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 This is my first post in over a year. I think I had actually forgotten I even had a blog. At some point I felt I had covered all the good topics and with nothing new to offer then what is there to write about.  However in exactly thirty days I will be leaving my thirties forever, I am pretty sure that's how growing older works for everyone but still. I am still grasping with the fact that I am about to be forty. I mean I am told I don't look my age and I mostly definitely don't feel it and yet despite all this I find myself hurtling into a new decade. I am not entirely sure this is where I pictured my life at almost forty. Not that I ever spent that much time projecting myself that far ahead but I think on some level I thought I would have it figured out. I don't, not at all. I feel as though I am a much younger person impersonating a fully grown adult and some point someone in my life will have their aha moment and out me as an imposter.  I mean adulting is not always...

For a place that was my home for such a long time, Waterford has a strange feel to it. I don't know if I ever really adopted it as a new place I lived or did I just treat it like the various places I rented in my time there, a temporary living space, no point in buying anything too fancy because I wont be there that long. Its coming up to a year now since I left which also means a year since the break up and I can conclusively say this summer is going better than last even if there are still some feelings attached to both anniversaries.  For some reason, in the time I have been gone, I have developed a weird aversion to the city. Really I should still have some positive feelings lingering there and coming back should allow me to revisit my favourite haunts and yet I have mostly felt a strong desire to stay away.  Initially part of it was about avoiding my ex, the break up in its earlier stages was a lot easier when I mostly pretended he didn't exist. Then we had that b...

Sometimes you have days where even simple things seem impossible. I think this idea is prevalent in my mind because I am coming to the end of a fortnight of night shifts and I feel like every day has been a bit like this. It is possible however that tiredness is skewing my perception of time. I have said before in my blog that from time to time I suffer from depression which comes and goes (thankfully self managed so I consider myself lucky in that respect) and anxiety is my constant companion to one degree or another. Mostly right now my anxiety is about not getting enough sleep. I think I might just have generalized sleep anxiety while on nights and this ironically keeps me from getting as much sleep as I need post night shift. Now some people can cope admirably on very little sleep but I am definitely not one of them. I fall apart and have been known to lose basic adulting skills like cooking and driving for hours at a time. I don't think I realized quite how much I needed g...

I do hope you have not stumbled upon this blog post in a misguided attempt to seek advice on how to cope with night duty. If there's a secret to it then I surely haven't worked it out. I realised recently that I have been working in care just over 3 years now and getting ready for work tonight had me thinking back on my first ever night duty. I was naive in a way that makes me laugh now. I started out as an academic PA and gradually started to take on other clients and somehow managed to hide from the office staff how completely unprepared college had left me for the practical realities of the work. The client I was assigned to work nights with was one of my first ever clients and I had never worked night duty before. I was sent an email detailing the client needs and my role there as a carer. I was down to work 11pm to 7 am and I remember reading it and thinking there wasn't 8 hours of work there so in my bag I packed pyjamas just in case. I never told the other night ...

I think we can all agree that as months go, January kind of sucks for pretty much everyone. It's cold and dark and everyone is poor from Christmas. December is often a month of fun and spending and overindulgence where as January is realising how much you have over indulged and facing up to bills and the prospect of resolutions you will probably never keep. I don't drink anymore so its fair to say every January is a dry January for me now. I don't have that to add to my misery and my junk food run only lasted 10 glorious days before I came to my senses and began my good old sugar detox but I haven't trained in three weeks and I have lost my motivation for pretty much everything so it's fair to say I am feeling the pinch of more than just my jeans. I am not a big fan of January and I know I am not alone here but I am not looking for solidarity. Somehow in some mix of poor timing I find myself paying for every car related thing this month. I have just put m...

Nothing like the year coming to an end to put me in reflection mode. It's become a blogging tradition for me to use this time in December to look back on the year that was and realise how much has changed, some good and some bad, in a mere 12 months. Obviously one of the biggest changes is my relationship of almost four years came to an end. It was a while coming but still quite sad. We left things on good enough terms and the relationship ending was not followed by me being harassed and ending up in hospital from a stress related illness so all being said, it went better than my last break up. I know that's not saying a lot. This was also the catalyst for my other big change for me. After years of making empty threats to leave Waterford city, I finally moved to Kilkenny. I'm living outside the city because that's where I found a house but I have my very own place. There is a slight danger I might become too much of a hermit because I'm really starting to enj...

It's Christmas eve and I will admit I'm feeling a bit of pre Christmas excitement. I've always anticipated Christmas with a child-like glee so I was pretty gutted last year when I found myself on nights for Christmas weekend and missed the big day entirely. I have had a lot of different jobs in the 17 years since I have left school ( just give me a quick moment while I freak out about how old that makes me feel) and this has meant a lot of different working arrangements around Christmas. It's funny how my attitude towards the holidays has changed over the years. I remember when I worked in AOL being unsure one year if I would get 4 or 5 days off together and being very upset because clearly Christmas was ruined. I laugh about it now having since worked many retail jobs where you work right up to Christmas Eve and then find yourself back at work on the 27th. Obviously I'm now in social care which is a totally different ball game and the people we support dont s...

They say you can't pour from an empty cup which is why it's important to take care of yourself. Especially for those of us in caring professions. You can end up giving a lot to your job but if you don't take care of yourself then you will have nothing left to give. Now as someone who cares for others and tends to take far too much of my job home with me I try to particularly mindful of this. Especially as I find the nights (which are thankfully almost over) take even more out of me than caring does. Nights are quite lonely in that you work alone while everyone is asleep and then come home to sleep while the rest of the world is up and about, often feeling to drained to get outside or even manage to string a coherent text message together. This is particularly tough when you live alone like I do now although I didn't get too much minding when I lived with my ex, he somehow expected me to put on my minding hat when I was stuck to the couch whimpering because I was ...

I know my last post was night duty related but seeing as I will be on night duty until Monday morning (when my last shift for the time being finishes) this is my life right now. I will say having done nights I can fully understand why sleep deprivation is used as a form of torture. I have done 5 nights so far (four more to go) but it feels like a lot more and it is fair to say that nights have kind of taken over my life (for now). The thing about nights is that while the whole staying awake at night part is tough. Especially when you have all the physical work done, everyone is asleep and I am too brain dead to do any paperwork in a coherent fashion. That's the bit where you feel as though you might actually die from tiredness and then surprise yourself time and time again by surviving. Then the morning gets going and the busyness keeps you awake until hometime. So you drive home and fall into bed only to find your mind buzzing and you wait for sleep to come. I once tried a tri...

I don't know if you've ever seen the thing online that says I'm not an early bird or a night owl, I'm more of a permanently exhausted pigeon. Well that's me right there. Usually I'm kind of at my best around mid day but after that it all starts to slide.   As you may well be aware, this is the week I started working as a social care worker. It's an exciting but big change for me and I have definitely noticed this week that I am far more exhausted than usual. I know that it's not because the job is more taxing. So far it's been lovely and it feels far more relaxed than where I was based as a health care assistant. I think for me the exhaustion is probably all a mental thing. I'm still figuring out what it means to be a social care worker and I think my brain is in overdrive as I try to work out on a day to day basis whst extra tasks should I be taking on in my role. The other thing for me is that I have noticed, upon reflection, that I ...

So after four years in college and several more years of doing other jobs, I have finally landed my first social care job. For anyone confused because they thought I was already working as a social care worker then allow me a moment to clarify. I have been working as a health care assistant over two years now and then last March I was successful at making my way on to the social care panel ( in the residential facility in which I work). Being on a panel means you will be offered this coveted position at some point in time but you will be waiting. Then in July I got a call offering me a position in a community house and after I weighed everything up I decided to accept. That's when I went back to waiting until two weeks ago when I got word that we had the green light and an opening date. It came around much sooner than I thought and today I finally signed a contract for a permanent social care position. So it's official and they can't take it back now. They are stuck wit...

It seems lately I am all about making big changes or perhaps its a coincidence that it's all happening so close together. Just two months ago I was living in Waterford, unhappily ensconced in a long term relationship and driving up to Kilkenny every day bemoaning my commute. I think change was always on the horizon but I was busy burying my head in the sand and telling myself I would work it out later.  Obviously I am sure you all know by now (unless you have the misfortune to have stumbled upon my blog for the first time just to read this post) that my relationship came to an end and I already had a plan in my place before I had even fully picked up the pieces. Possibly the only benefit of having anxiety. So here I am two months on and actually I am doing pretty good. I am finding that living alone is suiting me and I am really glad I managed to find a space of my own away from the hustle and bustle of the city. I like living near the city but I also need to be able ...

After what feels like a really long time, but in reality has only been a month, I am finally moving to Kilkenny. Tonight will be my last night living with my parents and I am certain once I am feeling less exhausted I will be very excited about this. Its been a strange few weeks between the break up and moving home and it feels like my life has been moving so fast but so slowly at the same time. I am trying to find the positive in all of this and I have decided that Kilkenny will be a brand new start for. A clean slate, my Taylor Swift moment , the old Laura is dead and the new improved version is on the way.  I am going to try and change as many things as I can in order to find this happiness lark that everyone is always talking about. I have already walked out of relationship and prepared to make my home in a city where I know no one bar a few colleagues so that's a pretty decent start. I am also doing my best to commit to a return to training and eating well. Its only been t...

As many of you know I currently work as a Health Care Assistant and will soon be working as a Social Care Worker in the not too distant future. While most people are familiar with the physical aspects of care work, few stop to think what being a professional carer actually entails. I am the type of person who cares too much about everything. Try as I might, I cannot seem to switch this off. I care and I worry and I over think the shit out of everything. While this does have the potential to drive me just a little bit mad, it also makes me good at my job. The trouble with being a natural empath is you feel sorry for the assholes too. That's a paraphrased quote I read somewhere and while it's accurate I can't quite remember where I saw it. While this has been known to have some downsides it has proved helpful to me working as a carer. When working with vulnerable adults it's always good to put yourself in their shoes and think about what they might be experiencing ...

After pretty much abandoning my blog, I felt the time had come to return. I don't quite feel myself when I am not blurting out my thoughts online and clutching a book I am half way through. I have been working as a health care assistant for over two years nw. It's tough and tiring work but I love it. You couldn't drag back to any of the jobs I had before pursuing healthcare if you tried. Ultimately though my goal has always been to get myself a job in social care because that's what I went to college for.  When I changed jobs to work in residential facility for adults with disabilities, that was always my end goal. I was only delighted to get a place on the social care panel in March just gone but maybe a little less delighted when four months passed and I was still just a name on the list. I had hoped to  stay in the house I work now. There is comfort in what you know after all. Plus I work with a fantastic team and we support a really lovely group of individual...

You know you're not really a night person when you find yourself preparing for a night shift as though you're going into battle. In a way I am because I usually get restless legs and an inability to focus around 11pm and I have to give up the good fight and put myself to bed. Except of course when working a night shift as that sort of practice is frowned upon in work. I agreed two nights for a colleague as a favour. Those nights being tonight and tomorrow night and she in turn will cover two of my days but this unfortunately meant I only had today as a break from working all weekend before launching in to them. I haven't worked a night since the month I did over Christmas and I think I have just about recovered from that. I have spent most of the day mentally readying myself. I tried to have a lie in but my body clock was having none of it. I bought extra food so my poor sleep deprived brain wouldn't have to face the outdoors tomorrow day time. I have downloaded g...

Right now my brain is like mush and I am stress eating to beat the band. If you are wondering what exactly has me in this state then sit yourself down and I will try and give you the short version. A few months ago I was offered a position on the social care panel at work. Not totally out of the blue given that I had applied for it and interviewed for it and the whole shebang. At the same time I was asked to a short course on management and I thought why not, future planner that I am. When I turned up at the course I realised it came with a QQI 6( the new fetac ) award and I thought great, that will look lovely on my CV. We got details of the assignments we would complete at the end but I decided not to worry about those because really it was ages away. After two days of the course we had 6 weeks of online learning and that was fine. I completed my learner record as I went along like a good little student. Then we had the last day (Mid April) and we went through the assignments in...

If anyone has some wonderful tips on how to attract luck then I would surely welcome them. Anything I have gotten so far in life seems to have involved a lot of hard work, sweat and certain amount of crying. If luck really is a thing, if we wish to assume that good things come to us while we sit waiting patiently, then I must have been waiting in a queue for something else. I don't tend to win competitions but I obviously have a little hope that I someday might because I still enter them on occasion. I don't play the lotto but if I did I doubt I'd win much. That's because the odds of winning the lotto are so infinitesimal that the majority of people are just contributing weekly to some complete strangers potential wealth but that is another story. The reason I have been thinking of this is because someone recently told me how lucky I was to have successfully gotten a social care job and I actually felt a little bit put out because luck really has nothing to do with ...

Today turned out to be a very good day but I didn't know that waking up. When I woke this morning I initially thought I had been in an accident because everything hurt so much. Then it filtered in to my poor sleep fogged brain that I had returned to the gym yesterday and my muscles were in shock. Getting out of bed and getting dressed was an ordeal. I got myself to work somehow and struggled through the morning. Anything I dropped stayed on the floor unless there was something to assist me to the floor and back up again. I walked like John Wayne and I wasn't as much help as I should have been thanks to my attempts to tackle my chronic lack of fitness. In the middle of all this fun I answered a routine work call. Seeing the Kilkenny number I thought it was the house I worked in as I was out on a errand at the time. Instead it was the work HR department calling to see if I had received my letter. Not to paint myself as too much of a pessimist but in the years since I qualifie...

Here's a question. How come usually I am a reasonably articulate woman who is more than capable of clearly expressing her views but sit me in front of an interview panel and I forget how to compose sentences in recognisable English. No matter how much preparation I put in, in advance, it all kind of falls apart once I start being asked questions. If I was to state two reasons why I am not further along in my career, and I probably need somebody to limit me to two or I'd get a bit carried away, then I would have to say fear (of failure, of not being experienced or qualified enough for the position I have put myself forward for ) and how I come across in interviews. Sometimes I do well and more often I must come across a babbling lunatic but I have often have difficulty telling which ones will get me a call back and which ones will live on in my awkward hall of fame. I may not have much experience in social care at this point in my life but I have a lot of social care inte...