A bed of roses

So, this week was my monthly review of my annual review objectives and I felt I was making progress towards most of them, holding on a couple but dropping slightly on one.  These are our current basis for assessing my regrade.  Later in the week, I had my 1:1 with my line manager who asked about the evidence gathering - so we had a chat and I shared my notes.  My line manager felt the one I had as dropping was actually holding and we can get it moving up pretty easily.  So good to have someone encouraging!

I'm also looking after the action log for the Big, Big Project, which is reviewed weekly, and the RAPID (RAID + Principles) Log, which we review fortnightly.  When the Not Quite So Big Project begins, I will also look after those elements, all of which raises my profile and helps with progress!

This week was the first meeting of the Women in Professional Services Group.  Now, I normally avoid gender-based groups.  I know about the statistics but I've never felt myself to be at the sticky end of discrimination or misogyny.  But a group of professional services professionals is something I think could be helpful.  I've signed up for the 'coffee roulette' - you get randomly paired with one of the other people in the group and go for a coffee and a chat.  If you hit it off, great - if you don't, you get someone else next month anyway.  And there are some group roles including one called Project Lead or something like that, which is tempting me with promises of 'personal development' but I'm not sure about time commitments at the moment.

I've also signed up for the Menopause Cafe.  This is something I wish I'd had 5 years ago, so if I can help anyone else I want to be there!  They're planning 3 cafes a year and I'm only committing to 1 - but I can go to more if I'm free.

Ever since I began my journey to full-on cronehood, I've actually become more comfortable with the word 'woman' as a description beyond the biology.  Words like 'woman', 'wife', 'mother' carry sooo much baggage, I've done just about all I can to shun them, deny them, be the opposite of societal expectation (whilst NOT neglecting my health or my family!).  But 'grandmother' is a badge I wear with pride (my own grandmothers were such special people, I want to do their memories justice)... and now, as my 'womanhood' wanes into 'cronehood', I am more comfortable with the label of 'woman' than I've ever been.

I think it's more possible to self-define, now.  Older women are less visible, so less constrained by society's expectations.  Maybe...?