Walking home tonight

I got to remembering coming home on the last train, getting up and catching the first train out some 4 hours later and working my ar*e off for lots of years, working 12 or 15 hours a day, every day for years and years and years. 

Where did it get me?  You know that I believed I actually missed that life style.  I was young, my children were tiny, I worked hours and hours and I didn't do badly really.  There was money for an extension to the house and I did all those "good things" you are meant to do as the bread winner and what exactly have I got out of that "deal"?

Sure - I have great children - hardly children - young adults - working - at school and university - doing what THEY want to do and knowing that they can do that without let or hindrance or limitation.  There's a house, cars in the drive, clothes on everyone's backs, food in the cupboards and everything else and somehow - I'm not satisfied with this lot.   Am I a failure?  No.  What exactly is the problem?

I wondered tonight as I walked back retracing and remembering those steps was it all worth it?  Could I have got here without all that strain and stress, the long hours etc?  Yet, I think I actually enjoyed it - the buzz of making money and being in control of part of my own destiny.  The fast and furious world of the London financial world during the big bang and after.  I threw myself at my job and I loved it.  I enjoyed the power and the privilege, controlling and dealing in millions and doing something worthwhile and yet - you've never heard of me or know what I've done.  

The struggle these days is that I long for the energy and buzz I had then but do you know what?  I look back now and wonder whether I was actually that much better off.  Did I have a better time, or better work environment and a better life (we know the answer is probably not).  Life has taken on a different meaning these past few years and I just don't appreciate that slowing down and "jsut doing a job" may actually be what is best for me at the moment.

Mind you I have never been "normal" and maybe that is also a factor.

Strange what runs through your mind when you walk home late...