the UK has left me feeling somewhat unsettled, and I find myself wondering where my life will lead me next.



I always hate travelling back from holiday anyway, and a stop over in the office before catching the train for my final leg of the journey made me realise that after a week of relaxed business, I am returning to the hectic non-stop life of the rat-race with a mammoth catch up week ahead of me. I have never understood why, when you are excited about travelling to go away on holiday the journey always seems to fly by, when when you are returning home, with little or nothing to look forward to the journey seems to last an indeterminable length of time (surely it should be the other way round? I would have thought that with something to look forward to time would seem stretched and drawn out!)

This has been compounded by a horrendous first day back......a five hour journey to Canterbury.....extended by missing the train I was supposed to be on, for an hour and a half interview, for a further four and a half journey back!

As it is sitting on the train, looking at the photographs that I have taken of the little piece of Eden that I was fortunate to spend a week in, I question what am I coming back to? I know that I have my friends and family, and they are very important to me, but ultimately I return to a job that was always ever going to be a second or third choice, to a home town that I am soon to be leaving, and the empty ache that tells me that I know that for a short time I had everything that I wanted in the palm of my hand, and that it slipped away (I know people keep telling me that if it was going to happen it was better to happen now before we committed ourselves any deeper - but that doesn't really help the here and now!)

I have had a number of 'dream jobs' that I could have followed, and yet life has brought me to this point. I don't regret aby of my choices and I know that I have been hugely fortunate in the chances that I have had (I have seen armed service, played rugby professionally and fenced for my Country) but I keep returning to the question........"Is this what I can expect for the rest of my life?" Don't get me wrong, I quite enjoy the work I do, but it is and always has been a means to an end, to pay my bills and to allow me to do the things I would like to do (and it keeps my bank manager happy!) I suppose at the end of the day that is all you can expect from a job, but should there be something more?

The Draw of the Law!

When I look at where I am now , and what I wanted to do with my life, I still cannot believe that I am sitting in an office all day(although it is a very nice new office block in the heart of Manchester City Centre with fantastic panoramic views), working in the "Law" (I can't see myself doing this for the next 40+ years! – this thought alone is enough to drive me out to buy a lottery ticket!)

Of all the things that I wanted to do as a kid this is really the last place I ever expected to be. I was somewhat driven by the things around me or saw! At the age of four my grandparents bought me for Christmas a fireman's helmet, with built in flashing light and siren, and a drum (I'm sure they loved my mum and dad, but now as an uncle one of the greatest joys is being the hip uncle, able to buy cool noisy presents and then leaves before they become too annoying).

From then to about the age of 8 all I wanted to do was to be a fireman (I wish I knew where my drum and fireman's helmet had got too, but for some strange reason they seemed to disappear one night in about February!)

I was then bought a box of airfix toy soldiers, and a military career seemed to be the way forward. Yes I had played with the green plastic figures and now I wanted to do it for real (plus I was an army brat anyway and so had a lot of militaria around me!) [To be honest I still wonder about applying! I know I have about 12 months to do it, and every month or two I wander past the army careers office and contemplate just stepping in!]

After the army came Top Gun (the film!) That was it I decided, I'd either be a fast jet fighter pilot.............. or an actor! Yes something of a strange mix. I know that I was attracted by the thought of fast flying, but I can also see the attraction of being someone new every week. (There have been times over the last few weeks/months when I would have given my right hand to be someone else, somewhere else.) But again common sense/reality reasserted itself (I would be too tall to fly fast jets/and I really wasn't that good an actor [in fact other than at slapstick I was really bad!])

By the time of GCSEs I was torn between Medicine and Law (with two younger sisters I had been subjected to Ally McBeal (I think that that is how you spell it!!!) and I have to admit that the lifestyle portrayed seemed fantastic! In Court all day cross examining witnesses, young female lawyers in short skirts, crazy senior partners and then down to the bar at the bottom of your office for drinks and karaoke!) This image was quickly dispelled when doing an internship at a local firm I was handed a box of 40 files all relating to a single trust, and told to read through it (I didn't remember any of the cast of the US Legal shows having to read things, they were far to busy with their madcap lifestyles!)

When this crushing blow was compared with the excitement of seeing surgery there was only one way to go! Here I come medicine! After three years at university studying anatomy I again realised that medicine wasn't quite what I had expected, and I was not sure how I could face another five years studying to become a doctor (looking back how little I knew! Five years as a student......five whole years of student lifestyle......with some of the craziest, most alcohol driven, morally loose people I have ever met!!!!!! What was wrong with me? I should have jumped at an extra five years rather than entering full-time employment!)

It's somewhat concerning that after all this time in a profession, and all the time and costs that it has taken to get here, that I am pretty sure that it's not what I want for the rest of my life (and I have still yet to see mixed toilets in an office or a dancing baby [although I think that if I did that would be definitely the time to get out of Law!])

I think if I could now do anything, and money was not an option I would open a small bistro somewhere (and yes I know that complaining about long hours in Law would be nothing compared to the time and effort that you have to put in to make a restaurant a success) cooking simple but tasty food to which you would all be invited.