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“So, you’re semi-retired now, Roger,” said a school parent with a slight smirk on his face.
“No, I’m between jobs,” I replied slightly embellishing the truth of the situation.
Quickly, I changed the subject and returned to my lonely spot on the school playground, slightly out of my depth and not quite sure which circle of parents to join in with the latest topics of conversation.
This was me, Roger Kendall, a Senior Quantity Surveyor approaching the half-century of my life and wondering if I had completely messed up my future career options over the last few weeks.
It all started after my wife (at the time girlfriend) had encouraged me in 2005 to quit my job and travel and escape the (beer) bubble of my hometown of Burton On Trent. A year later and the seed had been sown that at any point the world shall not stop rotating just because “Roger Kendall has left town”!
A marriage and two beautiful daughters later—with a mortgage thrown in for good measure—I had completed many of my bucket list items of things to do in my life. What I hadn’t planned for was the time spent in the work office environment watching life’s clock ticking down the minutes and seeing both my daughter’s most important years passing by.
Amber was 11 and moving up to ‘big school’ (I’m still confused by this and how the school years are all split!) and she was about to attend her Prom night. Elsie was 9 years (yes we had some fun 9 to 11 years ago!) and working hard following in her sister’s footsteps, and at the same time carving out her own niche at school.
Everything was perfect in our life.
My wife had been given the good news that the outlaw’s small but perfectly formed import business was available to purchase, and we had discussed working together from next year and making a go of it. This would give us more control over parental duties and would help us share in the school trips and the important parent days that every parent wants to attend. Oh, yes, this old boy even managed to win the Dad’s race on Sport’s Day, but let’s not brag in public!
I requested a part-time position with my employer so I could partly work at the new business, but the reality was that I actually just wanted to see my girl’s blossom into confident and independent young women.
Part-time is never part-time.
I worked Monday to Wednesday but it could never work with the business I worked in (a national house builder). Watching the long days with the only highlight being a life-reducing takeaway at lunchtime, followed by the war of the lunchtime sandwich vans. My waist was getting bigger and my life was getting shorter.
One particular day, I knew enough was enough. This wasn’t quitting but being unselfish to help support my wife and family, and to ensure I spent the best days of my children’s lives being there for them. Also, as a sandwich parent (stuck between elderly parents and children), I could use the time to spend with my remarkable Mum (She will read this!) and give back time she had spent with me whilst lying awake at night as a child and being scared by the monster in the cupboard (our heating cylinder).
My notice was given and due to my part-time contract. I only had to give a week’s notice to my employer. Mc Flurries for the entire department purchased! I knew this was the last time I would be eating such calorie-laden food required just to get us all through the monotony of our long working days.
Three weeks later and I can’t honestly say what I feel about the new me.
33 years of working long hours with pressured timescales and I’m still looking over my shoulder and continually updating my Excel budget spreadsheets (It’s a Surveyors prerogative) to ensure we have enough money to pay the bills. My wife is happy as I get to help with the girls and we have more quality time to spend together as a family.
We have bought a tent for all our future holidays and I peruse the local Co-Op shelves for the items with yellow stickers on to reduce our shopping bills.
The highs, however, are pretty high on the emotional scale: Watching my daughter Elsie on piano at school playing ‘Human’ and the children singing along to her performance have left a permanent scar in my right cheek which was needed to stop me bawling my eyes out in front of the other parents. Seeing Amber this week perform in her end of junior school play will probably scar my other cheek so I am at least sporting a matching pair.
As my friend said to me once, “work is all a bit of a game Roger.” I never understood that statement but I hope spending time with my family in the future will at least feel like a happy game worth playing.
After travelling in 2005, not much had changed apart from me on our return.
I can’t see into the future but I’m hopeful that, as another year passes, nothing much will have changed apart from the most import thing to me and that is my relationship with my family.–
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Photo credit: Pixabay
Thank you Roger, very touching and relatable lesson in life.