I honestly don’t know what to feel anymore or why. The past 6 months have been such a good break from the two years of 10+ hours work days. But it has also been an emotional one.
Figuring out what I want to do with my life moving forward has been challenging enough without having the added pressure from family. For people like my father and sister, who have been in one job for decades, they will never understand that no one wants to jump jobs for the sake of jumping jobs. They will never understand the extent that you are pushed to till you give in your resignation letter and they will never understand the desperation you feel to want to make it work. They will never understand being in a position where your personality directly clashes with everything around you and they will never understand the feeling of physically not being able to breathe in the office. They will never understand what it is like to be in an emotionally draining and abusive workplace situation. And I definitely do not wish that they ever experience it.
When I decided to step away from a communications role, I knew that it will be challenging to get a new job. But what I did not expect was to not even get a single call about any of the jobs that I applied to. And at this point, I really am feeling so lost. It has been around 1.5 -2 months since I actively started looking for jobs and I have not had any success so far. And I honestly do not need anyone else pressuring me more than I am myself.
I will definitely not trade the past six months for anything because it gave me time that I will never have again with my mum and nephews. And that is something that I will forever hold close to my heart and will never regret, no matter who says what.
I might not have gone on a soul-exploring trip around the world or changed my life in any drastic way, but this time with family is something I treasure and hold above anything and everything else. And that is also why I am so so careful about my next job. I already experienced losing precious moments with family with my two previous jobs and I definitely do not want to be in the same position as before. I also want the job to be just a job. I will definitely have to try to not let myself tie my job to my self-worth, because after 3 years of doing so, I am still trying to heal.
Despite my physical journal being personal, somehow I can never write such intimate thoughts down on paper. I think it’s the fear that if I put it down on paper, then it becomes that much more real.
