What I wrote in my previous Bio -
"I've been working in academic/school libraries for going on 10 years now. My MLS degree program got derailed by life, but I still love what I do and wake up every morning thankful that I am not going to a 'job'. Instead I get paid to read and recommend books, research questions in every field (without having to write any papers on my findings!), and let my inner kid out every once in a while"- is still true in many ways, which has made this decision to leave my current life behind a long and hard decision to make. But I honestly feel that it is the right one. I do not want to become one of those people who stays somewhere, sacrificing one ideal here, another there, simply because where they are is familiar, comfortable, and safe, until they realize they have spent years gaining little personal growth, that for years they have not pushed the envelope for themselves in any major way. Don't get me wrong, I still love many things about my job, and I will miss some aspects desperately, but that does not mean it is still my best option.
This year I am going to push the envelope mentally, physically, emotionally, financially,... you name it and it probably applies. I am moving from a settled life in Los Angeles to a year of nomadicity. On any given day I will most likely be hiking or farming, in multiple states. I will never be in one location longer than a month but will spend much of that time alone in my own head, cut off from current acquaintances in person and often online as well. I will need that time in my head, because I predict that this experience will change me in ways I can not even begin to imagine. I will see possibilities I had never considered become reality. I will meet multitudes of new people and I can only hope that some of them will become as dear to me as the people I leave behind. I will be living on what fits in my car or a few suitcases. I will have to watch every dollar. I have absolutely no idea what I will be doing after this year. I can not begin to explain to you how much I am looking forward to this adventure.
Looking at it another way, maybe I am living the Gatsby quote. It embodies so much of the struggle in rowing and in life, working so hard and sometimes feeling like you're not making any progress, but knowing that you will keep striving and your work will eventually get you to where you need to be. There will be many moments in the coming year and beyond where I break down and wonder why I jumped, why I chose to leave a pleasant and relatively safe life for this; I will face many people who follow society's norms who will lecture me on how I am making a huge mistake; and, in many ways, I am simply returning to things which made me very happy as a child: beating on, against the current, into the past. Buy hey, I've been a rower for years. I, of all people, know how to move forward even when ahead is murky and all I can see is where I've been.
