Looking Towards 2010

2009 has had it’s ups and downs, more downs recently, but here’s hoping what they say about things not killing us making us stronger is true – I’d like to think so. This wasn’t how I ever thought I’d be ending the year but I’ve got to try and make the best of my life going forward now.

As you’ve already gathered from previous posts I’ve spent a lot of time looking at myself and my life, trying to figure out what it is I want to do and where I want to be going in the future. I’ve not finished that journey but I’ve reached a point where I know what I want to do next year, what I need to do in order to ensure that I come out the other side of all of this in one piece, whole again and able to function properly. So what is it I hear you ask? Well I’ll tell you.

Since everything fell apart in my life a couple of short months ago I’ve not been happy [funny that] and I’ve not been engaged with anything. I’ve not been happy at work for a very long time but I kept it up as I knew I had to provide for Sarah and the girls – that’s not quite the same any more. I’ve tried to carry on as normal but recently it’s become almost impossible to do. The old routine of getting up, driving to the office for the day and then coming home – now to an empty house – has been like a death by a thousand cuts, each day stabbing another needle into my heart. I can’t do that any more, it’s not allowing me to properly recover and move on.

I guess I was always going to look for a new job or do something in the new year after Sarah dropped the bombshell but what to do? Well, after a lot of thought I’ve decided to ask work for a 6 months sabbatical to give me time to sort myself out properly. I’d be looking at starting this at the beginning of March (to give Sarah plenty of time to sort herself out), but if they don’t agree then I’ll be handing my notice in at the end of January, staying long enough to finish off the current project and to hand everything over to the rest of the team.

I’m not looking at wasting the 6 months I’m off, far from it. I knew I needed to do something, some sort of challenge and I’ve got a whopper. Starting in March I’m going to be planning, training for and completing a sponsored walk from Lands End to John O’Groats for the British Heart Foundation in memory of mum and dad – hopefully raising a lot of money for a very good cause. No small undertaking I know but I’m hoping the time walking alone will give me ample time to thoroughly sort myself out and to disassociate the work/home links from my past life.

I’ll be either starting the walk in May or June and it should take somewhere in the region of 10 weeks to complete. The route and schedule haven’t been sorted out yet but I’ve got plenty of books on the subject to read and gain vital information from.

I’m so excited about this and I know it’ll be something I’ll be able to look back on in years to come and be proud of, as I hope will Alice and Elisa. I know there’s going to be a large break in seeing them, but in the grand scheme of things I’ll only actually be missing out on seeing them for about 10 or so days, and I’ll be ringing them every day to let them know how I’m getting on – I hope they’ll have lots of fun following my trail up the country. There won’t be many children at school who’ll be able to tell their friends that there daddy’s walked the length of the UK!

Everyone so far has been extremely positive about the idea – well, all but one so far – and that’s shown me that this was definitely the right decision for me. Like I say, this isn’t something I’ve gone into lightly and I know it’s going to be very tough, but I need to do this or I won’t come out the other side of these testing times whole.

I’ll be setting up a new site in the new year to track the journey, including all the training and planning, and I’ll post a link to it here once it’s up and running.

Exciting times ahead, and I hope this means that 2010 is going to be a better year than 2009, and that the start to my new life will be kicked off in style!