I finish work today.

Which means right now I am clearing out my office.

And I keep finding email exchanges like this:


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From: Blackwell - Edinburgh
Sent: 06 August 2007 08:34
To: Sara
Subject: Dime


I got a dime in my change this morning. I think I will keep it.



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From: Sara
Sent: 06 August 2007 10:08
To: Blackwell - Edinburgh RBS
Subject: RE: Dime


Oh the buds of cotton. Brings a tear to my eye. Besides, it's worth 5p, it looks like 5p. Who's really going to care?

S


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From: Blackwell - Edinburgh RBS
Sent: 06 August 2007 10:13
To: Sara
Subject: RE: Dime


It's cute. Who's that guy on the back?

Also, not your problemo but I tried to RSVP for the Opening Party and the email got returned to me cos the address doesn't work
Maybe you should try it out before passing it on to someone cos it might just be me being silly...

So, after the weekend, do you now have 3 moms?




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From: Sara
Sent: 06 August 2007 10:18
To: Blackwell - Edinburgh RBS
Subject: RE: Dime


It's Eisenhower I think but I don't remember.

The email should work now, it was just down for a bit. Party should be quite the gig. 500 people last year apparently. And a roving band. Last night was at the fringe do behind Cargo. Pissing it down, but the drag queens didn't mind. I met the Hollywood designer the tiny designer in the Incredibles was made after. She had her Oscar in her arms but wouldn't let anyone touch it.

And yes, we had brunch in bodacious and then wandered to the bethany shop where they bought us a bookcase as a housewarming present (to go with the harvey nics champagne!). I think I have been accepted. It's official. I was invited to their civil cermony, that makes me family right?

S



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From: Blackwell - Edinburgh RBS
Sent: 06 August 2007 13:13
To: Sara
Subject: RE: Dime

I hope you are recording your life in some way.

change.

Big is a relative term.

After all, a really big grape is what, the size of a golf ball?

But today my life is big like the size of the Death Star.

While my successor has settled in well, and taken to the job like a fish to water (mostly. which is more than I could have expected. my type A judgementalness can only be so accommodating).

I finish on Friday. And as I tried to explain to my pseudo-therapist, I'm not just leaving a job or an office. I am letting what I thought was my dream life die.

I am giving up on more than the desk, but the whole industry. I will never see 90% of these people (and there are thousands of them) again. I am turning my back on much of what I have built with every ounce of my being for the last five years, and that is an intense thing.

I wish I could viking funeral boat the whole place to give me a sense of scale, but that would be highly illegal. But farewell toast and a box of paltry desk detrious to cart home really isn't going to do this transition justice.


Also, leaving this work means leaving employment. What I need is time and space to sort out new directions and new plans.

I'm clocking off.

And it's terrifying.

I had no idea I had such a profound and abiding fear of poverty until the prospect of living without a paycheck arrived.

I am suddenly so small and so scared and fly off the handle about all sorts of random rubbish because deep down I am afraid I can't support myself. That I am starting on a slippery slope to destitution, ruin and depression I'll never recover from.

I don't believe it. Most of the time. But it is lurking my sadly child-like brain. waiting to haunt my days.


So, for better or worse, my throes of panic have brought about change.

On a positive bent, I asked the world for what I did want: flexible, artistic, full-filling PART TIME work to pay the bills while we save up to move. In media especially, as I think that's where I am headed.

On a negative one, I panicked at having freetime to face my fears and was cajoled by my overly analytical and deeply manipulative brain to find rash acts under which to bury my undying terror of poverty and loneliness.

Either way, I've now got more work than I know what to do with.

I'm a specialist consultant of freelance retainer with the BBC.
I'm doing some event management at the Science Festival.
I'm project managing a Book Festival thing on contract.


and Monday I have a meeting about running a specialised PR campaign around a new book hitting the market this spring.


Ask and ye shall receive, even when it's a mixed blessing.


Please don't let me ruin this. I worked so hard to let go. To give myself time and space and this spring to sort my life out. Don't let me railroad it with projects until I can't see straight.

Don't let me waste this chance for change.

Today I cleared out my desk. Every scrap of me is now removed (we had to take a taxi home), and tomorrow She starts.

I tried not to get teary eyed and weird, but to be honest. It's a lot more than a desk.

I'm giving up the reigns, and I've never been much of a passenger at the best of times.

I hope I am up to this. This letting go. This starting over.

It may well be amazing, but it also happens to be fucking terrifying.