Sometimes I feel like it’s taking me a long time to grow up. Well, longer than most people anyway because I don’t passionately desire those things we’re told that grown-ups should want: a good job with a big company, a big house, a flashy car and so on.
Sometimes I think maybe I started off as the atypical grown-up and am now growing backwards?
My 20s – sensible, serious, marriage, a house, a house renovation, hours upon hours working for others.
My 30s – divorce, another house, and hours working in a career where I was stressed out in senior roles but kept telling myself I was making a difference and making good money so it was okay.
My 40s – voluntary redundancy, complete stepping away form the corporate life, psychic stuff, and starting my own business and doing a few other things just so I don’t have to return to my old life.
Would my life be easier if I returned to more traditional grown-up ways and got myself a corporate job where the money is good and the people are nice but my soul is being slowly eaten alive?
No, it wouldn’t. The truth is I have moved past that version of grown-up from my past and I can’t do it anymore. Oh, I can do a short-term contract here or there (about six months is my limit) and that’s fine. But stay for too long and I begin to flounder – my creative synapses become blocked and my balance undone.
So I must find a way to make this other grown-up life work. I must create my own way and trust that I’m doing it right (even when occasionally it feels like it’s all going drastically wrong).
The old grown-up Lucretia has left the building for good and the life of this version has only just begun.