hello world

Soxie Yes

— 2 min read

Wow I can't believe I got midlife-crisis.ghost.io. Like, that seems like the very first blog name that would be taken by someone?

Anyway, I'm going to be 40 in a few months, I'm experimenting with taking some time off work to think about early retirement/whatever the heck I end up calling it, and I think the blog/newsletter format has historically been a good one for me to wrap my head around things and understand how I'm feeling about them. So, I'm starting this. I don't expect to have any subscribers but one never knows how these things are going to shake out. I mean I have the most bragable domain on ghost.io so maybe this will be my road to blog fame.

I've been off work for a week and a half and so far I have:

  • signed up for five volunteer gigs (oh, oops? That's actually a lot?) that I don't know if I'll commit to long term
  • changed a low battery in the middle of the night
  • gone to an aikido class
  • started working on CS 50 with Middle Kid
  • realized that I could easily solve multiple low-grade household annoyances that have been bugging me for months
  • went on an amazing hike with Oldest Kid
  • looked at a couple real fancy houses
  • threw away a bunch of stuff that really needed throwing away

I think what's been most striking so far is the feeling of non-hurriedness I have when I'm with the kids. I hadn't realized to what extent I always felt like any weekday time I was spending with them, I felt like I was stealing from Employer. This morning Middle Kid had a parent-teacher conference and instead of rushing off like BYEEE once we were done I just hung around with him on campus for a few minutes waiting for school to start, shooting the shit, looking around at the art on the walls, and generally enjoying unstructured and unrushed time with my child. I had no idea that this sense of urgency to get back to work was so pervasive for me - I genuinely was so used to it I didn't even know it was there. Having it removed has been amazing.

Also funny: at the parent-teacher conference I discovered that "look at all those chumps waiting in line! We'll just [do strenuous or impractical alternative]" is something I bust out on my kids so often that my kid, who has a terrible ear for dialogue, quoted me verbatim in a story he wrote.

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