Just to catch up

It's been a while since I have published my last post, sometimes I just get absorbed in the routine of things and miss out on doing what I love most. My problem might be the fact that I try to do as many things as I possible can and fitting everything is not always an easy task. It's similar to when you are a size 1o and start dieting. You buy a pair of jeans size 8 to boost you in your project and, one week after setting off, you try the trousers on, obviously totally failing in putting them on!

Projects need time to be carried out, and patience. I was always against the idea of 'not having time' to do something. Time is relative, and if we really want to do something we make time for it. So that has been my quest for the past months.

I was doing an online journalism course which I had to halt for a little while as I got another project on hand, have done a starting course in photography for which I won an award for Best Assignment, did an introduction to chinese language, working voluntary as Honorary Treasurer and PRO of the Malta Photographic Society, and just finished doing interviews and in the process of writing a book, and in between all this I have a full time job and try to have a personal life. This gives a better picture why it's been so long since I have last posted something on this blog!

This last part I have just updated now when it had been written way back this summer. But thought I might as well post it before starting something fresh :)

The point is that I love every single thing that I am doing, at the same time aware that I have quite a lot of things going on...I feel I have set on a roller coaster!

Caring for an accountant

I'm an accountant...what job can be more boring! Looking back I cannot remember what made me decide to follow this route, I guess it was my ambition, my secret wish to become a career woman and to be in management. I always saw accounting as a good means to slowly infiltrate myself into management. Well I could say that my wish came true, as in the eleven years I worked in accounting, I reached managerial levels in leading companies.

I was thirsty to be a high achiever so imagine my ecstasy when, at twenty-three, I became one of the youngest managers on the island. I really thought I had it all...I felt fulfilled and worked my soul out in order to achieve my goals. My last job was that of a General Manager (well I was more of a factotum as I did a million and one things). This job changed my life in many ways, through the exhausting daily routine, through the people I met and through the experiences I lived. One thing which I learned from this job...how much I was missing out on life and how much dedicating your life to work does not really pay you back! Being a workaholic I used to enjoy working long hours and forgot all about my personal life, until the point where it seized to exist.

Luckily for me, I have learnt from all the mistakes I have done. I am not saying that it's a mistake to love your job and I am not saying that it's a mistake to spend long hours doing your job if it gives you happiness...I'm only saying that there has to be something wrong if you would rather spend time at work than be with your loved ones or enjoying some time for yourself.

Coming back from my travels was a sad experience. It was already uncomfortable enough that I was totally penniless without thinking that I had to get back to a job which, after the eighteen months experience I had just gone through, was not going to give me any emotions at all.

I wished I could get a job where I helped people in some way or another,but I knew it would be impossible. Little did I know that what I thought impossible at the time was going to materialize.

An advert on a newspaper, Yakof's encouragement to apply for the post, a call the week after, two consecutive interviews, and the job was mine. I could not beleive it. I was engaged as a Facility Manager in a Home for the Elderly. It was perfect. I was in management, something I love; I would not be working as an accountant, something I was dreading; and I could help people : the winning combination.

Eight months down the line I can say that finally I know the true meaning of job satisfaction. It's not about working successfully to a deadline, winning a tender, creating a good management information system or giving good advice to a company's directors. It's about receiving a smile from a person; it's about seeing people enjoying themselves during activities you organise for them; it's receiving a thank you for just caring; it's having your heart warmed up when you receive a thank you note from relatives who appreciate the care being given to their loved ones.

I have never experienced something this nice in my previous jobs, the human element is as tiring as it can be awesome.

It's not always easy to deal with a considerable amount of elderly people but it is also very rewarding at the same time. Working with others for others is the best thing a person can experience...at least for me...it's the best!

Freedom

Recently I watched a film which inspired me : Invictus. It's based on a true story on Nelson Mandela's life following his release from a 30-year sentence in prison. After his release Nelson Mandela was elected as President of South Africa.

The whole film was about freedom, especially freedom of the heart and soul.

During his long journey in prison he discovered the poem "Invictus", which gave him strength throughout the years he was convicted.

Invictus was written back in 1875 by William Ernest Henley. At the age of 12 Henley became a victim of tubercolosis of the bone. A few years later the disease progressed to his foot, and physicians announced that the only way to save his life was to ampute directly below the knee. He wrote the poem from a hospital bed.

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance,

I have not winced or cried aloud,

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears,

Looms but the Horror of the Shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishment the scroll,

I am the master of my faith,

I am the captain of my soul.

In my opinion that is what freedom is all about...it's about being strong enough to live the way you want to live; to believe in situations that can materilaise, which everyone else call dreams; to understand that you don't have necessarily to be like anyone else to be right; to feel good in your skin irrespective of what others think of you; to follow your heart wherever it takes you, never letting go, remembering that you alone have the ability to mould your faith in whatever form you desire.

All this might sound too good to be true, but truth is always good. From my own experience I know that are too many constructed sterotypes and typical lifestyles which all fit me too tight. I used to be a stereo-type, used to live one of those typical lifestyles where everything seems perfect and the way it should be. Having graduated as an accountant, raised in a good family, a loving and supportive partner, a great job, what else could I need more?? I had it all...or that was what I convinced myself to believe. Once I realised that I was not living the way I wanted to, once I decided to stop living the life I had been leading for 28 years, I gained my freedom....not without paying a high price.

Deciding to swim against the current, to have ideas which are different from most of the conservative ideas we are used to in our small island, is not an easy life. Gaining my freedom meant hurting people I loved, it meant having to bear judgemnts coming from people who did not even know me. I had to start all over again learning new things every day. The pain was there for quite a while, but the reward was so much worth it.

Today, when I look back at the past, I see a person who has gone through a journey to re-discover herself, or rather, to start discovering herself. It's a beautiful journey, one which will never end.

Freedom was my muse back then, and it's still is today.