Hello! And welcome back! It’s been a spell since I’ve had a chance to write an update and while it might be a while until I am able to write another post, I wanted to take some time to look back at the year that was.
I know, middle of January is a weird time to do a year in review but actually the day this is posted is the one-year anniversary of my last day at my full-time job. Which is crazy. I feel like I’ve been living this life forever but also that this is has been the longest year ever-which makes sense since days take a lot longer to get through when you are on your own at home trying to be productive.
I never had a real idea as to what this year was going to bring, I was heading into the unknown armed with nothing (almost) but I made it through in a decently successful manner (I think). I have great clients and a steady work routine, and I love what I do. Who could ask for anything more? Every job I take teaches me something and every time I look back, I am amazed at how little I knew when I thought I knew everything.
This year I cat sat, house sat, dog sat, and baby sat. I worked for my friends, started contracts, ended contracts and was ghosted, a lot (especially around Halloween ironically enough). I ran, I read, I started a new podcast (Nature Finds a Way!). I spent time working on my pet projects, getting Whale Tales up to 20k followers on Instagram, and posted our 500th story. I stressed about money, about my work, about little things, about things I had absolutely no control over, about a lot of things. I went on 7 zillion interviews, some good, some bad and some horrendous and/or frustrating (see above re: ghosted). I learnt a lot about freelancing and working from home and social media and digital marketing and…. myself (omg so corny right?).
Not every moment in 2018 was laudable. I watched all of Brooklyn 99 at least three times (noice) and more recently totally OD’d on Hallmark Christmas movies. I didn’t meet my original running goal for the year partially due to being busy but also because sometimes I’m incredibly lazy. I bought junk food and ate it on the couch instead of working and it took me a long time to find the balance/difference between working from home and having free time. I tried to stop scolding myself for not working or not working out or whatever and that has really been hard. But then I realized that my days are a lot longer now and things seem take a lot longer that they used to so not working for one extra hour one day is not the end of the world. Just stay motivated and just keep swimming.
I originally planned to write this update in December on the anniversary of when I gave my notice (see, I told you I procrastinate!). At that time, it was the scariest moment in my life. I’m not sure I’ve experienced a single more terrifying moment since then, but I have done a lot of new things, some easy and some very scary. And that isn’t going away. My transition year is over, this is my life now and I will never stop being thankful that I took this plunge.
I hope to have time to write more here in near future, I’ve got plans to anyway so keep an eye out and in the meantime visit all my social media accounts to get a taste of crazy new life.