Better the Devil you know? I don’t think so!
I am a self-confessed hater of change. You ask my mum; one of her favourite examples of this fact was my annual hysteria at leaving my beloved year-group teacher when I was little. Full-blown tears and exclamations of how life would never be the same again. And what do you know, 2 weeks into a new school year and I was raving about my new teacher. It’s just how I am, I need a little bit of time.
So despite us hearing these murmurs of coronavirus in December, it never entered my head that my own life was about to change. It sounded awful what was happening on the other side of the world, but that wouldn’t affect my day to day. It wasn’t even a consideration. Until it was. Within a very very short space of time everything changed, and we really didn’t have any time to adjust.
Now I’m not going to lie and say there haven’t been moments of mild hysteria: there have been. Working from home is one thing, but working from home with a young baby is quite another. Don’t get me wrong, I am and will forever be grateful for this time with him, but wow it has been the hardest balancing act of my life. Then came the news that the airport was closed until at least September. Cue another melt-down; change is one thing but when it involves restricting me from seeing the family I adore, it’s quite another.
But as previously mentioned, I need time that’s all. And this time, I am going to embrace the change – I really have no choice. I won’t embrace being separated from my family but I will embrace the fact that I see them now more than ever in a digital kind of way. And when I do get to see them again I will embrace every last second of it. I embrace working from home and I am so excited for the new working world we are looking at re-entering; the one where we don’t all get stressed about traffic every day, and where we value the connections we have with our colleagues more than we ever have before.
In an ideal world, it wouldn’t have taken a global pandemic to make me realize that actually I can be ok with change. But as we all know, this world may be incredible but it is far from ideal. So let’s all brace ourselves for this next phase – the gradual reopening and the adjustment of easing ourselves back into a more social yet cautious world. In the words of Greek philosopher Socrates: “the secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but building the new.”
Rosie relocated from London to Cayman in 2011 and immediately joined the SteppingStones team. She holds her Bachelors degree from St. Mary’s University College in English with Professional & Creative Writing and has her International Leadership & Management Qualification (ILM). Rosie has worked her way up through SteppingStones having started as a Staffing Coordinator and then being promoted to Recruitment Manager in July 2016.