Happiness is…

Finally finding a job that I actually want to do after practically being unemployed for nearly two years.

I wont go into too many details here but I have been gainfully employed to cover maternity leave for a company that supplies and services theatrical goods. But I feel that if I can prove myself within the next couple of months by gaining new customers by using online marketing and revamping their admin issues they will hopefully keep me on.

It’s been a very hard two years for me, occasionally getting the odd design commission or doing some painting and decorating here and there has been the only thing thats kept my head above water. My confidence slowly ebbed away to nothing as each job application returned nothing, most times not even a Dear John letter/email.

As part of a current drive by the government I have recently been on a course to help me regain my confidence and help me back into ‘real’ work by reworking my CV and ensuring I know the in’s and out’s of job search strategies, but to be fair to me, this job was applied for by myself from a newspaper advertisement with my old CV, so that in itself is testament to how useful these courses are for educated people. I should never have doubted myself, everything I had been doing was right, the job market just isn’t there.

I can’t begin to tell you how happy I am. It feels like a huge weight has been lifted and I now have my life back. In reality my life has been on hold for such a long time, no money to go on holiday, no car, no internet access, eating crap food, etc.. I could go on, but I think everyone knows how hard life is when you don’t have a decent amount of cash coming in.

I’m so looking forward to being human again, dropping the stigma associated with being jobless and being able not to worry about where the next meal is coming from.

The funny thing is, Monday 17th January is traditionally thought of as the most horrible day of the year, but for me, today has been the best! :D