Fight the Loop

I happily found my headphones this morning so I wore them as I took my dog for his early morning walk. The first song that started from my shuffled playlist was Unchained Melody by the Righteous Brothers:

This song, heard right in your head, first thing in the morning as you step out into a beautiful day, is simply sublime. His voice so clear, the passion so strong and lovely.

As I heard its highest moments I thought I am going to have to put this on loop. It’s just too beautiful.
Then I got busy crossing the road and the song changed, and it was Man on the Moon by REM. And then it was Happy, by Pharrell Williams. And it went on, and then I had four Muse songs in a row which brought my heartbeat to such a paroxysm that I had to almost wish they’d stop but i didn’t really because they were awesome.

It is isn’t difficult to see the parallel with life. Of course you get in a place where things are comfortable, where all is pretty good and is just lovely, and you want to keep pressing repeat. I had that in my previous job, which I only just quit last Thursday. People around me I liked, a job that was clean and interesting and safe. A constant flow of youth that you couldn’t help but admire for their professionalism. At their age I was tearing across the world, getting into trouble I often would have been grateful to have avoided and yet sought out constantly.
Now, however, I feel something new. I feel all of that has all come to an end. This is now the beginning of what it will have to end up being. When I’m sixty, I must have achieved my dream. All my previous life was the foundation; that’s been set, it is now for the construction. Ready or not, here I come.

Today I have been looking at the different options: self-employed again? My own Ltd company? Rent some space, have the translating, the internet cafe, and the bookshop all rolled into one?

As I sit and listen to the videos on the very useful site my friend directed me to (although the look is vaguely fascist and excessively conservative for my taste), I feel my decision is already made for me: I have already done the self-employment thing, been there done that. I live in one of the most incomprehensibly and unjustifiably expensive cities in the UK, Cambridge, and as long as we’re here for my husband’s work (want to hire him elsewhere? He’s very very good!) I cannot hope to afford any extra space. So Company it will have to be. I will need funding though, hence the research, as I have not a single penny put by, and I wish to be different than other translating agencies and pay a translator immediately or at least reliably: I know from first-hand experience how important that is.

While I explore, I change my websites, change my addresses… why not, I like random, and nothing is set in stone yet.
Keep out of the temptation of running the loop on something you feel is good for you. keep fresh, keep reinventing yourself, keep experimenting. Mediocrity is the killer of the soul.

In the meantime, if you have a penchant for books, and speak and write in two languages, at least one of them like it’s your most treasured possession, write to me: writervalentina (at) gmail (dot) com.