As if by magic, it seems I disappeared for a while. And yes, I have. I do apologise for being gone so long. Consistency does not seem to be a friend of mine recently, and neither does life. I cannot seem to find a rhythm long enough to develop a routine with the constant battle with depression.
I’m writing when I can, and forcing myself to write every day until I find a rhythm. Once I’ve found a routine of sorts, it gets turned on its head. This time, I’m actually changing jobs. So new morning and evening routines; just as I was getting used to the old one. I’m definitely starting to wonder what it’s going to be next time. Zombies? Maybe.
Adjusting to a new country is far harder than one would expect.
While I was born here, and spent the first seven years of my life here, England is a whole new country for me. I’m an immigrant in my home country. That would make a good title (wink). Something as insignificant as being able to scan and pack your Tesco shopping while you shop is new for me. Who knew you’re supposed to pack them into bags while you shopped? This is stuff you learn while growing up. Thankfully, everyone who I have encountered have been wonderfully helpful and encouraging. Beats Trinidad every time.
It’s Spring, and it’s still cold (7ºC right now but to be fair, it is 10pm). I’m sitting in bed under the duvet, still wearing thermal socks to prevent my toes from making painful gang signs. I’ve given up my winter coat, but I’m still layering because it’s still cold. My brain is still not registering that every item around me would be cold, especially the toilet seat… at 3am… Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck! Another epic adjustment here.
This evening, I walked outside thinking it’s 5pm, only to realise it’s 7:30. I thought you would find that amusing, since back in Trinidad, 7pm was as dark as 10pm. I’m wondering why I was hungry and sleepy, because, it’s only 5pm… Right? WRONG. What makes this worse is my terrible perception of time. One hour can feel like 15 minutes for me, which is why I’m a calendar micro-manager. So you can imagine my horror when I realised that it was actually 7:30.
Road rage.
I thought Trinidadians were raging behind the wheel. No sir, that is incorrect. After my first week of driving in the UK, I was comfortable enough to drive without having an anxiety attack. I overtook a line of parked cars, following a van, and there were two cars behind me. What I did not see, because my car was smaller than the van in front of me, was the car speeding through a 30 mile/hour zone. If the sidewalk was an inch higher, it would have been trouble.
The guy, driving a dinky little white car, was clearly speeding and did not yield to oncoming traffic. The guy pulled onto the sidewalk, came out of the car, yelling, while I sat in the middle of the road with my foot on the brake, hyperventilating. He got back into his car, and I slowly pulled into one of the quieter routes, home bound. Then, I see the same guy in my rearview mirror, flashing lights. So, naturally, I thought I hit him and didn’t realise it.
I pulled aside, while he got out of the car and started yelling. I cracked my window a bit and simply asked him if I touched his car. He then proceeded to lecture me on dangerous driving. I explained that like the two other drivers behind me, I was overtaking parked cars, which was legal. I pointed out that it was a 30 mile/hour zone, but he wasn’t hearing it. I was the one driving dangerously. I said, “okay,” put my car in drive and moved off. Idiot.
The scary thing is, the guy followed me onto a side road just to yell at me. In Trinidad, the most you’ll get is a few harsh words from the driver as he flies past. No one is getting out of a car to yell at you. Following a woman, onto a quiet road, when nothing happened to your car, because you’re upset? That does not seem safe. Not in these times.
£60k/year. Digital Marketing Analyst: Google Analytics Specialist.
Career niches are still a total mind fuck for me. How can someone earn £60k a year reading Google Analytics? How? Am I in an alternate universe? You’re not just a digital marketing analyst, but you’re also specifically an Analytics analyst. One would think finding employment with that kind of niche is impossible, but job sites indicate otherwise.
Here I am, struggling to adjust my career perspective to accommodate this new information, while life laughs at me. This is a cruel joke; I’m spec’ed to be versatile with vast horizontal knowledge, when all the financial reward is with in-depth vertical knowledge.
Enter, new career choices. To secure a better, stable day job, I have to focus on one part of digital marketing and drill until I reach the gooey core. This requires a shitload of books and a couple fancy courses. One hour and that’s now in the pipeline. Writing, well, that’s going to take some time to become more stable. Hopefully, you’ll share this article to help right? 🙂
It’s wonderful when you can focus on two things: stable day job, and side job. Digital marketing and writing. Good times ahead.
Shiny new writing projects…
Oh how I love new projects. And these new projects require coffee, solitude, internet, and animals. This is the part of life that I can control; my writing veins. The beauty of writing is being able to publish without approval. And my creativity has zero bounds. While writing this, I planned an entire content series on being a native immigrant. Yep. Remember that wink from two minutes ago? (It’s been two or three hours for me!) Well, that’s now an entire series.
New things motivate me. Ideas motivate me. Money does not motivate me enough to move. In fact, money actually paralyses me. But I’ll go into that in another article. See? Another idea. This is the one corner of my life that I can swing in any direction. And I love it. I hope you like it too 🙂
With all this renewed motivation, coupled with my realisation of wanting to write exclusively one day, you’ll be hearing more from me. One can definitely hope. And pray. And stuff. Haha.
