Being a bear of little brain, I had this naïve sense that I would be able to do a PhD, run a business, swim competitively, have some semblance of life AND plan and train for an Everest attempt in 2014. I realise now how pathetically ambitious that was. Especially as all the other things, even without the Everest plan, almost conspired to send me quite around the bend. In the last twelve months of my PhD I did little else than write, work, consume junk food, drink too much wine and cry. There were more than a few moments where, late at night, my hand hovered over the keyboard ready to write one mere line of narrative to my PhD supervisor….” I’ve had enough”. Now, the other side of thesis submission, waiting for my viva, surprised and pleased with the interest in my research and experience, I look back on that time as a place that existed somewhere between a nightmare and a reality.
The month in the US post thesis submission was supposed to be a time of rest and calm in which to consider and establish the plan for the next decade of my life. Fifty, on paper seems impossibly old but here I was, essentially at the beginning of something, rather than the end. Between flights and car journeys and one new hotel after another, between new places to see and new experiences to have, I’d felt that there was not much time to sit and consider both practically or philosophically the years ahead. But on the final flight, with home in sight, surprised by how much I was looking forward to being back, things began to take form in my mind. Opting out of the in-flight entertainment and laying aside the novel I was reading, I set about making a plan.