Posts tagged Goodbye2019

Hello 2019; Goodbye 2018

At this time of year I’m reflecting on the year that has just closed and setting goals for the year ahead.  We find ourselves at a cross-roads again, waiting to see what will come next for us. Although we’ve been here before, and we know that it does work out eventually it is challenging to sit with the uncertainty now.  A friend reminded me in a New Year tweet that every year has its good things happen and bad things happen, even when our social media bubble leads us to believe that everyone else lives in a world where only good things happen.

We continue to live purposefully, focused on family and friends, love and laughter, good health and fitness and meaningful work.  We’ve made sure we spend time with those we love, including a family holiday with Moira’s children and their partners in Rarotonga to celebrate a significant birthday. Not to mention – moving to Christchurch to be closer to Ross’ family.  

We’ve also made excellent progress on our health goals, as we both feel fitter and more toner than ever before in our lives.  We spend a lot of time in NZ’s beautiful outdoors which is good for our mental health as well as our physical health.  We love to explore places, both familiar and unfamiliar,.  Since a third of New Zealand is in National Park, tramping boots or an off-road bicycle are great assets when it comes to exploring.

It’s the third of our priorities -interesting and worthwhile work which has delivered challenges in 2018. Various people with better knowledge of recruitment than me tell me that it is quite common for the job search to take a year.  I really hope not.  In the meantime, I’m learning a lot through the process and using the time to reflect and refine my CV and career goals and to think about preparing for the next stage of my worklife.

I’ve had two important coping mechanisms.  One is exploring New Zealand purposefully – as one friend put it – behaving like a tourist in our own land.  We do find ourselves approaching the task of exploring seriously – planning a schedule, doing a major walk or cycle ride every day unless the weather is truly awful, digesting what we have seen and recording our impressions in photographs and words.  In 2018 we’ve explored the Coromandel by bicycle, toured Northland, and then spent 6 weeks mostly on cycle trails as we made our way south from Auckland en-route to Christchurch.  In the South Island we’ve chased the sunshine all the way to Southland to walk the Humpridge Track and then all the way to the northernmost point of the South Island at Farewell Spit to learn about the wildlife there.  Google Maps captured where we’ve been and it shows how much of New Zealand we visited during 2018.

My other coping mechanism is to spend time on creative pursuits.  This year it has mostly been knitting, although I hope to get back to blogging about our travels and creating photo books to help us digest all that we have seen and learnt about our natural environment and history.

We expect 2019 to continue our journey of focusing on love and laughter.  Hopefully with the addition of an interesting job for Moira early in 2019.  And just as much exploring and creativity as possible.