1/12

2008 is off to an incredibly interesting start. Interesting might even be considered an understatement at this point. So much has been going on in every aspect possible. I'm not complaining, I'm having a lot of fun.

Towards the end of last year, I just made a decision that I wanted to do something with my life. That I was tired of sitting around living day after redundant day like a machine, becoming less human with the passing time. And so I did that, and the results have been far from disappointing.

I started my year off with a much needed vacation from work. I've been going at it non-stop for the last two and a half years and I could feel it taking its toll. Originally, my plan was to resign (and my boss is well aware of this), but I decided that I didn't want to give up just yet. So I took three weeks off, and left the city that had been suffocating me for so long, and I went "home".

I didn't realise how much I needed the time away from everything that was familiar. The first word that comes into my head to describe the experience is; refreshing. Being back in the place where I grew up, where I remember being the happiest, seeing old friends after years of being strangers - I couldn't think of a better way to be spending my time. Sure, the place has changed considerably, and I did feel like a tourist there a lot of the time, but all the other things that mattered most to me remained the same. And that's really all I could ask for.

Half the trip was spent alone, and that was the way I meant for it to be in the first place. I felt that I needed time to myself to just really think and reflect and to "soul search" and hide from the world. I wasn't surprised to find that I was more than comfortable being on my own. In fact, I seemed to be much happier that way. I'm an introvert and reclusive by nature, so no, it wasn't the biggest shock in the world.

But after a while, I had to come back to reality. I am by no means slipping back into the habits of my old lifestyle. There's too much to do, and I don't want to waste my time. I've wasted so much of it already. But starting the year off the way I did was perfect. I have so much planned for the next eleven months, and I'm really looking forward to it.

I don't know where the sudden inspiration to write here came from. Maybe it's part of the change that I'm undergoing. But I figured that an aspiring writer should write. And write to be shared and not to be kept in the confines of a private notebook. Whether or not I can live up to that, I guess we'll have to wait and find out.