Nearly every day for the last year this blog has given me space to think about and write about living a more simple, purposeful life.
Better food.
Longer walks.
Moments of captured creativity.
But so what’s my point?
Who or what are you
leaving behind in 2021?
I guess getting to the end of a year of being someone who works in digital technology but plays in the very analog world of cast iron, fire, wilderness, and trails has found me at a bit of a crossroads.
I turned forty-five this past month.
I’ve been working at a post-university career-type job for a little over twenty-some years.
I suppose (and if I’m lucky) I could expect to work for a little over twenty-some years until I’m supposed to retire and pack up my suitcase to see the world as an old guy.
But all this thinking and writing and pondering a different sort of life has left me with a particular notion of switching things up.
I seriously looked into finding a bakery apprenticeship (or something similar) over the summer. It didn’t work out, but it did put me in the mindset of what exactly might be encompassed in a career change, even one massively dramatic as moving from a keyboard to a cutting board.
So while I’m lucky in another way in that we didn’t lose anyone close to us this year (despite a global pandemic raging everywhere we look) I did lose a piece of me, a particular certainty of myself and who I am, and not necessarily in a bad way.
What am I leaving behind in 2021? I’m stepping away from the resolute and stubborn guy who knows exactly where he’s going to be sitting in twenty some years. I don’t think I do anymore. I think he faded away sometime over the summer and in his place is someone who wants … needs … a simpler bite of meaning in his life.
Whether that’s a result of all this writing, or just an obvious correlation, I’m not sure yet.
Thirty one topics. Thirty one posts. Not exactly a list… but close. In December I like to look back on the year that was. My daily posts in December-ish are themed-ish and may contain spoilers set against the backdrop of some year-end-ish personal exposition.