I'm flying home tonight. Blogging on the road has been difficult on vacation for two reasons. Lack of time and where I'm staying, logging on to the internet is a long distance call. It's so different from home where logging on to the internet is a local call and I can stay on as long as I like. Here I've had to worry about logging during the cheapest time rates, which means I've either had to blog after 11 pm or early in the morning before 8 am. Either time has been difficult.

I tried to write something up in Pocket Word and then tried to copy it into my blog but for whatever reason, I couldn't do it. Just as well.

It's been a strange trip.

I just read a newsletter from an astrology site that I check frequently. There was this whole thing about the eclipses and how it affected the astrologer's life. I think I've been affected too.

Things, people that I thought that were very secure in my life, I found out on this trip aren't. It's kind of like being adrift on the ocean of life without the safety of what you thought was your life raft. It's kind of what I was expecting anyway, but still it hurts deeply on some level.

I had seen the signs earlier last month so I was prepared, but still ... The only good thing is that when your old life gets stripped away like this, it just means that another new life is starting. I also have a feeling that the new life will be so much better than the old. Maybe I'll find get the support I so want and crave in my life, which right now is sadly lacking.

It's not anyone's fault either. I'm just on such a different trip that most people. It's the sad but true life of an artist I think. Only other artists understand and then only just a litttle.

Most people, maybe 99.9% of the world is so caught up in having their needs fulfilled, that this is their whole life. With me, most of my needs have been fulfilled enough, so I'm content with my life. Not that I haven't struggled, because I have and I wasn't given any break in my life either by having very rich and loving parents who gave a big fat never ending trust fund. No, my contentment has been of my own making, my own design, my own hardwork. Sometimes I think that I'm content because I have such low expectations, but then again I think, it doesn't matter. It's contentment and happiness that count.

I mean sure things could be better, they always can. But I've got life pretty well damned handled, finally after all these years, and thousands of dollars, thousands of books, thousands of hours in therapy, seminars and classes, and thousands of bucketfuls of tears.

But it's this contentment with my life, that has allowed me the freedom to pursue my creativity, my art and now maybe finally work on it when I'm not working. It's been a long and difficult road to finding my true art, but I think writing may be it. At least I've made the decision at this point, that I'm never going to find out if writing is my true art unless I devote alot of time and energy to it.

It's like when I wanted run marathons. I devoted alot of time and energy into my running and I ran three New York City marathons before I decided that marathoning and long distance running wasn't my thing. But at least I had run three marathons to confirm my decision.

I need to do the same with my writing. I'm in year 4 of my writing quest and I've been pursuing it halfheartedly. I read somewhere that it takes five years for an artist to develop their style, their voice. I still have another year and a half to go, but this time I want to write with purpose and much more seriously than I've done it in the past.

When I was doing the climbing the corporate ladder thing, it took my five years to almost double my salary and responsibility level. And at the end of five years, I looked at my life and said being a corporate freak wasn't it.

I have a history of pursuing what I want and going for it in five years and being successful and finding out whether I want it or not. I need to do the same with writing. Except with my writing, I kind of think this is it. At least I hope it is. I don't know what I would do if writing didn't pan out. I'm sure there's something out there for me, I just don't what it is yet.

So it's writing for me until I decide that writing isn't it. My mission starts officially on July 20. I'm looking forward to what my new life will bring.