A New Year's Note
The Kohala Coast at the northern tip of Hawaii’s Big Island
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Hello 2023 and a happy new year to you all! I hope your holiday season went well, that you found ease and comfort—and maybe a good beer or two. The dark, cold after-holiday season now commences, with all the same poor weather, but none of the holidays. Good luck with the next couple months.
I have a brief update for the new year. Thirteen years ago this month, I left my stable, fulfilling job as a university researcher to try my hand at full-time freelancing. I had no idea what I was getting myself into—or more accurately, the ideas I had were wrong and amusingly naive. Possibly the biggest miscalculation was what kind of time commitment I was making. It seems like writing for a living would mean lots of free, unscheduled time, and total command of my calendar. In a way that’s true, but there’s a dark side I didn’t appreciate. Freelancing means you’re always hustling, always on the hook to push things forward. A regular job may feel stifling, but in most cases, five o’clock rolls around and you’re done for the day.
Since that life change in January of 2010, I have really only taken one proper, non-working vacation that lasted longer than a long weekend. For my fiftieth birthday, Sally and I went to the Big Island for a couple weeks (thus the photo at the top). Over the past year, I started to recognize that my energy level was crap, my brain was squishy and dull, and my creativity had vanished. Sometime around mid-year, Sally and I planned to take a chunk of time off. I’m taking the whole month of January.
For the next four weeks, I am going to do my best to stay off social media, check my email accounts solely for emergencies, but otherwise stay away from the internet. I’ve loaded a regular schedule of posts on the blog, so you will still have a reason to come around. I won’t be off the grid, so if the zombie apocalypse comes or Ken Grossman sells Sierra Nevada, I’ll hear about it. But meanwhile, I’m going to try to use the time to recharge my battery, find my lost font of creativity, and come back rested and ready to carry on.
Do reach out if necessity demands it, but don’t be surprised or offended if I don’t get back to you immediately. Have a wonderful January, and I’ll see you on the other side—