It is the summer of 1976 – one of the hottest I have ever known. I am 19 years old, and personal secretary to a genial grey-haired transport specialist at the Department of the Environment who is counting the days to retirement.
I have been doing this job since I left school at 18. It’s comfortable and undemanding, with a reasonable salary. I have no cause to imagine that my career will not continue along this predictable secretarial path. But a few months later, when the scorching heat is but a distant memory, a conversation in a pub with friends will change the course of my life.
After that conversation I will agree to sing backing vocals in a band my chums are about to form. We will perform our first gig in 1977, during the height of punk rock – even though we are anything but.
Because my friends think it might help the band, I am dislodged from my complacency and apply for the job of secretary to the editor of Sounds, a weekly music paper. I get that job, and a year later make the unlikely transition from shy and retiring typist to rock critic with attitude.
Fast-forward to the summer of 1995. I am 38 years old, at the top of my career ladder. Having scaled the heights of music journalism I have made the leap into national newspapers and am deputy editor of The Observer’s magazine. But rather than celebrating my achievements, I am barely able to crawl out of bed in the mornings. A long-term relationship has just ended, and no amount of recognition at work can make up for the despair I feel.
A year later, my heart is on the mend and I leave my prestigious job for a desert of freelance uncertainty. The notion of a career in journalism no longer appeals to me. I’m searching, but for what?
Now I am 56. I’m looking back on these turning points in my life because of a cycle known in astrology as the nodal return, which happens every 18-and-a-half years. I’m on my third nodal return, which is very much about establishing your soul purpose and spiritual path – often the impetus for a big change in direction.
So I wonder, where will I be next summer, when its full effect will manifest? I’ve already experienced a heartbreaking separation, just like I did in 1995. What could be next?
While I was searching for inspiration and guidance, I found this passage:
“Can you open up to the excitement of change? Will you dare to look deeply and bravely into the underworld, into the places where the deepest level of truth resides? Superficial people-pleasing is not for you.”
The excitement of change. That’s an interesting concept: have I ever been excited by change, or just resistant to it? I’ve certainly been a people-pleaser. I read on.
“You are meant to look into the eyes of the murderer and find the frightened, unloved child there. You are meant to know the whole story and to travel the roads many of us declare unsafe.”
Wow. That’s when I felt a lump in my throat. Imagine seeing the child within a killer… You are meant to know the whole story.
I’ll let you know what chapter I’m on next summer…
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