I got bored of being sad and waiting to die of this thing, so instead of thinking about how much of a failure I was and how much of a disappointment I'd be, despite all this grandstanding about 'my legacy' and how important you are, I thought I'd just shut up and get off my fucking arse.
So I started to stop wallowing. Three years is a long time in a wallow. First I had my umpteenth no-change scan, then I researched the implications of either working while claiming benefits (tldr: don't) and coming off benefits (tldr: do, for the Right Thing.) Having established that what I wanted was part-time, home-based, writing-centric, facilities or sales-y and ideally matched the days you were in nursery (currently Mon-Weds) that did some pretty major winnowing of the field.
Then, I had a second revelation. Let's pretend I'm really good at everything I've ever done. Let's not lie, per se, but let's just play this as if, at the age of 42, I've seen some shit and done some good things. Work-wise, I mean. I didn't want a job that forced me to work too hard; I didn't want to work at all, actually, but I do like nice things, and I don't trust our one-salary-will-be-fine aesthetic. That means we're forever one sweep of an HR biro away from ruin, so my return to work, hopefully with a reputable company, not a bunch of useless, overdrawn bottom-feeder fuckers like Interserve, would alleviate any concerns on that score.
So, I started casting about. Neil, for his sins, advised caution, as working more than 14 hours a week and/or earning £122 a month (ha!) can get all benefits irrevocably stopped, and could even trigger an interview under caution and the involvement of the HMRC's Benefit Cheat Legbreaking Department. We don't want to fuck with them. I asked them for advice, and they were... completely lovely, helpful and supportive. Bouyed by this, I continued to apply.
I thought I'd go freelance, to be honest, as the hysterically high rates of pay available would mean I'd only really need to work three months of any year to match Tam's salary, but then the lure of a pension, health cover and general miscellaneous niceties took over, and I headed back into CorporateLand.
Holy shit, payrates have gone up since I was away. Also, the pandemic we're all bored by now has (a) stopped all work being done and (b) made the likes of me very, very employable. Oh, and also (c), working from home is now the preserve of do-anything, go-anywhere future-grabbers, rather than pajama-clad, hungover document-botherers of yore. The unshaven have inherited the Earth! News has finally reached the antideluvian oligarchs we are paid by that we don't, in fact, all have to sit in our designated chairs for our designated hours to do our designated jobs any more.
And, aaaand - mobile communications have, for the first time since the fucking Pony Express was a thing, actually kept pace with requirement. Microsoft took about ten minutes off from implanting us all with 5G receivers or something to roll out Teams, and Office 365 has put it's 'give it a sec, it's thinking' phase behind it, and now pretty much actually works, eerily but seamlessly, fucking just about anywhere. Hats off, eggheads!
In short all the things Tam and I were bitching about and criticised for when we moved to rural Devon in 2014 - absurdly slow, VPN-crippled internet, not being seen wandering around in Canary Wharf, being too expensive to shout at in person, having to be trusted by our overlords who, themselves, made a packet on expenses and didn't have to leave home to do it) are now irrelevant. In effect, they are now irrelevant because they suddenly became crushingly and overwhelmingly relevant to the aforementioned business-wanker oligarchs. Once the high-ups couldn't stride into an office to Get Shit Done because doing so might make them ill, they had to Get Shit Done Virtually. And some of them, I'd wager, didn't like that, because they didn't know how.
After all, you don't need £300 shoes to go upstairs, log in and fire up a spreadsheet. You just have to Get Shit Done. All the artifice - the suits, the 'picking things up next time you're in the office', the endless meetings about previous meetings. All gone. All. Gone. Now, it's just you, a computer, deadlines, online planners, various other systems, and the view you pay a mortgage for. I like it. We were right. Now, everybody can see why we got the hell out of the city, and they're all doing it.
In a climate like this, even with life-changing digital mobility, I was asking for a lot. But, things started to appear. I was first romanced by Atos, a massive 'professional services' company - which means they do dull things with spreadsheets extremely well, and then charge their customers for the result. I did three virtual interviews there, but they were very multinational, and the idea of me returning, slightly reluctantly, to work, only to be 'shared' across several timezones, with bosses in two timezones, didn't really appeal. I turned their £35k, three days a week down, mentally.
Then I had an email from A lovely woman called Elle, who worked at Sage, the accountancy/payroll/HR people. Elle is lovely. So is her boss, Daniel. So is his boss, Alex. This last reminds me of no-one more than Rob, if Rob had cut his hair and been to Cambridge. They're lovely. Being a person with literally nothing to lose, I just chatted through the first interview, and thought nothing of it. The second, more decisive one was a bit more stressful, but I knew I had it in the bag. I landed a job worth almost twice what Interserve were offering me last time I was well, once you count commission, and once I get my head around the people, systems and general 'ness' of it all, I'll be golden. I fucking love it, and it's the reason we're happier, more generous people.
It's not just about the money either. Your Uncle Tim once said that 'money isn't real. Money is the absence of worry.' He's right. We've doubled our income, sure, but we've also guaranteed that, whatever comes, either for you or anyone else, we're equipped to deal with it.
For your part, you're bouncing along pretty happily at the moment, I'd say. Still a bit flighty, still potentially needing the soothing attentions of the SEN team at preschool and potentially about to go down with chickenpox, but getting there, generally.
Like I say, whatever comes, we're OK with it, and we love you. You are incredibly bright, a fast learner, a bad listener, a music lover - your favourite is Here Comes The Sun - and you're an engineer. An inventor. A creator. A schemer and a dreamer. You make me so fucking anxious sometimes, I can barely watch, but that's probably my thing, not yours. You can be demanding, rude, obtuse, violent, passionate, focused, loving, attentive, needy, poorly and well, all in the same hour. I find it exhausting, but let me state this for the record, I LOVE YOU for being so completely you. You're unique, more than anything.
I worry about most things. I am, as your mother said recently, 'a very anxious person,' partly because I have a lot of factors in my life that could cause it to derail horrendously at any moment, and partly because of the other thing, but one of my main anxiety-multipliers is the fear of the future that comes from not being able to predict, or control, who you are or how you'll get on in life. If you're on the autism spectrum, or have ADHD, or Aspergers, or whatever - I don't give a shit about that. I do, however, give a shit about the kind of life you'll lead, and how my presence in it, and subsequent absence from it, will affect you in the longer term. That sounds arrogantly like your Mum, Grandad, Nanna and Grandad Mike and Neil won't have any impact, which of course they will, but I won't be involved, and that saddens and scares me.
I don't know how you're going to get on. But nobody does. I worry because you might not conform. But I hate conformists. Conformists are afraid of their own ideas. If I was a conformist, I'd have stayed at Paragon, on £11k. I left Paragon, spent seven months out of work, and went to Dennis, doubling my money in the process. I was 22 years old. Twenty fucking two! Be brave, my little man. Life is long. Make it interesting if you can, eh?
