#30YearsRolling – Day 12/30 – Reflections on the 30th Anniversary of my Injury

BRAND NEW STARTS

After tucking the big win away in the bank to forget about for a while I fell back into the flow I was in work wise.

I’d been in the IT role for a few years and was starting to get itchy feet.

I felt like I’d learned what I could and had come close to achieving the intended outcomes of the role so I started scouring the local papers again.

It didn’t take long to get a couple of interviews.

I made the final two for an accounts roles with a Not For Profit that a few years later I ended up on their Board of Directors.

The other interview was an interesting one.

I still took the approach of not disclosing my disability before turning up for an interview.

When I went for the interview everything felt ok and at the end of it the person interviewing me admitted she had made a judgement on seeing me and was concerned but that fell away as the interview unfolded.

I ended up getting called back for a second interview and got the job as a Customer Service Representative in the automotive/transport industry.

It was sad to say goodbye to my old workplace but I was excited for a new challenge.

In typical Stacey style within the first couple of days I questioned the efficiency of a key process and quickly asked to get a spreadsheet emailed to me instead of the seemingly endless pages that came through by fax every day.

Finding more efficient ways to do things made me happy – and still does – one of my core values is “simplicity” and it’s cool looking back now to see it’s been there so long.

At home, I really enjoyed being away from my parents but I found living with someone challenging too.

I didn’t know at the time If it was the someone or just the general issues with sharing a house.
After a year or so things became a bit Groundhog Day but I just fell into the mindless flow of it.

And stayed in that flow for years, work being the outlet where I felt social and challenged.

The change of job didn’t end up being the greener grass I was looking for and the stress of some tensions in the workplace left me with multiple migraines in a week.

I’d lost one of my closest friends to a brain aneurysm a year early so when a work colleague died from the same thing leaving behind 4 children I wasn’t willing to sacrifice my health for a job and I went home one afternoon and never went back.

I’d kept in touch with people from my old job and after about 6 months of doing some volunteer work I was passionate about (see day 13/30), I was asked to go back for round three!

The role was the Scheduler for the workshop and came about as part of some of the earlier systems work I did in my previous stint there.

They had said I know the place and the people inside out and asked me if I’d consider coming back which I did.

I was 26 years old and ended up in sharing a small office in the workshop where I was the only woman in a workshop of 80+ men.

All of those years sharing the lunchroom with them all was helpful!

I loved the new role, it was challenging and gave me lots of interaction with key people.

Because I got along so well with everyone there came a time where I was tempted to put a sign on my door that said “Stacey Copas, Social Worker” after having everyone from the 16 year old apprentices to the tradies in their late 60s wanting to pull up a chair, chat and ask for advice.

They were lucky to get that advice for free back then, now people pay a lot for coaching with me!

Once I got the hang of the role and made some tweaks to processes along the way, I ended up with some more time on my hands so I ended up organising transport and then was asked to take on an additional role of OHS Coordinator.

At home things had deteriorated further and it was after a couple of weeks of the boyfriend working night shift, where we only saw each other passing in the driveway each morning as I was leaving and he was coming home, that I decided it was time to pull the pin.

It was a taste of living alone and I was prepared to give it a go.

It had been 7 years and we weren’t a good fit in so many ways.

I’d never lived alone before and I quickly realised just how dodgy the neighbourhood was.

The small bedsit style places directly across from me were emergency housing and there were people that came and went there that totally creeped me out.

There were times when I was getting into the taxi at 7:30am to go to work and there would be guys sitting on their front steps over there staring at me drinking longnecks.

I’d never really felt vulnerable before then.

Each afternoon when I got home from work I held my breath as I unlocked the front door, expecting to find the place ransacked.

Thankfully that never happened.

At times I’d lay awake in bed at night, hearing the fighting and bottles smashing, almost expecting to hear my car get smashed up or something come through the front window.

Thankfully that never happened either.

I embraced my newfound singleness and loved being super social again.

I was drinking again by this stage and I’d go out with the younger people at work and had a ball doing it.

I ventured into the world of online dating and had some wildly varying experiences of that!

I started organising monthly Friday night drinks through work which then evolved into a once a month BBQ at my place which brought together people from all areas of my life.

I got so much joy from it – and a lot of hangovers too.

All of the socialising and dating helped me develop a confidence that had dwindled away over the previous 7 years.

The song that represents this time for me is “Brand New Start” by Alter Bridge.

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