Monday, March 9, 2009

Ahem

Why hello out there, nice to meet you.... isn't the weather crazy......so....that bank bailout stuff is wild, eh?.....crazy. What? No small talk in the blogosphere?

So what do I talk about, why am I even doing this? Thing is, I made a major life change this year and I still don't know what it means. I am thinking that maybe a journal would be a good idea, help organize my thoughts, enable me to see what I am doing with myself. Problem is, I have never kept a journal and have no idea how to do it. As I am an insanely private person I thought perhaps this blogging thing might just push me out of my shell, give me some structure to get going. It is the action of someone who is the complete opposite of me. When one is trying to change their life perhaps doing the opposite would be good. Like Costanza.

We shall see.

So the title, Life in the Slow Lane - a work in progress perhaps. I left my corporate job with a bright future to return to my home town and slow down a little. Figure out what I want to do with, hopefully, the long life I have left to live. Thinking that career progress is perhaps overrated, and driving full bore into life has its drawbacks. You know, you miss the scenery a little. So I have decided to put myself in neutral for a while and see what happens.

Last year I found out a parent was seriously ill and it just stopped me in my tracks. Why was I living so far away? What benefits, other than a paycheck, was I getting from this life? I have enjoyed my life so far, made lots of friends around the world, but I know I can do that anywhere, why not closer to family and where I came from? Luckily I am one of the few in this world with little responsibility other than myself. No mortgage, debt or kids, of sound mind and body (at least for a little while) so I am one of the privileged few who can step out of the rat race and take a breath.

So I hope to use this space to catalogue what I get up to with some time on my hands. So far (4 months and counting) not too much. I still need to work some so I have taken on some private consulting projects, just enough to keep me going, the rest of the time I hope to knit, play music, learn to garden, maybe get a dog (I am pretty excited about this last one). Let's see if I can look back on this blog a year from now and see it was worthwhile. That perhaps I have things a little more figured out than I do now and this pause in my life, the time spent in neutral, wasn't just a waste of gas.