January 3, 2012

It's January third. A new year. I guess it's time I left my self imposed exile and started back into the world. I started to crash with the economy back in late 2006, by January of 2007 I was gone. Five years of wading through menopause and trying to find who I really am, with little success at either.

I'm fairly dysfunctional. Ask anyone who knows me. It's amazing that I had succeeded as well as I did. I took a long time but got myself through school in my forties, and made a decent career as a product designer, lighting being my specialty. I was driven to succeed, taking jobs wherever it meant more financial success and glory, even at the expense of my family and my soul.

There that's the ticket. I was soulless.

I can only guess that being soulless was the real reason I crashed. My heart just wasn't in sync with my ambition. Either that or those damn hormones made me scream to my Mercurial boss, who claimed to never change his mind, “BULLSHIT”, so loud that the employees out in the factory heard it.

Kind of like being mad as hell and not taking it anymore. Or just raving mad.

Since then I've tried a few alternative career paths, to avoid being put into that position again. I took on some consulting work in China,which I loved, but the back and forth travel made me very ill. And then I thought I could craft and sell on the Internet, like my very successful daughter.

After finishing my spreadsheet for my taxes this year and realizing that I made in the whole year what she made her top month. Very depressing. But I guess my heart wasn't in it. Well actually my heart wasn't in anything lately I guess.

I have so many skills and had so many goals, that I think I just imploded. I have met many of my lifetime goals, but not all yet. So I'm setting a time limit on my future. For the next four months I will spend a bit of time each day, honing a different skill, for the goals I think I might pursue. Somewhere I might find my heart and soul. I'm also going to spend this time meditating on life and getting my body back into shape. By that I mean to spend the four months healing my body and soul.

I have a bucket list of goals, but maybe I'll be able to pick one, or maybe I can combine a few. I still like to design, but maybe something more meaningful than pretty lighting, so I'm going to work on my portfolio. I'd like to teach, not sure how to approach that one yet, maybe write a CV. I love the jewelry I make, but I think it needs to be a bit more extraordinary, so I'm going to try to improve that, work on my website and get ready to contact retailers. I did want to open a Bed and Breakfast, but the one I wanted to buy, sold. And I wanted to raise Alpaca, but I'm not sure that's going to be practical.

I'm really not sure where this journey will take me, but I promise to detail it all, every day in this diary. I also swear to take a little time to be more sociable outside of the Internet. So from today, until May third, I will document my successes or failures. Starting with the five cookies and the chunk of chocolate I ate balanced with the salad for dinner. And the new design for an embroidered floral brooch.