Steadiness

It’s been 17 months since I quit my full time job. It was completely unplanned and quite unexpected. What I didn’t have after was steadiness. I didn’t know what to do with myself and Rubynnastory. So I dabbled, I dabbled in so many different things and finally found the things I enjoy the most. Found the things that matter to me. Found the things I want to build on.

I am not one for unplanned events, but that last job broke me a little and I resigned without having anything lined up. I noticed my self being overworked without reward. I was an operations manager, and I chose this line because I knew I wouldn’t have to do a lot of client facing work, but 75% of the time I ended up working as a consultant, trainer or a consulting manager.

It was exciting at first, I learnt a lot, I learnt how to encourage sustainable issues to corporations that mostly care only for their baseline. I learnt how to tackle questions in a narrative that mattered to the earth, to the people on the ground. I enjoyed it massively, until I did not.

Until all I was to do was bring numbers, until the baseline was all we cared about. Of course profit is important, but the vision, I was losing the vision. My workload increased, I was in charge of the marketing team, I held interviews 4-5 times a week as part of the recruitment team. It was like speed dating, stressful and judgy. Built the team from 6 to 20. I was exhausted. I barely had time to actually work on the CRM and create a structure in our daily processes. The operations, my actual job description, eventually became my solace, my joy, my time to recharge away from people, from the office politics, from the client facing challenges. I had to fight for opportunities to get back to operations and build structure. It was the only calm.

During all that time, my health deteriorated, I was being micro managed, I was never doing enough. My self esteem dropped and it affected my confidence. I thought it was me, but I was actually doing a minimum of 3 people’s job, of course my work could not excel. Of course I was struggling. It was during an appraisal that I realised I was never going to satisfy my senior, it was like feeding a zombie in a frenzy. I was done. My battery crashed and I sent in my resignation letter the next day with a month’s notice.

Typically, I would have started looking for another job, plan the future, be excited for a new beginning. I couldn’t. I just tied up loose ends, did my best to pass on all the information and got out. To what? To nothing. To the abyss. It was like going night diving and the coral reef ended. All you had was the cool darkness, soothing but scary.

It took me a few weeks of doing absolutely nothing to recover. To slowly build myself up again. The only pull I had was my constant with Rubynnastory. The urge to create, the urge to make something beautiful and give a second life to something discarded, something old, something that didn’t matter anymore. Something that needed reviving, like me.

So I created, I made the earrings, I deconstructed discarded fabrics. I slowly teased out threads and made tassels. I made so many tassels and steadied myself.

Steadiness

I deconstructed.
Such a pleasure to turn something unwanted and give it a new life.

I swam. I ran.

I painted.
I painted huge canvases, I looked to trees and their steadiness and pulled inspiration.
I painted roots.

I joined group exhibitions.
I met new people. Passionate and kind people.

We collaborated.
We created a collective of mindfulness, upcycling and art.
We built something beautiful together.

We started with workshops. Upcycling workshops.
We shared the love of sustainability, slowing down and art with everyone around us.

We spread the joy.
We created a small circle of steadiness.

I found the thing I wanted to build on. I plan to do it.