The (enormous) puzzle of a life and starting from scratch.

It’s been a while since I updated this, largely because there has been too much going on in my life. It’s ‘all change’ for 2012, and it’s a difficult time.

I’m in the middle of what feels like some kind of ‘perfect storm’ – three of the biggest things in anyone’s life have converged on me, needing dealing with all at once. And it’s hard, really hard. There have been days I’ve not been sure I could cope, times when life has felt like a million-piece jigsaw puzzle: which piece do you pick up first?

It’s not all bad, though, and I keep trying to remind myself of the positives: I have a job, for one thing. It might not be my dream job at the moment, and I might be struggling to settle in but, it’s a job, which is something I realise I’m very lucky to have (having experienced last year what it’s like to not have one). And I do love my flat: it’s small, but it’s mine (in the sense that I rent it, and there’s no one else in any of it), and it’s genuinely lovely. It’s somewhere I can take some pride in and make a home.

Location-wise, I’m alright too – I’m right on the tram route, which is a really cool way to travel, in my book, and it’s pretty reasonably priced. So hop on and we’ll go to town for a coffee, a sit down and a read. Not necessarily in that order.

I do miss certain things, though: I miss my social life back in Leamington, for example. It’s not even as though I ‘didn’t know what I had till it had gone’ – I totally knew what I had, but I had to give it up. As mentioned, employment opportunities are limited and who knows when the next job offer might have come along?

And life never stays the same forever anyway, as a friend told me. It will always change at some point, whether we like it or not. So, why not make changes while it’s in your power, rather than just waiting for them to happen? It’s sort-of a positive that I had some control in this: I could’ve turned down the job and stayed in Leamington, maybe found agency or shop work or something. But, eventually, my friends would have moved on, or settled down, and the scene would have changed. I might not have had my social life anymore, and then what? I’d be no better off than I am here.

I suppose, to stretch my earlier metaphor a little, the only way to complete a huge puzzle is to focus on one corner, one section at a time. And I guess that’s how to begin to deal with big life-stuff: one thing at once – like making my ‘home’ – one piece at a time. And, eventually, perhaps without even realising it, that puzzle might start to resemble a beautiful picture, something to be enjoyed, with a sense of pride in having made it.