Having worked pretty much non stop for the last 34 years my mind had turned a lot since my health issues, the additional depression and the pandemic towards slowing things down, stepping away from the kind of work I have done in IT for more than 20 of those years and then working out if it would be feasible to do it and still be able to live and pay bills. When things change or an opportunity comes your way to enable this it definitely should ensure you give it the respectful consideration it deserves. For some people these decisions are easy, mark my words it wasn’t so easy for me, having worked in the same company for 19 years being part of the furniture can have it’s drawbacks, and in reality the thing I miss the most already is the people, the friends I have made over the years.
For me the opportunity presented itself this year and after assessing it many times I made the decision to step back from the job, and take a break from working altogether, a big step but the right one for me I think, also having a young child with additional needs it’s nice to be around the house more for him, and although I haven’t done enough of it, help out more. So right now I finished work one month ago and I am still trying to get my head around it, can be very easy to just get lazy and do nothing, far too much sitting around the house. Todays task is to draw up a schedule for the week to get my walking back on point, and just actually do some stuff with my time. It’s a trap I think a lot of people that retire fall into, thinking you can start doing stuff next week, that’s how Depression takes hold rapidly, and I am trying not to disappear back into that rabbit hole. So please be careful if you are in this situation or approaching it.
So for the moment I am semi-retired, taking a few months off and working on getting fit and my Photography, going to take some courses around Media and Design which should help with post processing of photographs, layouts for the website etc, well it should, so keep an eye open to some changes here in the next couple of months. Something that has been important this year has certainly been returning to the Photo Pit and getting to shoot some Gigs and Festivals, the recent dip has meant things have been a bit up and down, I had a brilliant week covering Festivals in the UK and Germany (for the first time) and then this week my head has not been right and I have ended up being at home with a couple of gigs I was really looking forward to passing me by. Got to try and get back on the horse next week and work on getting the consistency back in my mind, there is still a lot to come this year.
Alongside the dip into depression has come a lovely bout of insomnia :-). what else would you need when you are not feeling great, it is always the way though isn’t it.
Today I got my 2nd booster of the Covid vaccine, so that is out of the way, have sorted out a doctors appointment and all good there, next us is to organise some of my music trips for next year, as I think everything else this year is sorted out now. Can’t do anything about delays and flight cancellations, all I can do is have everything booked, show up on time to the Airport and pray, 3 – 4 hour queues to get into security at an Airport means they have to delay flights until people get through. I do find it crazy that Airports that have not enough staff to operate at full capacity are not passing information to passengers, for example in Hamburg Airport on the way back I was checked in, bag dropped and then had to leave the Airport to join the queue for security, they new I could not make that flight with the further delays getting through the security gates, but I knew there were a lot more people behind me in the queue that also could not make it, the PA announces Final Call for our flight and I start asking people is there anyway to fast track through security and no, just stay in the queue, although I was pretty sure the plane would be waiting as if we were not there they would have to remove all the luggage for people missing the flight anyway, but you stress as there is 1 flight a day from the Airline to Dublin, so you would need to rebook, if seats available, for the following day and also try and get a hotel for the night. Nothing seems to have changed in a year, certainly Airports around Europe are still struggling with both staffing levels and just coping with the surge of people wanting to travel as pandemic restrictions lifted with 3 years worth of travelling being squashed into 1 year, fingers crossed the situation changes as the current situation is good for nobody.
As for the music itself, well that certainly made me feel a lot better, getting to meet up with friends I haven’t seen in so long, which was awesome. Getting to see bands and musicians you know as well and of course catching new bands or some you have wanted to catch for a long time. Getting to Photography both events was a real honour, and working in the Photo Pit with friends old and new always makes it an easier and more fun experience. With a couple of remaining Festivals this year having been postponed until next year I’m hoping to shoot some shows at home in the last quarter of the year, and definitely need to get gig fit, there’s more effort involved than a lot of people realise, you certainly ramp up a lot of steps during a Festival, 2 stages on 2 floors for 2 days means plenty of running around. Plenty or editing and work to do afterwards too, and if Reviewing a Fest it gets to be pretty tiring all in all.
As time moves on we go from pandemic to recessions and economic problems, the energy crisis and continued threats of power hungry leaders creating misery and loss of life in places they just shouldn’t be. All we can do is help where we can and keep ourselves as sane as possible. Stay safe, talk to people is you need help or a chat and don’t stick your head in the sand.