B-EXIT.......Thursday=resignation day

After much deliberation today I decided to hand in my resignation at work. As of November I will no longer be a Print designer at C&A(!!!!!!!!)

Now I can hear you all piecing things together from my previous blog posts featuring projects I have been working on in my "spare time"... yeah they were all for job interviews....job interviews where I didn't get the job.....but still its nice that companies are even interested enough in you to want to see a project(notice how I'm trying to put a positive spin on this). Recently I have had job interviews/done projects for/been turned down by Tally Weijl(Switzerland), Bershka(Spain)and H&M(Sweden) suffice to say I am thoroughly exhausted by the fashion and retail industrys' exhaustive interviewing process. I have been looking for a replacement job for around 3 months and I did not expect to find it so hard....particularly now that I have so much more experience, but it seems like companies are being increasingly careful with who they are hiring and how they are spending their budgets, BUT as a very wise man once said:

I am trying to remind myself that I can only see a limited section of my life, I have no idea what the future holds....what might seem disheartening now could lead to something great...hopefully...I will keep you all posted regardless.

For the first time in my life I am leaving a job with no replacement to move on to, this scares me a little(okay A LOT). Ideally someone will miraculously hand me a well paid print design role in the UK in the next 3 months...*hint hint to anyone out there recruiting- I would like to move to Manchester or London please*  Failing this I am going to take a whack at setting up my own business and actually commit to it. I will also be doing this on the side even if I do secure a job. Although I am not 100% sure of my business plan yet. Recently I've been working on some wedding artwork for a friend(see below) and I've been getting a lot of positive feedback with several other friends asking me to work on commissions for them too....so this is something I want to factor in to my business plan. I basically want to create illustrations/prints/patterns/textiles that matter to people and inject an extra bit of happiness into their lives. I also have another colouring book commission for an American Publishing company so that should be fun....baby steps ...but still....steps ;)

I would also quite like to get back in to Textile print freelancing so if anyone reading this knows of any freelance openings(in the UK or internationally) please feel free to contact me on here or on LinkedIn- Rebecca Lois Burns. I am hoping that, if I don't get a full time job somewhere in the UK I will be able to use the time to really focus on my blog.

As much as the idea of not having a reliable monthly paycheck petrifies me, the idea of a life without creativity and passion scares me far more and I know that if i stay in my current role this is what will happen. When giving advice to friends regarding jobs I generally say this "if 3 out of 5 working days you're hating your job, you need to leave. If you are wishing your life away trying to get to the weekend so that you won't be at work, you need to leave." It's time I started taking my own advice. 

When working in a creative job role, where your hobbies are merged with your 9-5, you need to have passion and if your day job is removing this and reducing your creativity instead of enhancing and encouraging it then you can reach burnout point. This is my current situation. For the past few months I have been coming home from work, sitting down to draw and finding myself with no ideas, no passion and no inspiration. This is anathema to me. Trapped creativity, where there is so much raw emotion but no outlet to express it, is an absolute nightmare. It leads to frustration and negativity and a massive dip in creative confidence. 

When trying to decide whether to hand in my resignation, on some good advice from a close friend, I decided to make a pros and cons list. Usually this doesn't work for me as I have an irritating tendency to try and make the lists the same length, which obviously defeats the point. However this time, I was very strict with myself and quickly realised my reasons for staying were far outweighed by my reasons to leave. My main reasons for staying were my lovely friendship group, my (almost)perfect apartment and a fear of feeling like a failure upon returning. None of these reasons are particularly strong. Real friendship is not diminished by location, my apartment is not completely perfect(it has no bath,no washing machine and a teeny tiny kitchen) AND moving back to the UK does not have to feel like a career backtrack- it's just a new challenge in a different direction.

My lovely Brussels family/bunch of absolute nutters.

There are things I really love about my life here; the freedom of living as an Expat, the friendships I have made here, the ease at which I have been able to travel, my apartment and the thrill of living in a different country....but Belgium will never feel like my home. I miss being able to overhear people's conversations on public transport, being able to help people with directions and having light-hearted banter with locals in bars. 

I also miss the prospect of going on spontaneous dates/any dates at all. I have been here over a year and the few dates that I have dared to go on have been horrific, to the extent that my friends are now fairly convinced that I should write a book of dating anecdotes "Becky's bad dates: Britain to Brussels"...I would share some of the stories on here but my mum and nanna are my most avid readers ;) and the more humorous dating stories are not for their eyes...suffice to say that the best Belgian date I had was probably when a boy took me for a beer and we sat on a bench in the street(it turns out that It's called going 'dutch' for a legitimate reason) I am aware that sounded sarcastic...it was not- that really wasn't the worst of the bunch. Another memorable,and not too inappropriate, date story was the one I went to on Valentines day which lasted 30 whole minutes. From the point of meeting the guy was staring at my mouth trying to lip read to understand what I was saying.....I left promptly to go and get a Valentines evening takeaway...for one.... hardly a high point of my dating life. I find myself actually craving the bad dates I had in the UK because at least then, even if you aren't attracted to your date, you can still attempt a conversation with them. 

So there is my life update- I am quitting and moving back to the UK. Germany and Brussels have been a great adventure but I miss my family and friends, I miss dating, and, in an oddly patriotic way, I miss my home country. On that note..... I am going on holiday- my Italian roadtrip awaits ;)