The best thing about the skill set I have is that I can work anywhere.
As long as I have a reliable internet connection, for most of the last 13 years I have worked from home around small people, around Pete’s work and it’s location, and with employers who were located all around Australia.
There was also that one time, where Pete took on the house husbanding and I went back to work but then another small person and the opportunity for his most recent job came up.
So I had what I thought was a pretty good arrangement:
He would work and his wage would pay the rent and bills and school fees.
I would work 10-15hrs a week and buy myself shoes and the occasional ballet tutu.
I was pretty happy with that arrangement.
But it didn’t take me too long after he’d died to have a lightbulb moment thinking “shit, now I have to pay the rent AND the bills...”
My existing employers were amazing. I dearly loved working for them. But the practical reality my newfound situation wasn’t lost on any of them.
Working from home has it benefits. Mostly, that most mornings after dropping the kids to school, Pete and I would go and have coffee together.
Often afterwards we would just come home and work at our respective office desks in our house, strolling in to one another when lunchtime came round and we queried one another about the options.
Even in week one after his death I knew they would be long, quiet days working from home. And I didn’t think that was going to be a good thing for my mental health.
So the opportunity to work in an office came up.
It remains the best job at the worst time.
The Friday after Pete’s funeral, I was sitting in an office discussing my work capabilities, and when asked to give a demonstrated example of how I work under pressure, I *may* have answered, “I organised my husband’s funeral in 5 days ... does that count?”
So, about 8 weeks after Pete died, I started a new job.
Every day I get up, and show up, and speak to other adults and have coffee and work with people. Except for the days where I can’t. And luckily, there’s only been a few of those.
But on the whole, it’s working, this 5-day-a-week thing. It’s challenging my brain. And forcing me to operate. And making me function. And paying the bills. And helping me buy new shoes ... and wine to get me through the days when I can’t.
(NOTE: I do reference wine a lot. I am not turning myself into an alcoholic. There’s always my mother’s voice in my head from when I had children that goes along the lines of ‘no more than two glasses at home alone... you still need to be able to drive the kids to hospital if something goes wrong’ And I do realise that if I’m downing a bottle of wine a night, alone, with the kids, I’d best be raising that with the GP or the psychologist at our next appointment.)
So, I go to work each day and my work colleagues are over the awkwardness of the start of my year, when some of them, who had no idea about it, walked headlong into the discussion without realising it.
It was like watching a car crash - I could see where the conversation was going, I tried steering them out of it, but couldn’t... then felt terrible for them as I watched the reality come over their faces.
Now, they all just accept I’ll probably make some inappropriate widow jokes, some days need more than one coffee, some days not appear at all, and other days be like any other work colleague who just turns up and does their job and complains about how cold it is outside.
And for the kids - it’s even more exciting because, while I have to work, its just a block away from their school so they can trot to and from school and the office ... and someone has helpfully showed them where the biscuit barrel in the tea room is.
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