Life is a Highway - it’s the journey, not the destination

today’s been a bit of a thinking day. I get days like today every so often, where I spend quite a lot of it just sitting and contemplating how our lives are going to go. I like having plans and this is my problem I guess! All the following is a bit random, just trying to put things down in the hope it will help I guess.

James’ job isn’t helping really with it all, I’d like for him to have a nice job where he enjoys being with the people he works with, isn’t shit on every day and pays a decent wage that we could eventually buy a house. he hates this new job, so I’ve no idea where we will end up on that road. I try and help him out, but tbh he’s a bloody nightmare. Ages ago he decided he wanted to be an ambulance driver so little old me finds loads of stuff out about it on the net, presents it to him, he looks all interested and proceeds to do *nothing* about it at all. Repeat at least half a dozen times. So when he complains and wants out, I help by finding a site with jobs, but I resent having to do any more legwork. But then I feel bad about that, I mean I am at home. Maybe I should help a bit more. argh!

So anyway, that’s a crap bit. James also has high hopes and expectations of me on the job front. he thinks I’d be able to go out and get a job with the click of my fingers, and a good job at that so puts a bit of a guilt trip on me for not working. But the thing is, I can’t. I may have got Highers, which is more than he or a lot of his mates got, but really they don’t count for anything at all do they?? And I have no experience doing any worthwhile jobs that would lead to a well paid career as he expects of me. Honestly, he’s so deluded. I could go out and work and sometimes I want to, so that come 10 years from now I’m not some housewife/mum who’s after a school dinner lady job or something. Know what I mean? I keep waiting for the day when I know what it is I want to be in life. I never knew, ever. Will I ever???

I wonder also about our intended year out travelling. It won’t be for 2 years now as the wedding took a lot of our savings away, but I still want to do it. But I worry about the effect it could have on the kids. I wonder if they’ll feel too uprooted and when the bloody hell will we ever settle down anywhere?? If we do that we’ll be back 3 years from now in another rented house, trying to get another job and waiting till we’ve been in it long enough to even think about a mortgage. I dunno. It’s such a wonderful idea, but I do worry.

But then say we decide not to (or even fast forward till we come home and this will still apply). How on earth are we ever going to afford a house, ever???? Everything is so out of our reach at the moment. Even if James manages to get into HGV driving which is better paid, we’re still going to struggle to get in an area we’re happy in. I really like where we are now, although the house is way too small, as are all new builds I reckon (I walked past 2 open garages the other day and not one had a car in it, all jam packed with stuff - cos there are no damn cupboards!!), but it’s at least twice what I think we’d ever get in a mortgage (actually not 100% sure, been a while since we mortgaged anything!!). I don’t want be living in the middle of a council estate in the city, it’s not ever in my grand plan!!

I guess I’m having an off period in it all. There’s times when I think to myself that it doesn’t matter that we’re not on the housing ladder, that it doesn’t matter that we don’t have a place to put down roots cos we have each other and so long as the kids have a family that love them that will be all that matters eh? When we moved down from Scotland I was so upbeat about us not being tied anywhere, we could do what we want. But we still can’t. It doesn’t work like that, we have the kids to consider and I’m not sure it will help them if we decided to just up and leave a house with no thought to the future.

So although of course nothing needs to be decided straight away, I like to know what we’re going to do, which way we’ll jump and how we’ll manage what we plan. It never goes to plan though, so why I bother I don’t know!