I am a daydreamer. I do it all the time. Often, my friends will talk to me for a good ten minutes, and I won't have heard a word because I'll be making up an imaginary world in my head where I'm dating my Body Pump instructor, I'm a bestselling author and people keep asking me how I have such a tight, toned little tummy.
In reality, though, my Body Pump instructor is scared of me (standard reaction I get from men), I've not written a word for months in the book I've been writing and everyone can see how I got my potbelly (overindulgence).
The thing I daydream about the most, though, is quitting my job (I have a monthly salary for a job I do in Thailand, even though I work from home) and going full-time freelance. I fantasise about it all the time and, although I didn't have a timescale in mind, I think maybe one day I would have tried it, when I was secure enough in my freelance income. But life never works like that and, instead, they let me go and I don't have a strong plan in place. Their reason? That I went out of Thailand for a month without telling them where I was going. This is rubbish, as I have all our e-mail correspondence about the fact I would continue working for them in the UK over the month. However, they informed me a few days ago that I had been fired on December 6 and wouldn't be paid beyond that. Which is frustrating because I've been submitting work to them for six weeks longer than that and have been receiving cheery e-mails from them. I guess I'll never know what the real reason is and, because of the legal system here, will probably never receive the money I'm entitled to.
I can't say I'm too upset about losing the job. The work was boring and one of my New Year's resolutions was to write more about what I want to write about. I had been itching to quit the job and see if I could make it on my own. However, I wouldn't have quit now. I've been feeling quite comfortable on my monthly salary, which has been my safety net in case I didn't scrabble together enough freelance. I've been feeling very comfortable having a work permit, too; I can come and go in Thailand as I please, knowing that I am legal here until October. Now, that's not the case. Though my company has said they would keep my work permit for me, I don't believe a thing they say anymore. I don't want to be involved with them for anything. I don't want them to wield any power over me.
I had been thinking for a while that it would be fun to go to Thai school and stay in the country on an education visa while I freelance. Now, that looks to be my only option. I guess the moral of the story is to be careful what you wish for. I'm excited, but I also feel as though I'm falling and I'm not entirely sure if I have a parachute. I've set up a pretty nice lifestyle for myself here; I have a great gym, a personal trainer, I get my hair coloured in a high-end salon (my hair is white blonde these days, so I need to fork out for someone who really knows what they're doing). Now, I'm scared I won't be able to afford these indulgences. I'm scared that, for some reason, I won't be able to get my visa and stay in the country. I'm so scared I'll lose everything I have here and will be back to the drawing board.
But, instead of breaking down and staying in bed rocking and shaking, I'm trying to view both the job loss and the loss of The Greek a month ago as Good Things. Things that will show me I can get through anything. This month has been like a painful, continuous punch in the stomach. Somehow I need to turn this around so that it goes from being one of the worst periods of my life to an anecdote about "the best thing that ever happened to me"; and that's where being a daydreamer really helps.
