I know I’ve hardly blogged here in ages, apart from the odd post that’s been too noisy in my head to keep cooped up, but I thought that perhaps an update was in order. Most dramatic news at the moment is that I have left the Open Rights Group. After three years of fighting the good fight, it became very clear to me that it was time to move on. Although I’m not sure who has flown whose nest, I’m very proud of what we have achieved, and I encourage you all to go and give your support on a monthly basis by standing order. The Government is soon going to start eating kittens if you don’t, so spend five minutes and give ORG a tenner a month. Trust me, it’s cheaper than getting a new identity when the Home Office loses yours.
As you may have spotted yesterday, I got a hobby. Back in the day, I used play bass guitar for fun – not so much for profit – but that’s still up in my parent’s loft in Dorset. Now, I’m making faux Renaissance jewellery out of dried beetle carapaces and petrified angels’ tears. Oh, alright, out of glass pearls and Swarovski crystal. I find it very calming and soothing, and if the wedding has taught me one thing, it’s that I needed a hobby, and one that didn’t involve computers.
And, of course, Kits and Mortar is taking up a lot of time, and is masses of fun. I had a brilliant time at Grand Designs Live the other week, and I have a lot of things that I want to blog there about that, even now, a week or so later.
But getting married was sort of like an über-New Year, the very essence of new beginning, and one of the things I realised whilst we were away in Barbados was that my life was untenable in its current form. I counted up all the projects where either people expected something of me, or I expected something of myself. I had 15 of them, only one of which was “freelance”. So I’ve been doing a lot of pruning – part of which involves leaving ORG – and trying to formally close down fallow projects so that they didn’t lurk in my head and occasionally mutter about having been left behind and forgotten.
I’ve also promised myself that I’m going to use the word ‘No’ a lot more, and I hope no one will be offended by it. I’m going to say no to a lot more events, opportunities, and requests for help. My life’s been spread thinner and thinner and thinner, but now I really want to focus on a few things, and do them really well. My marriage is one of those things – getting married to Kevin was the best thing that I’ve ever done. He makes me so amazingly happy, and I want to put aside time and energy to enjoy that, to nurture it, and to make sure that we never take it for granted.
I also have some ambitions, one in particular, that I’ve never fulfilled and that now needs my attention. I think we all know what that is, so I shan’t go on. Although I’ve astonished myself with some of the things that I’ve done over the last few years, such as orating at Speakers Corner more than once or giving evidence to MPs in the Houses of Parliament, there are things I’ve been putting of for no good reason than that they are a bit scary. Now is the time to go towards the fear. Discovering the joy of the fountain pen is a part of that, I think. Maybe getting a Snowball mic as a wedding present is another part of it. Hard to say, but I’m sure it will become clear as time marches on.
I like new starts. I like reinventing myself. I like change. I like clean slates. I like the fact that my future is currently a great unknown. It’s like a great big blank page, just ripe for the doodling.
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