I am a little late with writing this one and my intention was to post this on, or as close to, New years day. However, due to a very busy couple of weeks I am only getting the chance to put my thoughts down on paper now.
I have never been a massive believer in the whole “New Year, New Me” movement preferring to believe that if you need to change something, this change can come at any point in the year and will always happen when the timing is right. When I was younger, I would get a bit caught up in it and would make new years resolutions but I stopped about 8 years ago because it seemed that I could never stick to them and neither could anyone that I knew. Come February all we seemed to be left with was a sense of disappointment that the things we had vowed to do, quit or make better were no longer valid and we had broken the vow just as quickly as we had made it. I therefore vowed that come new year I would celebrate “New Year, Same Me”.
That said, this year certainly seems to be looking as though I have made a new years resolution and am sticking to it; this is not the case. As I said, great change can come at any point in the year and when the timing is right everything seems to fall into place.
I recently announced that I am quitting Manchester in favour of realising a lifetime dream of travelling the world. This announcement came on 8th January 2018 so you can see why this could be construed as a new year resolution. The fact is, this is something that has been in the pipeline since the end of November 2017 and has required a lot of forethought, a lot of paperwork and a lot of tears.
My desire to travel the world and experience different cultures has been the one constant in my life but due to various factors, this is something that I have never been able to do. There was always something preventing me – buying a house, paying bills, having to work, boyfriends, not wanting to leave my Nan for fear that the unthinkable would happen whilst I was away. All these things have made it more difficult to be able to travel and all the time I was getting older and life was passing me by.
After my boyfriend left for his second contract abroad something clicked in me. I sat at my desk in work, looked around and wondered what the hell I was doing with my life. I was in an awful routine that consisted of working, albeit in a job that I enjoyed and am good at, going home and getting in bed with the dogs and watching TV. This cycle repeated itself every single day and I realised that I wasn’t living my life; I was simply existing. Did I really want to get to 80 years old, look back on my life and say to my grandbabies I spent my life in bed? Or did I want to gather my grandbabies round the fire and regale them with tales of the adventures I had had, the places I had visited and the wonderful memories I had made?
So that was it, my mind was made up and I just had to figure out a way to do it. I knew that I was never going to be able to pay my bills and save up enough money to travel and even if I did, it would take years and come on, I’ m not getting any younger. The time to do it was now.
With this in mind, I applied for a position with a cruise company. I told no one and received a telephone interview. The day before the interview I bottled it and decided to tell my mum what I had planned. I fully expected her to agree that it was a ridiculous idea and throw up a load of questions that I hadn’t thought of and didn’t have the answer too but then I reasoned that if she thought it was a good idea then that was my answer. Never short of surprise, she told me it was the best idea I had had in years, that she though it was exactly what I needed and that all the other stuff would fall into place.
I aced the interview and the one that followed. I was offered the position and then the real hard work started; I had to jump through hoops and get all manner of forms and documents together to become fully compliant.
I was finally offered my ship on 8th January 2018 and I have been offered the best in the fleet; their flagship, Britannia.
I’m a firm believer in fate and that when something is right, the universe works to make sure that it is realised. Despite the hard work I have had to endure over the last month getting things sorted, everything seems to be slipping into place so easily. Every fibre of my existence screams that this is right thing for me to do and its as though some cosmic force is driving everything. I was offered my top choice of ship, work have blissfully agreed to a shorter notice period so that I can take it, randomly a friend of a friend was looking for a place to live and has agreed to move into my house, I rehomed my little dog with a family member.
I now have 2 weeks until I board my flight to Barbados to start the rest of my life and I cannot wait!
Holly Day 