learning to walk slowly

I know this has been really quiet lately. Still, something called and here I am again.

In the last month I have;

• Had redundancy notice
• applied for, interviewed for and been offered a new job
• had an operation to chisel some bone off my foot
• learned to walk again

It's possibly the most amount of change in one month that I remember since school, and being forced to walk very slowly through it all has proved a great lesson. Paying conscious attention to such a basic, fundamental task has focussed my mind and allowed space and time for dwelling and contemplation which I'm not used to and would not have expected to find amid a career crisis. Understanding the movement of my muscles balancing my weight through each step, being overtaken when everyone pushes past, but then still walking when all else are standing still, there is much to contemplate in the world of crutches.

Added to which the new job is a better one than the one I had - I'm going to be a Director of a charity! Smaller in scope than what I'm used to managing, but having always worked under a CEO before, it feels like a manageable size to be the one where the buck stops. (I know there's a management committee, but you know what I mean!)

18 staff and £400,000 turnover. It's a great challenge and not so huge that I can't get to know everyone well enough. Also they are making a very slight loss and need some tough decisions pretty quickly, so it'll be an interesting first six months. Still, having earned the monica "Hatchet Helen" in my last two posts it's not something that phases me, although having just gone through being forced to leave a job that I loved I hope I will do it perhaps more sensitively than I did when I first started out.

I'm hoping this collision of events through January will give me a strong foundation - I'm hoping to keep the learning from walking slowly, taking in the most basic skills afresh and enjoying gradual progress as a celebration. Learning not to be a victim to my own pain, to move without limping and wait for the movement to be restored, I aim to embrace what this new world has to offer me in all it's detail, regardless of the speed of those around me.

Hopefully I'll restart the Blog too as a way of keeping my feet on the ground (literally) and...let the mayhem commence!