Apologies for the introspection - I'm now one week into redundancy. More will doubtless follow but I've not forgotten that there's a whole world in crisis and injustice either.
Pop-psychology would have it that being made redundant is something like being bereaved. Having been through that too recently I have to say 'it was only a job - only a job'.
It is hard to shake off being defined by your job so when you take the definition away you can't help but feel empty. But then again, I always cut a pretty unlikely - if not downright bizzarre - figure in my old job and felt like an imposter as a 'senior manager'.
And my life - I hope - always had more dimensions - as my profile description says; 'biker. socialist. martial artist - in no particular order. It's probably no accident that I didn't include what I did to pay the bills.
And on that subject - I'm really not sure whether I want to go on doing the same thing: When I went to my mum's funeral I was struck by how people I didn't know came along - they had been her pupils over the years and were now adults. And in her lifetime there must have been literally thousands of others like them. But I'm damned sure none of my clients from work would come to my funeral. And my lasting legacy would be mountains of now-discarded print.
Easy to say whilst I still have a bit of my pay-off to live off of. And I don't know if I could hack it as a teacher. But it makes you think.
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