A moment (or several hours) of doubt...

I remember, with absolute clarity, the precise moment I knew I would not be going back to my previous job.

It was a February morning, I was in the shower and - as clearly as a bell ringing - I heard my own voice in my head: 'I'm not going back'. And I knew immediately that I had made the right decision.

I'd come about my previous job by accident rather than design, and I'd wanted to leave for years. Not going back, post-maternity leave, was considerably easier than handing in my notice and working out a period of leave. Not going back requires much less courage than getting up and walking away.

I still know that I'm making the right decision. But sometimes I have days like today. Days when my inner voice rambles inside my head in sheer panic: 'I'll never find any work. There's a recession on, half the country has lost their jobs, no-one will give me work because I've got no experience and then I'll never get any experience so I'll never get any work. We're going to starve. I'm going to end up working nights in a bar after the baby is asleep. I'm going to have to beg for my old job back, tail betwen my legs. Who am I to think I can have what I want? I'll never make this work because I've never made anything work...'

Tomorrow I have my first meeting with my local branch of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. I'm nervous, of course. Meeting a largeish group of people I don't know is going to be daunting, especially as I haven't had a non-baby related conversation in a looooong time. Plus I'll be leaving baby with my husband for the day, and since I've never left her for more than an occassional hour here and there this is scary for me.

But more than that, I'm scared that when I ask them for tips on how to get started in the industry they'll tell me that I'm wasting my time, that there's barely enough work to go round as it it is, it's not what you know it's who you know, and so forth. In short, I'm scared in case they suggest, however obliquely, that I'm probably going to fail.