You know you’re in having your midlife crisis when you wonder about the meaning of what you do every day.
It’s mid February and it feels like this has been the longest winter I’ve had. It’s been relentless and seemingly endless – good colleagues leaving, bad weather, short days, a sense of not actually making a hugely positive impact on the world through my work, and, well, an aching body. But do not fear, I can see better times coming.
Work
In recent months two of my favourite colleagues have resigned. Not only that – my core team is going from 3 people to just me in under two months. It’s beyond sad, it’s emotionally draining. They both had good reasons to move on and subconsciously I knew it was coming, but I’m not happy about it. The first replacement is a very competent and lovely young woman, so let’s see what happens next.
Change is most difficult when current circumstances are good.
On the upside I will have an appraisal in 5 months which will hopefully translate into a salary rise. Having people in my team leave means I have more negotiating power 💪
Health
Luckily we have so far gone through winter with not much more than a cold and a cough. But my body is telling me I need to make some changes.
Early January I started feeling pain in my chest, and my mind went to a dark place. Am I having a heart attack? We know by now that the symptoms of heart attacks in women are wildly different than in men, and often go undiagnosed. So of course I went to my GP.
Turns out I’m not about to die from a heart attack – that pain is more central between the breasts, and apparently feels like a sack of potatoes pushing down on you. This is more pungent and on the side.
What is it then? Well, my muscles in the chest area are tight. My whole body is kinda stiff and tight. Makes me feel like an old lady, which makes me want to be grumpy too.
One of the benefits I get at work is an extra day off for my birthday. So I booked a yoga session with my top favourite instructor on my birthday day off. She lives quite literally on the other side of London which makes it near impossible to have regular sessions with her, so I’m making use of this time. I need to make sure I get to do yoga with her more often as it has helped me tremendously in the past.
Besides this I finally managed to get past the winter laziness that plagues me before Christmas and get back on the saddle. I have been cycling a lot more and I feel the positive effect of it.
Light therapy
When I mentioned my bad mood this winter to my scientist friend, she immediately recommended light therapy through a SAD lap. Despite the unfortunately-sounding name, SAD stands for Seasonal Affective Disorder, which essentially is winter blues.
I had never heard of these lamps, and went online for some research. By using them you increase the amount of bright light that you are exposed to each day, hence your body reacts by putting you in a better mood, boost energy and help you to feel more alert. I immediately excluded the alarm clocks that wake you up naturally by gradually increasing the light they emit over 30 minutes. With a toddler waking us up at random times, this seems futile.
But there are also lights that you can use during the day. So I bought one. Great idea – but let’s face it, I forget to use it regularly enough, so it will have to be returned to the shop.
Maybe next year we’ll just have a short holiday somewhere in a warm country at the end of January. Which brings me to…
Holidays
In one of my previous posts I mentioned how we focused too much on visiting and not enough on holidaying last year. Well, we are not making this mistake again!
We have already booked a week-long holiday just for the three of us at the end of the summer. We’ll spend a week in Portugal near the beach, a real family holiday! I am so looking forward to it 🙂
The best part was the great deal we got: knowing that January and early February is when all travel companies have their biggest sales, I signed up to a lot of newsletters to get alerted of new deals. Then I waited patiently. Prices got lower, offers got better. We compared operators, destinations and flights. Then a good offer came up, which was made even sweeter by a 10% cashback through Topcashback – we’re off!
I feel such a grown up booking an all-inclusive holiday… full pension means no food shopping nor cooking at all, activities for kids and adults, transfer from airport to hotel included… What is happening to me?!
Yes, it could have been cheaper if we had chosen different elements to this holiday, but I see it as an experiment whether we like it at all. And let’s not forget our daughter is only 3 – a few more years and we’ll be back to more adventurous holidays.
Besides, thanks to a chat with a colleague, this week I found 4 extra days’ holiday allowance ‘behind the sofa’. My employer’s intranet was showing 2 days a year less than what contractually agreed. I asked and got this year’s 2 days added to my allowance plus the 2 days difference I didn’t get last year. Yay!
If you ask, you may even get.
Enjoying life
Having a toddler means you don’t go out as much as you used to. This translates directly into one of the very few ways a child saves you money – you cook more at home, saving money. In recent years I also perfected the art of a £0.50 lunch at work.
As a foodie, I decided to make an exception to this rule for my birthday and we went to our favourite posh restaurant, dare I say our new regular for big occasions?
Judge yourself but we had an awesome time!
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