Left my career and moved to a caravan in the Outer Hebrides. This is what happiness is.

“You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you just might find – you get what you need.”

Mick Jagger knows what he’s talking about.

When I was told my job was being made redundant and I had a month left as a Sunday newspaper reporter, I was devastated. It had been my dream career and at 27, I still had to pinch myself to believe I was doing what I’d always wanted. So I felt quite hard done to, when having been ill for ages, I lost what I’d worked hardest for just as I was getting better and starting to function like a normal human being (well, almost). I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to do anything else.

That was three months ago. I got a new job as a digital journalist but decided it wasn’t for me when three weeks later the stress of redundancy began to make me really sick again. So I took the plunge left journalism altogether.

Two months on, I’ve started up a private tuition business with my amazing friend and being my own boss means I’ve been able to come to the Isle of North Uist to live in a caravan and work in a hotel over summer while demand for tuition isn’t as high. I’m the happiest and most content I have ever been. It’s funny how things turn out. Losing my “dream career”, it turns out, was just what I needed.

Not being in a high-pressure job in an office every day means life is pretty much stress free. My thyroid levels are now, FINALLY, within normal range meaning my mood has levelled out, I’m sleeping again (the sea air has definitely helped with this), I’m not as anxious anymore, I’m not experiencing any random all over body pain, I have more energy than I have had in years, and I’m less forgetful and able to concentrate more. It also means I no longer have sore, rank Graves Disease eyes that look like this. YAS.

EVERYONE should go live on an island for a while. Honestly. It’s amazing. I’ve been in the Outer Hebrides less than two weeks and have been out walking over the machair and peat bogs; cycling along single track roads by lochans and beaches; picking mussels and raking for cockles at low tide. Weeks ago, I couldn’t walk the length of my body without being in pain.

Cockling, North Uist

I’ve sat on white beaches for hours, looking out at the most beautiful turquoise sea. Deer live in the fields around my caravan, which I watch from the window (…until they’re shot for dinner ); I have no internet at home and poor phone signal, which means I have more time to read and write and dance to the Stones.

Vatersay Beach off Barra in the Outer Hebrides.

Deer that kicks about outside my caravan at Langass, North Uist

I’ve also met an amazing bunch of the friendliest, most welcoming people who I’ve partied with till Sunday lunch time (it’s all about balance, right?).

It’s summer, so it’s light till 11pm. The air is fresh; the night is still and quiet, and even when you try to hear traffic, you can’t hear a single car. It sounds really fucking wanky, but being here has given me the headspace to reflect and realise what makes me happy. And feeling under pressure 70 per cent of the time because of a job just wasn’t for me. I thought I lived for the adrenaline rush of a fast paced career. But really, it was just adding to my illness and preventing me from getting well again. You should work to live, not the other way round.

 

Pub views and dandelions

I’m so excited for the next three months here. My wee cat is coming up to live with me in the van, I’m going to a ceilidh this weekend (turns out Scottish islanders really do love ceilidhs – it’s not just a stereotype), I have friends and family and dogs coming to visit, and I’m going to try to find someone to teach me how to surf and dive and fish and anything else I wouldn’t do in Glasgow.

EXCITED. Sorry North Uist, but I think I might need to come back again next year.

 

Tags: graves disease, hyperthyroidism, islands, north uist, outer hebrides, overactive thyroid, rat race, scotland, thyroid, uist, western isles