I’ve been writing this article on the bus. It’s awkward; I’m not going to lie. It jitters as it cruises along, and brakes suddenly, interrupting my flow. I’m on the same bus I used to take for my old job back in Dec 2018. I worked as a temp for three weeks as a Data Entry Clerk for a delivery company. All I did was amend addresses and confirm that they were correct, so they were sent off to the right place before Christmas.
It was an easy job, except that I was doing it at from 7 pm to 6 am most nights, with a near 2-hour commute tacked on there and back. I was exhausted and cranky, but I finished the three weeks with my sanity mostly in-tact.
Fast forward to December 2019, and I’m on the same bus route, working 8 am-5 pm instead. It’s nice to see some sunlight on the commute for a change!
This time around, I’m a Data Entry Administrator. In this job, I’m logging, querying and amending existing addresses for customers and electricity suppliers alike. Incorrect addresses mean that electricity may not reach the right destination. It’s a delicate and data-heavy process. It’s my job as part of a team to make sure that there’s just the right amount of power on the grid, and that each household and business in the area get the right amount of electricity.
In short, I’ve gone from distributing packages to distributing electricity, and both the roles require addresses.
It’s kind of funny how no matter how things have progressed for the better that you still wind up coming full circle. You find yourself returning to the things that you left behind.
It could be rediscovering the music of your youth that you left in a dingy attic, or it could be reading the stories to your children that your parents read to you as a kid. It could be anything.
No matter how far we go into the unknown, we get pulled back to the familiar. It’s like a siren’s song — distant and ethereal at first, but louder and more enchanting as you get closer.
The trick to not crashing into the rocks is to know that no matter how many times you revisit something you love from your past, you can never be the person you were when you discovered it for the first time.
Life is a cycle of perpetual forward motion. I may be doing a similar job in a similar location with a similar commute, but it’s not the same job. My current job is better than the one I had in 2018. I have been working for nearly two months — more than twice as long as the old job! I’m practically guaranteed a 6-month contract, and my role could even become permanent!
Sometimes I look at the person I was a year ago and wonder how I even did that job! For three weeks, all I did was eat, work and sleep. My downtime was zero, and my weekends were a tired haze. I had to postpone my counselling sessions because I had no time for them. The only things that kept me going were sheer stubbornness and the promise of money. I think I surprised everyone by taking it on!
Here I am again, on the bus on the way to work while most people are still in bed. I hope that I never stop surprising people. That’s one thing that I hope will never change. If there’s one thing that I hope you take from my story, it’s that we are all evolving, no matter how often we come across the same situations.
Written by Miss Wren
Miss Wren Writes 
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