What a year. Writing down everything for this post has made me realise just how much I was dealing with all at once. I guess that’s how life works though isn’t it? You don’t always neccessarily cope all that well, but you just have to ‘keep on keeping on’ until it gets better. And it has! Now here I am in a much more positive place, moving on and excited for the future.
Grab a cuppa and let me catch you up on everything.
I’ve always adored my village home but my life has changed dramatically over the past few years. I have gradually become more deeply connected to Peterborough and the travelling back and forth eventually took its toll, leaving me feeling cut off and isolated.
At the beginning of this year I bit the bullet and put my house on the market. As it was entirely self funded every bit of my time, energy and money went into making it happen. Life as I knew it went on hold.
It’s one thing to make the momentous decision to sell your house and quite another to realise that you have very little control over when it actually happens. I ended up spending months in limbo, unable to make any future plans, feeling lost and frustrated. Finally in August I received an offer which meant that I could start the search for my new home. I settled on a new build and thankfully my offer was quickly accepted.
I don’t think anything could have prepared me for how stressful the next three months were though! Endless paperwork, phone calls, bills and complications had to be managed around my day job. I spent every day feeling restless and on edge, petrified that it would all fall through. I dared not allow myself to get excited or look to the future in case it didn’t happen.
At the end of October I was exhausted and didn’t know how much longer I could cope with all the upheaval and uncertainty. However just like that, everything fell neatly into place. A week later I said one last goodbye to Sunrise Cottage, my home of the last 11 years and the keeper of many precious memories, and opened the door on a new chapter.
Now two weeks later here I am in my new office, writing this first blog post of what is hopefully many to come.
My gosh it feels good.
I’m going to write this next bit quickly because it still hurts to think about it too much. However it doesn’t feel right not to tell you about Mr Darcy, my beautiful big bear-cat.
Darcy was diagnosed with kidney disease last December and after a brave battle passed away in August. It was heartbreaking watching him deteriorate from a healthy, mischeivous cat to a shadow of his former self. We both did our best, travelling to the vets every week for check ups and medication. For a time I hoped that we’d got it under control, but that wasn’t how it worked out. I’m not sure I will ever accept the unfairness of it all.
Grief is a funny thing. The passing of time helps but I still have days where a sudden thought or memory of Darcy hits me and all the feelings come flooding in. I got incredibly emotional on move day knowing that I was also leaving behind the home that I’d shared with him.
To some a cat is just a cat, but Mr Darcy was my family. I’m moving on but I still miss him so much.
Whilst this was going on, Kat decided it was time to end The Prosecco Sessions Podcast in its current format. I felt quite bereft when it finished and Pippa missed podcasting too so we decided to make our own. We took everything that we’d learned from our first experience to create something new: The Millennial Matters Podcast.
Each week we tackle a new topic that’s got us talking. Everything from food and fashion, through to relationships and money, we take a look at millennial life from all angles.
We spent a lot of time planning the podcast before launch to make sure that it was just right. We’ve almost wrapped recording Season 1 and Season 2 is shaping up nicely too. It felt great moving on after the initial disappointment of our first podcast ending and we love making it. In fact we do a happy little dance every time someone lets us know that they are listening!
I’m so grateful to everyone that has supported it so far. If you’re already a subscriber thank you so much!
If you haven’t discovered us yet, please do give us a try as we think you will love it! You can find all of our episodes here:
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/millennial-matters-podcast/id1438246395?mt=2
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-246069025
PlayerFm: https://player.fm/series/millennial-matters-podcast-2451264
So that’s what’s happened this year. Whilst I don’t like wishing my life away, I’m glad the last 10 months are behind me. Moving was a drawn out and painful process but I’m proud of myself for doing it and feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders now.
If you’re reading, thank you Oliver, Mum, Dad, Rebecca, Pippa and all my other wonderful friends for being there when I needed you and telling me it was all going to be alright x
I wrote a post back in July about how I was struggling to find the right direction for this blog. (Read it here.) Whilst I’ve been away I’ve thought long and hard about it. I even considered just closing down the blog for a nanosecond, but ONLY for a nanosecond!
There will be no huge relaunch and hopefully you won’t notice too much of a difference really! I just feel much clearer about it all now thank goodness.
So here here’s to moving on. I do hope you come along for the ride!
