Ok, so I know it’s been a while. There has been A LOT going on. Wow. Life really comes at you fast when you really are not prepared for it. This is going to be super rambly and very unedited so if you see a typo or a sentence that isn’t perfect just roll with it.
This time last year I was working at a job I hated, I was just coming out of my seasonal depression. I cried a LOT. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. I felt stagnant, like I wasn’t going anywhere in life, and frustrated because my depression was exhausting and there wasn’t anything that seemed to be helping other than the sunshine that was slowly starting to peak through.
Fast forward to now, I’ve decided on a new career and am in the process of training for it. I’m planning a wedding, I moved house, I have a new job. I’ve done a complete 180 from where I was this time last year to now. Which is amazing, but also very overwhelming because it seems like there’s always something for me to be worried about.
So first things first – my mental health. Holy wow am I in a much better mental space than I was last year. I think I’ve always suffered mildly with seasonal depression, but it wasn’t something I’d ever actually figured out/come to terms with until last winter which was my worst season yet. I just thought that was my winter life now. It was horrible. Literally I cried at least 4 times per week and had at least 1 monthly full on sob fest over something that didn’t require a sob fest. Having now experienced this winter in a much better head space, I now realize that it was so bad because I despised my job – something I didn’t realize the extent of until I left. It was like a weight had being lifted.
During my time at my old job, I realized that I didn’t want to go into the field that I thought I did (Kinesiology related), as I didn’t want to go to school for another 3-4 years just to get into a job that didn’t pay me minimum wage, I didn’t want to work under someone for the rest of my life, and I didn’t want to be a personal trainer. So the first step was coming to terms with the fact that I did 4 years of intense post secondary education for that I thought was nothing. Second was then figuring out what the fuck I was actually going to do with my life.
So one day I was chatting about my predicament with a friend and she suggested firefighting. It’s not really a career I’d ever considered before to be honest. My dad always said I’d be perfect in the “forces” but all that ever sprang to mind when he said that was the army, police, or a paramedic/ambulance driver of some sort – not sure why firefighting never crossed my mind.
Anyway so I didn’t think much of it, and then a few days later my fiance said something about how I’d be great at firefighting… he had no idea of the conversation I had had with my friend a few days prior. Now I’m not a spiritual or religious person or anything but that had to be a sign? That I’d just been totally missing out on considering this career because it had just never crossed my mind? And people obviously thought it was a good choice for me because they had mentioned it? twice? in the same week??
So I did some googling, and turns out that firefighting has my bloody name written all over it. Would have been lovely to know that coming out of highschool so I didn’t pop myself into $25,000 debt in school loans but IT’S FINE!!!
So, I set myself the goal of saving enough money to start my firefighter education in January 2019. It was an online course that I could complete in my free time, in the comfort of my own home, and meant that I could continue working full time. So I started saving. At this point I was still at my old job, as well as working part time in retail (a job which I’d had for 4 years at that point), and my plan was to continue doing that until the New Year, then I was going to quit my part time job and continue at my old job while doing my online course at the same time.
I was fully committed to staying at a job I hated until something happened there that made me realize I had to get out ASAP. So this was phase one of my crazy last 7ish months. Thankfully a full time management position came up at my retail job around the same time and I moved into the position so that I could quit my other job.
So then I heard that the city next to the one I lived in was recruiting volunteer firefighters… and what better way to get experienced for the job… than doing and training for the actual job? So I went to the recruitment meeting and turns out I needed to live actually in the city to be able to apply. So bitch, we moved.
We moved and then the hiring process came to a halt due to some things on their end. So then I was plagued with the guilt that I’d just moved my family to another city (by family I mean fiance and cat), for no reason. Then the process started again and then the little “you’re not even going to get hired” voice came into my head as well. If you know my I stress and over think about everything so you can imagine to disaster zone that my head was.
BUT, after all that. I got hired. I start training in the middle of May. I’m a volunteer firefighter. I’m at the beginning of what I hope will be a long and happy career. I get to use my physical abilities to help people – not in the way I originally thought (personal training), but my degree has still come in handy for me haha. It just goes to show that if you put your mind to something, and you take the steps necessary to make it happen, you will get where you want to go.
I hope that I can keep my blog updated with my progress in training, the things I’m learning, what my experience of the process has been like… everything.
Oh… I also got engaged through the thick of all this too so ya girl has also been planning a wedding… that’s over seas… planning a wedding is a lot more ridiculous than you would think. Seriously. I wish I was rich and I’d just hire a wedding planner to do everything for me honestly. It’s confusing and expensive RIP.
Anyway that’s it. My little ramble and life update. I’m hoping to get back to posting on here semi consistently again. I’m not going to have a schedule, it’ll mostly just be posting whenever I can… but I promise it’ll be more consistent than it has been!
If there’s anything you’d like to see me write about, please don’t hesistate to comment and let me know!
Until next time
xx