Planning

So in other Facebook news this image showed up in my feed today. And sure enough its been something I’ve been thinking a lot about. For the last year or so there has been a great deal of uncertainty around me. This uncertainty is a pain in the ass because no one, even myself, knows what Matt will be doing tomorrow or for that matter what good I’m for any more.

“What do you want to do?” is a question I often hear.

While its been nice to convalesce for a while, I’m pretty sure that there isn’t all that much more Microsoft in that answer. Its been a mostly good company to work for, but between my borked brain and the high anxiety that I cannot avoid bringing home from this vocation it just doesn’t seem like a very healthy choice in the long term. Besides, having paid into a Long Term Disability insurance program for more than a decade, and then to need it only to be turned down on any little technicality they can manufacture has sort of left me feeling like the support and enthusiasm I poured into my group, job and company just really isn’t there for me when the shit hits my fan.

I’ve had a difficult time getting to “What do you want to do” because there’s so much that I cannot do any longer. I’d love to go back in time and fight wild fire again. But I lack a time machine and I couldn’t get a job with a hot shot crew today because I couldn’t pass the physical given that I have a seizure disorder. Backcountry wilderness guard? Sure, but that’s not a career you can raise a family on is it?

Tess has recently pointed out to me that I am already a stay at home mommy-daddy and this has been a challenge which I’m getting better at meeting. Is this what I want to do? Well maybe it wasn’t at first, but there are moments in this job that make it worthwhile. As Aral gets older he seems to come up with more of these than before too.

Something else I really enjoy is writing. See?

I can sit down and write a couple of thousand words in a sitting. Granted most of it is pure, unadulterated crap, but that’s what editors are for. So maybe that’s something I should organize a little and get serious about? Yea, I think so too.

And when I talk about writing its not just this crap I post on my blog. This is more of a stream of conscience plop that just falls out my head via my fingers. I’ve been working on a number of stories which I get genuinely excited about. I’ve even written outlines for most of them which should tell you something about how I feel about this pursuit.

So per the card posted from a Facebook friend, I have decided. Its January now, come March I’ll let you know how its turning out.