Tuesday, November 16, 2004

So here we are still tired after the weekend away, but loving every minute of it. I could have done with a bit longer away from Manchester perhaps or even work, but I'm feeling that it's helped cheer me up.

For those of you who don't know me, I've not been happy at work over the past few months and of course when that happens I get unhappy elsewhere. In other words I let work effect my general mood, and I have been quite depressive over the past year or so, nothing to serious as to think or contemplate suicide on a real basis, but serious enough to think of leaving. Working in a school in England is great as you get regular breaks through each term. For example the last week of October this year, we were off school for a week. Then come Christmas we'll have a 2 week holiday. I'm fully aware that other nations do things differently, so that's why I have explained this.

Anyway, towards the middle of October, I'd had enough of my current job, I was going to look for other work and had even asked my head teacher if she would be a reference for me, as most places want a reference from a current employer. She hadn't expected me to ask for this and after a few tears from my part on why I felt the way I did, I agreed that I had to go away and really look again into things. That's something that I did, mainly during the last holiday. I didn't do much voluntary work, knowing that I'd see most of the same children and to a point it would feel like work. Also having had surgery in the summer of 2003, I'd really hadn't had a break from work since returning to work in December of the same year. I felt really exhausted in September going back to work after summer playschemes. This holiday I did as little as I could and thought long and hard. I know it's work that get's me down, and that I have to see why that is. I can't pin it to just one thing, but it helps to know what the triggers are. I came to the decision that my future would be decided on how quickly I got depressed with school.

After the first week back I was ok, but in the second week back, which was last week things started to get to me, and I started to feel like it was a chore to go to work. I love the job, but when I'm not interested in going I know something is wrong. Going back to the start of this post, I said that the past weekend had cheered me up, well it has and I'm not feeling as down with work this weekend. So perhaps this is the answer to my problems, maybe now I've bought a car, and can go and see my friends I won't be as unhappy as I have been. It's the short breaks that break up the routine of staying in Manchester. Again another brief history lesson. Since 1989, I've not been on holiday outside of the UK, since 1989 the longest spell outside of the town of my abode is a week away in October 2002. I don't holiday, I don't have breaks. Maybe it's that, which has caused me problems, I've not been able to let go of them as I've been surrounded by them... It's a theory which I've developed over the course of this post and one which I'll certainly be looking at again. I've got to go up to Lancaster to see my friends up there soon, so if I leave it a couple of weeks and then go, I'll find myself refreshed for Christmas.

Whoever is reading this blog on a regular basis, can be the people who may be able to tell me if this theory is true. You are the ones who'll read the posts when I'm down and those when I'm on the up. This is perhaps a breakthrough for me, I'm certainly going to ask my friend Lisa to keep an eye on things.

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