To ski or not to ski?

So, I stand at a crossroads. Well, actually, I’m not quite there yet but as I check my metaphorical life map I can see this fork looming in the road up ahead and frankly, it’s a little terrifying.

We’ve all had to make life-changing, or life-forming, decisions but the irony is that these tend to fall naturally towards the beginning of our time in the big bad world. Just like a small child learning how to ski, there’s little that will stop them from heading head-first down the steep, avalanche-likely slope.

At the tender age of 14 or 15 we are asked to narrow our options. So, blindly and with little thought, we select some GCSEs to keep us busy. Then, after two years, depending on how those GCSEs turned out, we may select A Levels. Or we may not. The point is, that we are always blithely unaware of how defining those choices are. When we are barely exploring our teenage years and at a time when nature makes us our most indecisive, fickle and uncertain we are asked to look down the lifelong corridor of open doors and decide which ones we are going to lock up forever.

Of course, the reality is that when we are making those decisions, there are teachers and parents and universities who have developed finely tuned PR skills to make us think that doors are actually opening; more than that, we are actually discovering new doors. What a clever ploy they have going on there and how perfect that we are at our least able to realise how deftly they are manipulating us.

But please don’t misunderstand me. I don’t believe this is a negative thing. It’s a necessary thing; just like puberty in all its horrible glory, and your first break-up, all these things are necessary to get us to define what we want, who we want to be and where we want to end up. Our ignorance is the anaesthetic that makes all these gut-wrenchingly difficult choices manageable. And believe me, they are gut-wrenching because for every child who fearlessly learns to ski without a worry in the world, there is always an anxious and much more wobbly adult hankering nervously behind somewhere.

While the child simply revels in the excitement of the experience, the adult with their oh so important perspective and hindsight suddenly realise the enormity of what they are doing. Does no one else realise that this is a crazy idea? I’ve just attached two pieces of fibreglass (or whatever skis are made from these days) to my feet and planted myself at the top of an unusually steep hill and now I’m supposed to enjoy the ride down while the very real possibilities of serious breakage, or even death, loom over me? Er, I think I’ll sit this one out.

And that’s the cross roads that I find myself at now. Do I sit it out or do I throw myself headlong into something that could be potentially very risky? Is it very risky, or has my anaesthetic simply worn off? Am I skiing with the wind in my hair or am I in the bar drinking vin chaud, warm and comfortable but, frankly, a little bored?

A career change is doubtless a terrifying concept to imagine. For someone who’s nearly thirty, earning decent money and living a comfortable life in London the prospect of giving that up seems crazy and yet, as a 22 year old in the same situation it didn’t bother me at all.

Immediately after graduating from university, I fled to London Town in search of a career. I honestly had no idea what I wanted to do, but there was a boy who lived down there and that was a good enough reason. What other factors were there? I landed myself a Buyer’s Admin Assistant job at a prestigious fashion company in the West End. What a coup! But after a year of office work and scrimping and saving in London, I abandoned it.

Without much more than a second thought I jacked in a job that a million fashion graduates would have chewed their own Vivienne Westwood boots up for. I left. I flitted around for a bit. I did a TEFL qualification. I worked for a ski season in Courchevel. I did some work in a florist. I turned down a job offer at Ralph Lauren (despite the anaesthetic, that does still hurt a little) and I didn’t care. I seemed to have this unflappable belief that it would all work out in the end. Finally, I moved back up North and applied to do my teaching qualification at the University of Leeds and here I am…five years later teaching English in an inner-city London school.

So, what changed? After five years of teaching there’s something in me that’s asking, “Is this all I can do?” It’s not that I hate teaching. I hate elements of it for sure, but all in all, teaching is a pretty decent gig. Yes the workload is excessive. The hours are long. The holidays are great but there’s always work to be done and after what feels like a very long five years, there has not been a lie-in, a Christmas day, a long-hot bath or a run in the park, where I’ve been able to relax, stop thinking about work and say to myself, “I’ve got this under control.” Teaching is a ‘live to work’ profession and I think, I’m looking for a work-to-live job at least for now. At least until I’ve had a rest.

What I did at 22 seems so alien to me now. Can I justify jacking in a job that allows me to live the life I want to live? Can I justify walking away from such a noble profession to be, let’s face it, more selfish? Do I dare to do these things? There’s no doubt about it; I am the shaking, nervous adult standing behind the ballsy child ready to hit the nearest snow park and land some gnarly rides having barely removed his snow equivalent to stabilisers. But what’s the worse that can happen? I’m sure there’ll be wobbles and maybe even the odd fall, there may even be a metaphorical leg-break but it’s unlikely that it will kill me. And, what if it doesn’t work out as smoothly as I hope? Well there’s always the bar and the vin chaud waiting for me.