Once upon a time I started blogging... I found it very very helpful... and then I stopped. I got too far behind on updating it and it fell by the wayside a bit. So I've started a new one!
At the time of writing my last blog, I was severely affected by ME. I was bed bound, feeling very fed up because all of my friends were starting new jobs, new careers (I was especially jealous of my friends on my PGCE who were decorating new classrooms, meeting new keen Year 7s and becoming their tutor... all of which I was stupidly jealous of because I was lying in a darkened room unable to walk from my bed to the bathroom.) I still have ME, but I'm very pleased to say that it's mild now- I can live a half 'normal' life, whatever that is, at least.
I am going to talk about my ME in this blog, but not just that- it's just going to be me rambling about everything. My ins and outs of life. Because whilst the ME is such a big part of my life, it doesn't define me. I'm still Louise and I still have likes and dislikes. I'm still a person.
So it's probably good to give you an update on what happened next if you were a previous blog follower. The old blog fell by the wayside a few days in to 2012, and at that point my boyfriend, Rob, had just got a job with Marussia F1 team and we were about to move from Somerset, our childhood roots and home to all of our friends and family, to Banbury in Oxfordshire. We knew absolutely nobody.
Rob's still at Marussia. He enjoys it, I think. The Grand Prix is on our TV all the time (I haven't caved in to getting the Sky F1 channel yet), complete with running commentary. The money isn't bad and he is still the envy of quite a lot of people, even though he works very long hours and comes home stupidly late sometimes. Every month he spends a few days away at the wind tunnel. I'm not going to pretend that I have a clue about what he does there.
As for me, I found it really horrible being so far away from home at first. I was still hobbling around on crutches, and it was scary going from a situation where you know so many people, you're seeing friends regularly and you have company (even though they were all coming to visit me in my darkened room) to the complete opposite. I've never been in the situation where I know NOBODY before. And as I was too poorly to go out, let alone work, I spent all day, every day in our one bedroom flat not knowing where to go or what to do. We did get chatting to the people either side of us, and they were really cool, but I have to be honest- I never warmed to Banbury. I was massively homesick and it just wasn't the place for me.
My health eventually picked up after lots of baby steps (don't ask me what did it, as I actually can't pinpoint anything in particular that did). I was looking around at jobs that I could do part time, but for all of them I needed my NQT (Newly Qualified Teacher) year passed and done. So, (looking back it was possibly a bit naive of me) I saw the only option to go back to full time teaching and started going for interviews.
Eventually a job came up in Northampton (about an hour from Banbury). I had no idea where Northampton was, I'd heard of it but had absolutely no connection to it whatsoever. I didn't go for the job for various reasons- the closing date came and went. But then it came up again! So I went for it, got the job in April 2012 and that was the start of a big journey for me, one that had its good times and not so good times, and one that particularly towards the end was very very painful. Would I do it again? In hindsight no, but that doesn't mean that I'm not incredibly glad to have done it. So much good has come out of the last 18 months.
Commuting from Banbury to the top of Northampton was a bit of a joke. So, having realised that we weren't heading back to Somerset any time soon, we bought a house! We chose a 3 bedroom new build on a new estate at the bottom of Northampton, so nice and easy for Rob to get to work still, but it meant that I wasn't keeling over from driving two hours each day. I warmed so much more to Northampton, and as I started to make friends and get to know the place it became home. Now I think I'd find it quite hard to adapt to living in Somerset again- although don't get me wrong, I absolutely LOVE the place and will take any opportunity to visit!
Anyway, I don't want to talk about my NQT year too much, but I struggled through it- I realised that thinking that I was invincible and that the ME couldn't catch me wasn't the way to go. Full time, even with mild ME, wasn't ever going to work. I learnt the hard way but at least I can now say that I'm a fully qualified teacher!
I'm now building a career that is still teaching related- I still want to teach more than anything- but in a way that I can manage. It's not going to be full time mainstream, that's fairly obvious, but I am going to teach in some way. I'm actually really wanting to do SEN (Special Educational Needs) and I might have to take a slightly longer route around getting there than others would, but whatever happens will work out for the best I'm sure! In some ways, having the ME has opened my eyes to different branches of my career that I might well enjoy more- but wouldn't have considered had I not have had the ME. It's quite funny how little things like that happen.
I have changed and grown quite a lot over the last couple of years though. I'm a lot more independent than I was, and I have to say I think a lot of that is down to being so far away from home. I haven't been able to just pop home when I've had a bad day, or just fancied a bit of home comforts. If I want to go home, it's a 3 and a half hour drive each way. So I've had to survive for myself, make my own home comforts, and make Northampton my new home. Which it is! That's not to say that I haven't made some very good friends here who really look out for me. It's been nice in a way having no connection to it beforehand because I've put my own stamp on it as it were. I definitely feel like one of the locals now. When I first came here, I couldn't have told you how to get from Waitrose in Kingsthorpe to the town centre (those of you who know Northampton will realise actually how easy getting into town from there is)! But I know places and names now so it's a lot easier. I don't get lost in Duston anymore, I've ordered my turkey for Christmas from the butcher in Brixworth, and I absolutely love a cheeky lunch out at Beckworth Emporium. A couple of times I've even found myself giving directions to people who have lived here for years!
I've also had to change how I think about the ME too. Before, I split my thoughts two ways. I either thought a) that if I ignored it, it would go away and I wouldn't have to worry about it, or b) I was no longer my own person- I could never tell anyone about it because they would only see that, and let's be honest, ME hasn't got the best reputation (it's not right or fair, but it's true). So having got myself into the situation where by keeping hold of both of those ideas, I was never going to get anywhere, let alone pass my NQT year, I had to change my attitude. I had to admit defeat as it were to overcome things. Which meant that in some people's eyes, I was giving up. There seems to be this perception in society that the right thing to do is to push past those barriers, and your limits, so much that you cure yourself. That makes you amazing, and inspirational, and brave, and all those things. I'm not knocking people who manage to do that, I think they are amazing, but what happens when you CAN'T do that because the illness that you have simply won't let you, and you end up flat on your bum every time you try? You get cast off as someone who doesn't WANT to try, who can't be bothered. Some of the bravest and most inspirational people I know are those who have said 'I've tried, but I can't do that... so I'm going to do something else instead'. I aspire to be like them, because actually they are the people who have kept me going at my lowest, not those who have said 'I've done this, this, this and I'm cured despite the odds'. You may or may not agree with my thoughts there, but it's just something I've picked up from experience.
So now I've started blogging again, because I'm at a point where I'm about to start some very exciting things but it's all a bit scary and uncertain- so I've decided to ramble about the world again.
But for now, I'm going to get the onesie on (most comfy thing I've ever bought and I can recommend one to ANYBODY), get the Tassimo going (again, another very worthwhile recent buy that I would recommend to ANYBODY) and sort through the mound of Christmas presents I bought at the weekend!
