My final day of work.
I have collected my last sign in sheet, filled in my last registration form, answered my last phone call and handed over the mantel of responsibility to someone who wants it more and will wear it better.
I have let the doors of the Children's Centre close firmly behind me..... and the Autumn sunshine has never felt so good.
In front of me lies a beckoning ocean awash with long-wished-for dreams and unspoken hopes.
And I'm ready to dive in, head -first.
No more waking up in the middle of the night remembering all the things I have forgotten.
No more filling in forms that are left unread and filed under " filled-in forms."
No more trying to meet impossible targets set by detached, power-hungry bureaucrats.
No more performance management reviews or self-evaluation frameworks.
No more gathering, inputting and analysing data that never measures what its meant to measure nor tells you what you want to know.
My life has been given back to me, wrapped in shiny, endless possibilities and full of not-for-sharing-chocolate.
" The trouble is," says my dad when I'm round to visit, " once you've got all-the-time-in- the-world, you usually end up filling it with nothing-at-all."
'Not me," I say pouring myself a third cup of tea, " I'm going to fill every moment with meaningful somethings."
My Dad smiles indulgently and reaches for the TV remote.
And I turn away because even though I don't want to admit it, I'm just a little worried that he might be right.
Things tend to take as long to do as the time you have to do them.
If you have two hours to cook dinner and clean the house, then it takes two hours.
If you have all-the-time-in-the-world, it might take forever.
Perhaps it's only by perpetually racing through life that we create enough energy to reach our goals.
But I'm really hoping not.
I'm hoping that by standing still I can still achieve just as much.
My first day of freedom was spent wandering around the Chichester Sculpture Park with an old school friend.
She is beautiful, clever, rich and successful.
But none of that comes with a happiness guarantee.
She has been a constant visitor in our home over the years but this was the first time that I could really give her my utter, complete and undivided attention.
I heard every word, not just the gist of what she was saying.
I truly listened.
My mind didn't wander to the untidy pile of papers on my desk or the emails needing replies or the social worker waiting to be phoned back or the leaflets with next term's dates needing to be signed off.
Instead we admired the modern installations, tastefully and incongruously displayed amidst the ancient woodland and sweeping West Sussex views.
We admired the clever curve of bronze, were confused by a beautifully designed staircase leading nowhere, let our reflections become part of a sculpture of right- angled mirrors
and admired a Chinese inflatable pig from inside and out.
" I take a photo of my friend coming out of its rear hole," explained a German tourist, showing us the photo on his phone and pointing at his friend who has just emerged from the pig's stomach.
And while we walked, we talked, soothed by the beautifully strange not-quite-reality of the place,
And at the edge of the Park we found: "It Pays to Pray,": large, bright blue shapes and words flashing across 4 flat screens.
My friend made her choice and her prayer flashed up on the screen:
" Keep me safe, keep me warm, keep me in the lap of luxury."
She smiled sadly.
" I wish," she said.
And I do too.
I hope that, one day, like me, she is given the freedom and the time to find all those things.
While she carried on exploring a while, I sat on a warm, grey stone slab, part of an installation looking like a miniature Grand Canyon. In front of me was a valley of yellow fields, each straw tip bathed gold in the sunlight , birds swooping across the echoing blueness of a cloudless sky..
Lost in the picture- perfect peacefulness, I wondered what prayer I would use to fill my now-shapeless days.
" Let me find my muse. Let me always have orange ink in my pen. Let me constantly day-dream. Let me sometimes know, when they ask at breakfast-time, what I'm cooking for dinner.."
Some people say that it's only through work that our lives have meaning. That it's our jobs that give our lives meaning and define us.
Perhaps they're right.
But for as long as I am able , I'm willing to take a gamble that it's more than that;
that being there to catch your children when they fall, being able to truly listen to your friends, having time to watch your flowers grow, is enough.
And then there are the clothes to wash, the meals to cook, the rooms to clean and the masterpiece to write.
And I'll be doing all that... of course.
Just not right now.
Monday will be soon enough... and I think there might be an episode of "The Mindy Project," that I haven't seen yet.
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