Where I am

I apologize that this post is long-overdue, and I feel compelled to share with you the current situation I've found myself in (and possibly offer a sheepish excuse for the wide gaps of time between posts).

Several months ago, I made the decision to leave my job, and the industry entirely, and see what else I could do. Of course, as is frequently the case, personal reasons were in the mix as well, and suddenly I found myself disenchanted with my work (of almost ten years) and living solo for the first time...ever, actually. Oof.

Wide and varied, the predominant cause for this professional change had been, and still is, the sporadic and far-flung nature of my often seasonal-employ. Days, weeks, even months on the road brought me away from home, and while I did appreciate the opportunities afforded me - driving cross-country, working in West Virginia to Ohio to Colorado to California to Montana, and so on. I was able to go out, to see and experience so much. I met and worked with a number of fantastic people along the way, some I still count as friends. Now, I realize I've written about this topic before, only in a much more positive tone, and I feel it to be an accurate reflection of a changing paradigm.

I reached a point where I was more interested in what was at home, what I was leaving behind, than what I thought I would find. The work itself was nothing short of fulfilling. It was, and I'm learning still is, my passion. Working with people, training, teaching, learning...these things that made it well worth my time are still those aspects that inevitably try to draw me back.

Alas, it will not be so. So, while attempting to find a new position, I also realized there are still bills that need to be paid. Go figure, right? So now I find myself working at a tool and die shop as a general shop laborer. It has certainly been an eye-opening experience, and a great learning opportunity to see the manufacturing process so much from the ground up. It has been an opportunity to see and learn a completely different industry, with employees harboring a different backgrounds, different mindsets, different perspectives, than many of those I've previously been privy to in such close quarters. Though it is not my end goal. I continue to search when I can (50+ hour work weeks have been cramping my style, though their benefit has certainly aided that whole "paying bills" thing. And I am grateful for that).

So that's where I am now. For undoubtedly the majority of my readership, you've already been told this story, at least once, and here I hope to use it as a segue. I've been thinking quite about purpose, about identity, about interactions and interaction styles, about change, about solving mazes, about figuring it out. So it is my hope to share more of these observations with you, peppered with any number of the half-written drafts, some of which have been waiting for over a year to see the light of day.

So thank you for checking in, and I will do my best to return the favor.