Changes

In the past few months I’ve made a lot of changes. Some of them were easier to decide on than others but a change is a change and it takes some adjusting to.

Moving

The first big change I made was the decision to move from my Essex flat back to a quiet village in Cambridge. It took some time, it wasn’t an easy decision but eventually I decided it was the best thing for me. The hardest thing about making this decision was knowing that not only was I leaving my little flat, my first home of my own, but I was leaving my boyfriend there too. We haven’t broken up, we are still very much together but we are living apart for the first time in more than four years. It’s been a major adjustment for both of us but ultimately, I’m happier so I’m easier to deal with! Of course we want to go back to living together as soon as we can but there’s a few things still to be sorted in Essex before he can move up as well.

Work

As if moving house isn’t enough stress, moving from Essex to Cambridge meant I had to change jobs. I found a new job in a nursery, something which was familiar and fun and I went for it.

Unfortunately I realised that it wasn’t fun for me anymore. The thing that had made my nursery job in Essex so much fun were the amazing girls I spent my days with, the incredible children I was looking after and my manager who was as much a friend as a boss.

Suddenly moving to Cambridge had felt like a terrible decision. My boyfriend wasn’t there, I didn’t have my own home and I was in a job which was fine but I missed everything about my old job. I knew that something had to change so two months in I decided I needed to do something new.

I’ve moved into an office job, I’m not changing lives and it’s easy work but it’s what I need for now. I’m actually enjoying the simplicity of it and the independence. After working in a nursery for three years, the thought of getting up and going to the toilet without announcing it to the whole room seems ludicrous. The first day in my new job it occurred to me that standing up an saying ‘I’m just going for a wee,’ would have been enough to comfirm to my new colleagues that there was definitely something wrong with me!

Health

I am no stranger to a chocolate bar or a family sized box of biscuits or a bowl of pasta enough for a village. I love food and I love eating it. For the last however many years, I’ve been eating whatever I wanted because it made me happy however I’m not feeling happy any more. I went shopping for clothes and picked up a bunch of lovely pieces in my usual size 12 only to get home and discover the skirts wouldn’t zip and the tops were more than a little stretched. I had to go back and swap it all for a size 14. Now there is absolutely nothing wrong with being a size 14, as long as you’re healthy and happy. As I swapped my clothes for a bigger size, I realised I was neither healthy or happy. It’s not been very long and I really hope I can stick to it in the long term but I’ve made major changes to my diet and I can definitely say I’m on the road to being healthy and happy.

What changes have you made recently? How hard has it been? What’s motivating you to keep going?

Love,

Alice x