About four-and-a-half years ago, I found myself at a crux: Quitting the only job I was qualified to do, jumping into a venture I knew nothing about, and giving relatively little thought to the potential downsides of what was to come.

Since that time, I’ve had two children; gone into great debt that I’m nowhere near out of; hired at least 15 people and fired five or six; and returned to the Only Job while keeping the Other Venture. (I’ve also learned that it’s no good to do the Only Job and hope the Other Venture runs itself; for the past few months I’ve been working 70+ hours a week between the two, and have even thrown in a third… more on that one in just a bit.)

As of this writing, I find myself at a similar turning point (the specifics of which I’ve already written of; you can catch up here): Leaving once again the world of journalism, which is what I was trained to do, and putting both feet into the slightly different world of marketing.I’ll spare you the “this is heaven” melodrama that would’ve met you had I been blogging during the first great shift — not only is it unnecessary, it’s also ill-advised and usually turns to some form of regret in a short period of time. Rather, I’ll just say that these sorts of moments — few and far between for most of us — are amazing if only because of the wide lens they give us into our own lives. From day to day and year to year, we go about our business, little changing from one day to the next (other than our own dispositions or anciliary circumstances): we’ll go to the same places tomorrow that we did yesterday, seeing the same people and making the same jokes and thinking the same evil thoughts.

No, what I have before me is this: No more newspapering, and (for a week at least) no more marketing or coffeeing either. I have a vacation — to a lake with family, but more importantly from most of my usual concerns. I don’t even have to worrying about the mess “they” are making “back at work,” as obviously nothing can possibly run smoothly without me there. (Such are my thoughts, and probably yours.)

So for the next week, I’ll be reflecting. But more importantly, I’ll be detoxing in a sense… ridding my body of all the filth and chaff that comes even from good work, and preparing it thus to start accumulating such stuff once again.

The world just keeps on turning, doesn’t it?

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 25th, 2009 at 5.58 pm and is filed under transitions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.