My New Life and the stress of the Old

For many years I’ve been a full-time manager in retail, my mindset has been, I will work all the hours to earn the money for our lives and put food on the table regardless of the stress. At whatever the costs, whether it be dealing with horrible customers, over-demanding companies and bosses, taking the brunt of this and not letting staff feel it, dealing with immature or horrible young people that are hired these days. 

I don’t think people always understand how stressful management can be, I always had high standards, and a great reputation of being the best, or the teacher, or the go-to guy, often deflecting anything that was happening with the companies, even taking on their personal life, trying to protect those staff members, or guide them when it’s wanted or not wanted. But what they and generally most people don’t see, is the heartache or stress or the mental Anguish that’s behind it all. 

Combine this with the stress of family life, not just my own in my house, but of course the family from both me and my wife, which has provided challenges, frustrations and issues. Often we are on our own, no childcare no support, some of our own doing but not much, but again it’s still stressful. (I could write a post about this let alone the rest) 

It felt like I sacrificed my time with my family, and when I look back now, I have spent so much more time with Piglet than I had with Tigger and Roo when they were younger. It’s a little sad when I think about it and has weighed on my mind a lot.

However this year is a year of change, I’ve reached a breaking point, with work, family and everything. My mental health has been pushed to the limits and it was time for a change, our life has become very busy and lots of challenges, with Boo she is very busy.

She is extremely successful and very talented, I’ve tried to support her but the conflict within our lives has gone in hand with everything else that’s happening. So I did a change, I changed my job, I stayed in management but a different type of retailer, but in reality, this didn’t help. Actually became more stressful and less accommodating to our lives. So again I needed to change…

So after a lot of decisions and conversations, I’ve decided to go part-time, doing a bog standard job that can work around my time looking after the kids. This would allow Boo to continue her work and achieve even more, as she has been juggling her work with the kids and the house, which I commend her for. So the fact I can relieve some of this and spend much more time with the kids is a welcomed change.

I’m still working as we have bills to pay, and I’m not that person who wouldn’t, and we will have to be more careful with money,but time with the kids is precious, it’s hard to describe to people, if you have been working so much for so long, it’s hard for me to just stop (which had been a challenge, especially in retail where I’ve been an experienced manager) and to suddenly have time with kids, which I understand some people might not get it, or say its a novelty etc…

But again see it from the other side, to just see my kids more means much more to me than any work thing, even if those kiddies annoying me lol, its still all worth it.

The good thing also with this change is it has allowed me to start this blog, Boo had always challenged me to write about the situations and events in our life’s, along with my hobbies like lego, and gaming. So thus I have… 

New begining

But with all of this I am managing my mind, I don’t want to be that close to the edge again with regards to my mental health, or do I not want to put my family second in whatever I do. I realise it will still be tough, and family life at home will be challenging, the future is going to be weird and different, especially the remainder of the year. But this year has already been a very challenging one.