My son is now three months old and becoming more engaging every day, so I have a lot to be thankful for. But I’ve had to confront a few realities lately. Importantly, I haven’t been able to consistently or effectively work from home for reasons that other parents probably understand. This is probably my biggest stumbling block right now, and given what self-employment entails, it’s an enormous problem.
Secondly, my father fell gravely ill when he was about exactly my age, and although he lived another quarter century he never recovered from it either financially or in terms of his health. In fact, the remainder of his life was pretty lousy, and he died a sick man with a number of nasty conditions that left him prematurely disabled. From the age of 12 to 36, I witnessed his long, painful decline and many of its awful details. This has been weighing heavily on my mind as I consider my own age and mortality and the fact that I have a young child.
Although I don’t take the same risks my father did, there’s plenty of room for improvement, and the thought of ending up on an operating table in my 40s quite frankly scares the crap out of me.
For now, I need to find a profitable way to get out of the house every day, and a place where I can keep writing. Hopefully I can kill two birds with one stone, but I can’t afford to be choosy, so I’ll take what I can.
Please excuse me for dropping out of sight for a while — this is a problem I can’t fix online. If I can’t keep the site up due to costs I’ll host the content on my wordpress.com site and direct readers there.
