new beginnings
posted March 22, 2004 at 11:08 pm

This website has changed in many ways from where it started a little over three years ago.

Initially hosted on another personal website as an online journal, I purchased the domain name in January of 2002 as a New Year's present to myself. Little did I know that the publishing software I had chosen just a few months earlier, in its infancy itself at the time, would become such a huge part of both the site's direction and my personal life.

Because of Movable Type, its growing legion of dedicated users, and my duties as a moderator on the support forum, the little to-do list I started for myself became the major attraction to the site. Although many of those users also found my journal, which brought it some enjoyable exposure, I started to grow a little uncomfortable knowing that so many people were reading some very private things. My entries started to dwindle, not just because of this discomfort, but because my work life had also changed dramatically, and it was too draining to leave me with any energy left for the personal writing I had previously enjoyed so much.

In January of 2004, the stress at work started to take its final toll. Combined with my personal frustration at one particular visitor to the site, it all brought me to the conclusion that it was time to take both the journal and its accompanying blog down for good.

Shortly thereafter, I began doing some contract work to build up my savings in anticipation of leaving my current employer. I wasn't happy trying to be the kind of manager they wanted, and they weren't happy with the kind of manager I was. I started looking at jobs in my field, but found little to spark my interest. I had the skills and experience required, I was just bored with the thought of using them.

Realizing that I was soon to be in the position of needing to make a fresh start again after having spent the last three and a half years building a new and comfortable life, I started contemplating exactly what it was the universe might be trying to tell me about the field I had been working in for all these years, and why it was I had never found the satisfaction I needed to be a happy employee while using those particular skills. The truth I found was that there is a huge difference between being good at something and enjoying the actual performance of it.

Dave, the man I'd dated recently, had his own business doing the kind of work I had always been drawn to since discovering the online world years ago. He'd mentioned before that if I was interested, he would be happy to have me help on some of his projects. During this time of contemplation, I brought it up again to him, and he was still receptive to the idea.

Within the month, I was out of the 9-to-5 workforce - not by my initiation (I tend to be one of those people who will persevere in her attempts to tame the beast long past the point she should have, rather than conceding how unmanageable the beast actually is), but quite willing to leave the nightmare behind. I still had my contract work, and the severance package I was offered (not huge by any means, but it was decent, as the separation was not on bad terms) when combined with unemployment and what I'd been stashing away in savings, would enable me to get some well-deserved rest and decide what to do next.

The first person I called when I left my job was Dave. He was supportive and upbeat at the same time, and his encouraging attitude helped me realize that anything was possible if I just believed in myself. If there is any doubt that everyone who enters your life does so for a reason, then Dave is my proof of that. (I've never mentioned here that I added him to my Favorites on Match.com one day after reading his profile and staring at his picture for longer than I understood at the time, and how completely surprised I was when I received a message from him the very next day. Call it intuition or destiny or the voice of God, but whatever it was, it's clear to me that some sort of higher power was in charge.)

I'd been working on a new design for the site since taking down the journal, I just hadn't quite decided the direction the content would take. While doing the redesign, I'd been spending a lot of time reading about validation, web standards, and accessibility, and thought if I found these subjects interesting, other people might as well - especially many of the readers who find me through Movable Type. This also fit in with my desire to continue to take on additional work using the concepts I was learning.

The question I began to ask myself was: did I really want to find yet another job using the experience that would offer the best chance of bringing in the largest sums of money for me; or, could I take a leap into the shaky territory of turning the things I love to do into a means of supporting myself without necessarily adhering to the typical definition of employment?

While I contemplated these questions, I realized that too much introspection and not enough actual projects to work on left me feeling more at loose ends rather than rested. So, I emailed the company I was contracting for, updating them on the work I was doing, and also explained that I had left my last employer and now had more free time on my hands than I would like. If they had anything they needed done, I was both interested and available.

Much to my surprise and delight, not only did they have some work for me, they offered me a full-time job! I would continue the work I'd been doing under contract, continue the support work I'd been doing as a volunteer for two years, as well as some additional responsibilities they had planned, all while enjoying a regular salary and benefits.

There is an old adage in the career development field: What do you enjoy so much that you would do it even if no one paid for it? Whatever that is, it tells you your passion. And anyone who knows me, whether in person or just from my presence online, knows exactly where my passion lies.

Therefore, it should come as no surprise when I say, beginning today, my site is not the only thing which is Powered by Movable Type. ;-)

Now, it just wouldn't seem fitting to work for a company that produces the best blogging software ever (in my not so humble and completely biased opinion) and not have a blog myself. (Yes, there's the Tips blog, but I mean something broader.) So I'm jumping back in the trenches again - for better or for worse I have no idea. We'll just have to see how it goes.

But there's a lot of exciting stuff going on with MT 3.0 and TypeKey and just life in general now - I hope I can keep up!