I've started seeing a career advisor, one of those people who, while not holding a keyring full of jingling keys that open lots of doors to lots of different careers, should be the one to see the best of me and gently ease me out of this no man's land working limbo. The guy is nice. In fact, he is more than nice. He is very level-headed, open and sensible. He has many years worth of career transition experience, as well as a decade spent as a head-hunter. I've only seen him twice and he has already sussed me out pretty well, not simply because I am no mystery to anyone once I start prattling on but because, and credit to him, he looks and acts like Good Listeners look and act; with eyes fixated in the distance, sometimes I cannot even tell whether he is in the room with me or not, but as it turns out, he has listened and grasped everything I told him really nicely.
Except he is being sensible and I cannot deal with sensible at the moment. In fact, I am not sure I will want to deal with being sensible ever again, mostly because I do not want to wake up at his age and regret not having been brave, not having pursued the activities that would have transformed my working life from just a facet of an otherwise opaque crystal, into the sparkling bit of magic that only the arts, carefully blended with passion, can create. Before I left today I promised that I would start looking at jobs in retail and PR, even though I feebly protested that I do not want any of these jobs. And so it was another one of those occasions whereby I left a meeting with a heavy heart and heavier legs, when I went out into the windy streets of my beloved Manchester and wandered aimlessly for a further three hours, which brought the parking tally to a very respectable £ 8.70.
I don't know what I'll do with my life, but one thing is for sure: whatever my very sensible career advisor has to suggest in his multiple fits of pragmatism, I can tell you that retail and PR are not the path to this girl's promised land and I know this even before I start looking.
