One Year On: A Personal Reflection

As we enjoy ‘summtember’ and the children return to school, I’m puzzled if September is always hot and sunny like this? Last year seems like a blur as I lost a very close friend and don’t think I really looked up to notice the seasons change, and for 29 Septembers before I was in school. 

After a twelve year teaching career, taking Chestnut Interiors from a part time passion to a full time dream was a daunting leap, but one that I am SO glad I took and the encouragement Helen gave me to go for it is appreciated every day. Side note, listen to your friends, three ladies who know me sometimes better than myself have historically given me life changing nudges I didn’t know I needed; Helen, Sarah, Jess, thank you. 

So, reflecting on the last twelve months, working for myself full time with no teaching commitments, I’ve felt creative and fidgety to write about how I’ve found the change. I also want to extend my thanks to those of you who have supported me and my business over the last year, or even longer; your support makes this job even more of a privilege. 

On the first Monday in September I woke up early, raised the blind and enjoyed my morning routine listening to the waves and waiting for enough natural light to go out walking (yep I’m up very early). I was engrossed in my book ‘Oversubscribed: How to get people lining up to do business with you’, very different to stretch my reading genres into business…who am I?! Eventually setting off shortly after 7am when my pain relief had kicked in, I chatted to two neighbours who were heading to work in schools. Noticeable differences in my morning already; unless I’m heading to a site meeting I have much more flexibility with when to start working, which eases the pressure if my leg takes longer to fall in line! 

Taking the route through the golf course and on to the coastal path I started to ponder the other main differences to my life over the last year. I was doing the most impactful thing, walking! If you follow my social media you will see lots of walking pictures, my disability demands that I walk, I’m in pain if I do and pain if I don’t. Ultimately though, if I don’t move I’m at high risk of a blood clot, I take two injections a day to lower my risk but there’s a sweet spot of steps that I need to hit every day. This has been a factor of life for many years now, and towards the end of my career in the classroom it was becoming something I really struggled to do. In August this year I walked 193.8 miles, the most I’ve EVER walked. I pushed myself, for me and for Helen, and I find walking helps the grieving process. Who knows if I’ll meet that total again but I do know that distance would not have been possible with the restrictions of a teaching career. I can take 10, 15, 60 minute walks throughout the day, and every day I’m improving my health. Thank you to my friends who’ve joined me along the way, physically or through the phone!

Another drastic difference is my creativity, which is pretty much a constant pulse of ideas for client projects, free resources, newsletters, blogs, design services (hello Renovation Room membership), business development and our home. When I say it’s constant, I mean it, I can’t seem to stop and some days I can’t do enough. I’ve taken to carrying a little notebook almost everywhere, just slightly too big for a legging pocket unfortunately, and I’m scribbling words and lists of things I would love to do. My notes in my phone are filled with a random thoughts I collate when out on my walks. These bursts of imagination and endless possibility of course have drawbacks, particularly as a planner who already has a to-do list with time allocated for tasks.  That’s why it’s 9:17pm now and I’m writing, but the urge is there, sometimes I just go with it and can’t do it fast enough! 

I 100 percent love what I do, when I take some time away from actively working, there’s no blues or dreads when I return. If anything I can’t wait. Sometimes it only takes half a day off and I feel recharged and eager to get back to it. This is very new for me, not something I experienced when I was teaching which took its toll on me physically; my body uses three times more energy than expected for my age and build just to stand up. Naturally there was a lot of time standing up in my previous career, so navigating this new vat of energy is something I’m learning to measure and spend slowly. Don’t get me wrong, some days fatigue hits, also expected with my condition Klippel Trenaunay Syndome, but these days are easily managed with a later start, emails with my feet up and an earlier finish if I need to. What a difference to be led by my health. I loved my role as a teacher, teaching the youngest children to learn to read was an honour as was teaching students taking GCSE and A-Level courses, however it was taking all my energy so I couldn’t recover from a trio of orthopaedic operations. Which now with 193.8miles in the bag, I think I can say I’m there. 

A final key difference is the flexibility I have, for example I pinched myself that I could take a weekday off to celebrate my friend's daughter's first birthday recently. Similarly I took most of today off to go for lunch with Lee and spend a few hours at the local hotel pool as it was a scorcher, taking a short break from the sun for a zoom meeting. On another day after a site visit I recognised how lucky I was when I stopped at the nearest beach for a brownie and a swim, another tick against something that brings me joy and forms part of my daily routine. How lucky I feel to be able to take these opportunities. 

When I prepared myself to leave the classroom I wrestled emotionally with my identity, I’d labelled myself as a teacher for so long, it was ingrained into who I was and what brought me happiness. I’d played schools as a child with my bears and books, I always wanted to be a teacher and it felt like my health was taking that from me. It took some time to recognise that what I enjoyed most about teaching was being creative, solving problems and helping people. I wrote these things down, acknowledging that these are qualities I admire in myself (and that’s ok), and if I can continue to contribute to people's lives this way I’d be happy. I’ve recognised that these attributes are part of my work, it’s just a very different path, I’m even flexing my teaching muscle with a course coming soon: Brief Budget Build. If you’d like to know more about the day to day of my work, I wrote a two week diary in the form of a blog. 

My business and my lifestyle are aligning, and life is unrecognisable, there’s still some tweaks to make to my expectations and routines to strike the right balance (I should stop wishing for more hours in the day as I can’t change that). There are goals ahead that are going to stretch me, they’ll take time but I’m not intimidated, and as long as my creativity keeps up there’s great things ahead for how I bring Chestnut Interiors to your homes and places you visit, one step at a time. Thank you for being part of the journey.