new year, new plan

So how many of you have been thinking of quitting your job and running away to live in the country of late? I certainly have. I am so not loving being back at work in this bustling metropolis.

It’s only been three days since the festive holidays officially ended and in those three days, I’ve transformed from a totally chilled out, well –rested, and happy individual, into a tense, moody, and exhausted wreck. I’m not sure if it’s the lack of sleep that’s the biggest problem or a come-down from my Christmas sugar high, but the lack of Quality Street combined with switching from a good ten or twelve hours a night (plus the occasional afternoon nap) to a measly six does not a happy-Carrie make. More like hari-kari.

I have resolved that the only way to get through January alive is to look ahead in excited anticipation of February’s arrival. Yes, that freezing cold and dreich month that most of you dread is my favourite month of all. And why? Because it’s my birthday – and best of all, unlike all my oldest and dearest friends, I won’t be turning 30 this year. Hoorah!

I’ve a whole year of my twenties left and I plan to make the most of it – starting with my party to end all parties: an 80s-birthday-Valentine’s-prom extravaganza. There’s to be big frou-frou dresses, bowls of punch, much drunken dancing, and hopefully lots of lovely boys in tuxes rocking out to Billy Idol and The Cure. I cannot wait.

Plus to add to the joy that is February, my new position of Travel Writer on the mag is kicking off with a weeklong press trip to Vegas. Vegas! It’s too good. Quite clearly I don’t have thousands of pounds to gamble away at the roulette table, but you know who does? All the rich, older, handsome men crowded into the casinos throwing the cash from their bulging wallets around. I just hope they’re not all dreadful fat Americans with Hawaiian shirts and trucker caps. Eurch.

The other good thing about keeping myself so busy in February is that it will distract me from the fact that I am chickening out of the promise I made to myself last year – that if I was still working at this wedding magazine by my 29th birthday, I would quit my job and move to France to write my much-anticipated (by me) first novel.

It’s not that I hate my job – with trips to Vegas, not to mention all the free cake on offer, it’s not half bad – I just don’t feel like it’s taking me anywhere career-wise. According to my teenage dreams, I was supposed to have written a bestseller by now. (I was also supposed to be married with my own home, at least one bouncing baby, and enough money in the bank to never have to worry about whether or not I can afford those fabulous new shoes…but lets not go there.)

This year brings the perfect opportunity of escape – my parents are flitting to France in March to a pretty little house in the middle of nowhere, and there’s a room in there chosen specifically for this purpose. Mum says as soon as she set foot in it and saw the beautiful view of the Pyrenees out the window, she said: “This is the perfect place for Carrie to write her book.” But the bottom line is – I’m too scared. Scared of throwing away a perfectly good job for a pipe dream that could amount to nothing; scared of getting there, sitting down in front of my laptop and being unable to produce a word; scared of opting out of the rat race then not being able to get back in.

The other thing keeping me here is the glorious fact that I have found a wonderful new home, with three lovely individuals, one of whom just rang me to tell me they’re all cooking me a special welcome dinner on Friday night to celebrate my arrival. Awww.

So, all things considered, I’ve decided to give it another year here in London then reassess. With any luck 2009 will be the year, I become an uber-successful writer who can afford to pack in the nine-to-five for a profitable freelance career. Thus allowing me the time to get started on that book – and to re-introduce my afternoon nap habit.

Moving on

Everyone I know has a scary age. My friend Sara’s is 35 because that’s as late as she’s willing to leave it before she has kids. Carine’s was 30 - she couldn’t stand the idea of leaving her twenties and still being single (fortunately she fell in love just a few months before). For me, it has always been 27. And in 3 weeks, I’m there.

When I was about 12, I had my whole life mapped out on a timeline and by 27, I was going to have it all – the loving husband, the beautiful kids, the perfect home and the dream job. Things were on track for a while. At 21, I graduated. At 22, I fell in love. At 23, I found the love nest and at 24, I applied to teaching college.

Then there were a few hiccups. I had my heart broken. I had to move out of my home. And I was turned down for teaching college. After all that, I shut down in a lot of ways and I decided to do the only thing I still had a passion for – writing.

As each year has gone past, and the scary age has loomed closer, I’ve become more and more worried about ticking all those boxes. I might have been pursuing the writing dream but the job didn’t seem to be any closer, and without the guy, how could I have the kids and the family home? Everything seemed to be getting further and further away.

The path I was on took me to London, but as I’m sure a lot of you know, I wasn’t happy there either. I used to devote most of the words in this column to complaining about every aspect of my life down there - the vacuous social life, the over-crowded buses, the pittance of a wage and the astronomical rents. I thought I wanted something more real - a nice flat, a decent salary, a normal job, and my family & friends to be just a quick bus ride away.

So I came home. I got the flat, the job, the salary. And I was ecstatic…for all of a week. Then I realised that wasn’t what I wanted at all.

Something shifted in me in the time that I was away but I wouldn’t let myself feel it. I convinced myself that I was immune to London and all its fake lustre. I was so busy telling myself it was all wrong and I wasn’t cut out for the world of the glossy magazine, that I couldn’t accept there might be life out with Leith, that there might be an alternative plan to the one I’d set out when I was just a kid. But coming home meant I couldn’t deny it anymore. I need something bigger now, something grander, something that no one can ever take away from me. I need to go back to London and do it properly.

So that’s exactly what I’m doing. In a little over a week I head back down. And I have a funny feeling that this time it might be permanent.

It took coming home to realise what I really wanted and it has taken coming home to let go of the things I had put so much value on before.

I look at my friends now who are settling down, having kids, getting married, buying houses (and believe me they’re all doing it) and I know I’m not ready for that yet, or more importantly, that I don’t want it yet.

But while I might not be in any rush for the man, the kids, the house and the white picket fence anymore, it’s comforting to know that I managed to tick at least one box before I hit my scary age - I got the dream job.

Exactly four days before my 27th birthday, I start as Features Writer at a bridal magazine. I can’t quite believe that someone’s actually going to pay me to write.

Now why the bloody hell does it have to be about weddings?!