Rebirth or Death Knell?

It's going on two years now since I put anything on this blog. And, let's be honest, it's entirely possible that I never put anything interesting on it.

My life has changed a great deal since my last set of posts. I was divorced from my wife and separated from my children. I suffered all sorts of personal tragedy while trying to get through nursing school and working full-time for peanuts.

In just the last few months, though, I have graduated and completed reuniting with my finally. I got a well-paid job and even started investing in the stock market.

I look back at this blog, and the ones that preceded it, with some nostalgia and some regret. I was definitely a different man back then. I have spent the years since writing Internet copy professionally, working as a landscaper in Arizona and as an nursing assistant in a rehabilitation hospital. These experiences, so different from the 13 years of schoolteaching that preceded them, had a profound impact on my view of things.

My views have not exactly changed a lot but my explanations and justifications of them certainly have. If I intended this blog to be representative of myself as I am now, most of it could probably be erased. Maybe I am trying to say that I have grown up a lot in the last few years. That sounds odd coming from a 42-year old man but there it is.

During the last two years, I mostly thought of just letting the blog sit and stagnate forever. However, not being in school has granted me some free time to do things besides work and study. I started a finance blog yet I still had extra time on my hands. I think that I have now found something else to occupy my time.

New Direction

The rise of Donald Trump has led me to take more interest in this election than I expected to experience. I am one who generally feels that both parties are made up of similar sets of eunuchs, handled on short leashes by corporations and other powerful interests. The candidates are always boring, predictable and obviously controlled.

Donald Trump, as Bryan Cranston recently said, is refreshing. I am not necessarily a fan. I have divergent views on a fair number of issues. However, it is wonderful to see someone speak like a human being on television, even if you think that he is being an asshole. I think that I would rather sit in a bar and drink with Trump than spend any amount of time with the other robots running for office.

So, since I started my investment blog mostly to sharpen my thoughts and use my free time productively, I thought I would revive this blog and study the election of 2016 with it.

After all, I am Odysseus. Who better to rise from stagnation and begin again?

Hiatus Explained

It has been a long time since I have posted. There are a few reasons for this hiatus.

I could say that I have been really busy. Since I last posted in March, I have jumped through all the hoops to get into nursing school, acquired a full-ride scholarship, completed 17 college credits and another nine credits in the first semester of the program. All, this time I have trained as a CNA and begun working 30-40 hours every weekend (Friday –Saturday) so that I could go to school full-time during the week. I also have four kids that need a certain amount of monitoring and intervention.

I also could say that I lost interest. Looking at blogs, most seem like pretty lame versions of Whitman’s barbaric yawp. Go back inside, I could say to most bloggers. No one wants to hear it. You’re boring. I had to include myself in that crowd of uninspiring bloggers. Really, who cares what supposedly sublime thoughts I may have about the latest Pope or a movie that I watched?

I have been a little more than depressed as well. I have been going through a divorce, against my will, which was finalized in June. Stubborn as I am, I refused to give up and am still in the process of mending fences with my now ex-wife. It is a day-to-day struggle which saps my strength and devastates my ego.

Furthermore, I had been living as a full-time content writer for a couple years, up until I began working a as CNA in August. The work was nerve-wracking because I had to write 5,000 words minimum every day just to get by. In addition, I rarely knew when I would have work and could not find enough time to do so. In short, I was a nervous wreck.

Work Relief

Finding full-time work as a CNA was an incredible relief. The work is very hard and there are regular periods of high-pressure. Nevertheless, it was pure joy to know that I had work every week. I also liked committing to 12 and 16-hour shifts and being simply absorbed by the job for virtually an entire day. There were no more questions about whether I would have work or not. And it was pleasant to see how my work was helping people. That was not something that I could feel while writing Internet content.

This may be the final post or it may be the first in a renewed series.