Free at last

Whenever I told people that I was taking the rest of the year off, the universal response after, "Wow." and "I'm jealous." was "Where are you going to go?" It bugged me, because I didn't have a good answer. Well, I did have an answer, but staring incredulously at the person and saying "Why would I want to go anywhere?" didn't seem to be the right one.

Don't get me wrong, I think travel is great - see new places, get away from the rut at home, etc. I've done that, and I will do that more in the future. But Perth is a fantastic city to live in - clean air, open spaces, filled with greenery and with a great standard of living. I've spent years collecting books and video and other entertainment, making my home as comfortable to me as possible. All my friends, whom I regularly game with are here. Why would I want to leave this?

So if I got through that question, the next one was inevitably, "So what are you going to do?" And again I was pretty much stuck for an answer. As if there was only one, or a short list of things, that I could do in three months. The best answer I could come up with was - live. And here I'll add that I don't know what I'll be doing. I have plans, sure. But what I'm going to do, for the first time in my life, is do whatever I want most to do, without having to worry about expenses, without worrying about the time it will take, without having the excuse that work is taking all my attention.

This blog is part of that, the rest remains to be seen. Maybe I'll volunteer to work in East Timor, maybe I'll stare at the ceiling for two days straight. But whatever it is, for the rest of the year, I'll be free to do it.