Trading RTW for RTW

For the last six years RTW has meant ‘return to work’ for me, rather than ‘round the world’, which it stood for before I got my job in the UK. On Wednesday I finished up that work, I think for good, and I feel so free and so much lighter for the shedding of responsibility for other people’s lives and their jobs. It feels amazing, and so I am taking back the real meaning of RTW too!

The dramas of my last few weeks, you wouldn’t read about! For someone who never takes sick leave, I came down with some hideous virus and was down for the count for the last week and a half before my very last day at work. With so much to do, but being unable to function, it was so frustrating, and meant I didn’t leave things, nor say goodbye to a couple of clients, as I would have wished. I also didn’t even get to have a farewell lunch where I could leave feeling loved and valued!

Since writing the post about selling my car, the sale fell through after the driver’s side door suffered some damage by vandals. So, so frustrating and maddening, and so thus the need to sell continues to be a burden.

On my final day at work, a legal firm called me to check on my whereabouts, and informed me that they planned to serve me with a subpoena. This would be for a court date appearance for a case I had back in late 2008, scheduled right in the middle of my trip. No way! So I spent my last days in Ballarat trying not to make eye contact with anyone near me on the street, reminding myself not to answer to my name. I managed to smuggle myself out of the office that Wednesday in a totally crazy covert operation, and then had Mum on high alert that night, after their being a very suspicious car lingering out the front of the house. Such dramas!

Managing to evade being served with scary legal papers, and clearing up my weird sickness, I also finished up with my last uni day, and packed at the very last minute! My plans are now to do as much travel as I can for the next couple of years, supplemented with work here and there to fund it, with the notion of freedom before being too old and grown up to throw on a backpack, sell or store all my possessions, and hit the road (or air!). With the completion of my Masters at the end of the year, I should be free to see all the places on the top of my wanderlust list.

…although I was invited to attend a Research Pathways session on my last day at uni, because I have qualified to move into a research addition to my Masters…hmmm, we’ll see!