Monthly Archives: December 2009

Observations

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It’s interesting what you’ll discover if you look at certain friendships from a distance, without getting involved. I’ve kept my distance to see if what I was feeling and suspecting would be confirmed. Patience and waiting to see what would happen next showed me some interesting angles and made me decide to stay invisible for a while.

When in a relationship, people -especially women- tend to lose their personal identity. I’ve seen it happen too many times at very close range. I haven’t mentioned anything because it’s not my place to do so and I definitely believe that the people in question need to figure it out themselves without any interference of others. They’re probably not ready anyway…

Loss of identity usually starts slowly. Compromise is necessary to a successful relationship, but being in a relationship shouldn’t change who you are, it should add to your personality but never take away from it.. So to stay independent, as in having a healthy balance of being needed and needing people, one should take time to do things apart from a partner.

This means compromise on both parts and not making any kind of sacrifice that would allow you to merge with the other, it means spend time with your friends and have your own life and space as an individual, it means that someone who truly loves you will encourage you to keep your personal identity and creativity and allow you to seek who you are.

I’ve decided to stay invisible and retreat, when the time is right I will be there but for now I’ve chosen to put myself first instead of others. I’ve stayed in touch but didn’t hear back in months. It’s okay because I’ve learnt by trial and error and I don’t need others to define me. Being an ‘ex-merger’ I definitely know now how to keep my own space and identity.

I’ve tried my best and focusing on my own life is more important to me at the moment than wondering about others. I’m lucky to have found someone who encourages me and who is giving me time to grow. Who is happy for me that I’m about to take the first step and who believes in me and tells me ‘that I can do it!…’ I wouldn’t want it any other way…

Step One

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Finally… having patience is starting to pay off because I’ve received some wonderful news yesterday. I’ve been invited to meet up on Monday morning to be part of a group of people who will be given the opportunity to study and work at the same time. This in itself is nothing new because there are quite a few possibilities to accomplish the same.

In this case however, the government and a few other organisations expect a lack of psychiatric nursing staff in the next three years so they have invested money in a special project to train people. It means that the required study which would normally take four years will be taught in three years instead, starting with a three months crash course.

After the crash course you’ll be working four days a week and attend school on the fifth day for the next three years to get a bachelor degree. My goal is a master degree because I’d like to finish the psychology study that I started years ago. At the time -causing disagreements- I was forced to stop because of an unwilling/unsympathetic partner.

I’m really looking forward to start the study and try to get another degree. My personal situation and this recession have forced me to think about my future in a creative way. I’ve been lucky to have turned a hobby into a career at the time, but things have changed and I’ve come to the conclusion that I need a career that will provide for the next twenty years.

Don’t get me wrong, there will be side projects and I will never give up on the creative part of me. In fact I’m still working on the long-term business plan which involves design and that along with the webdesign business will be the creative outlet that I’ll be needing to keep things interesting in that area. I’ll need that outlet because it’s part of who I am.

Although I’m totally committed and enthusiastic to make this application work for the next three to seven years it will still be ‘a way to pay the bills‘ and live a comfortable life. I’ve to choose security over current instability, people are still getting laid off and no one knows what’s gonna happen next but it doesn’t mean I’ll be giving up on creativity, far from it!

There are more steps planned ahead but for now I’m taking one at a time because that one step will cause a chain reaction once I’ll be on a roll and I’m getting all excited thinking about what lies ahead. It seems I’m finally about to get that long deserved break *wink*