So there goes three months without work. Long service leave, plus some of my accumulated leave, has given me a lovely break. I had expected to use these three months to relax, but also as a form of sabbatical. I did, in fact, barely code at all. I had expected to catch up with all my long-lost friends. I did, in fact, catch up with not one of them.

Here’s a rough list thoughts and memories from the longest break from work or study since I started school (and likely the longest until I retire):

• Spending time with Carolyn
• Going on a family holiday to Yanchep, where we spent time away from all the gadgets, and lots of time wandering around, playing board games, or just at the beach
• Planning for and then enacting a surprise wedding (we finally did it!)
• Carolyn and I going on a child-free honeymoon, and getting to pretend to be adults for a little while (Nice dinners! Fancy shows!)
• Getting pregnant again (yes, really)
• Helping Carolyn out around the house (due to her horrible, 24/7 “morning” sickness)
• Helping Elysha work out her studies
• Taking Elysha to her first day of TAFE (in Mandurah)
• Picking up Elysha from her first day of TAFE, only to find that she’d already worked out how to get home on her own
• Driving Elysha to and from the train on Fridays (such early mornings)
• Dealing with a sick Romilly
• Having Romilly spend full weeks with us (even if only for a little while)
• Watching Romilly and Oliver playing together
• Taking Oliver swimming in deep water for the first time
• Taking Oliver to his first day of school
• Taking Oliver to class every morning, and staying for puzzles and reading time
• Picking Oliver up from class, and hearing excited (but exhausted) stories of his day
• Helping out in Oliver’s class (twice)
• Playing Skylanders with Oliver and teaching him how to use an XBox controller
• Listening to Oliver talk about Skylanders every waking hour of the day
• Planning how to fit another child into our crazy family
• Looking at cars
• Looking at houses
• Looking at granny-flats
• Panicking (just a little)
• Realising that there is always room in a house full of love
• Building a new PC
• Late nights of computer games, either by myself or with friends and brothers
• Going on photography walks with my brother
• Cuddling my frail 19-year-old cat as he finds it hard to keep warm
• Fixing things for people
• Eating too much
• Watching the soft, fluffy clouds wander across the blue, blue sky and realising how wonderful life can be when you    just    slow    down

So many memories with my family, and so well timed to be able to look after Carolyn. I’m sorry to all the friends I didn’t see, to all the projects in my head left uninvestigated, and to all the lines of code I didn’t write, but I wouldn’t sacrifice any of my last three months. Not one bit.

Kurt: It seems that Windows has the same success pattern as Star Trek movies.
Lionfire: Microsoft should hire J J Abrams?
Kurt: This is my point exactly.
Lionfire: Windows 9: Lensflare Edition
Kurt: If it details how Clippy’s home planet is destroyed, it should be wildly popular.
Lionfire: It looks like you’re trying t-OH MY GOD!

They all walk down the stairs, but I push past them and continue. They look at me as if I have no right to be going that way; going the wrong way; an inconvenience. But this is the way that I must go. I look to my feet and continue, going up while they go down.

I make my own way.

So, there’s this problem with having a job and a family and some hobbies and only a single corporal body locked within a linear, bounded time-stream: everyone ends up complaining that I’m not updating my blog. Sure, there’s twitter and all the other places I’m throwing things and pressing “Like” buttons, but people want words or photos or something more personal or whatever. There hasn’t been very much of that.

When I started this blog, I was still at university and had no children. On Sunday I was back on campus with my step-daughter and it reminded me how much has changed and how far I’ve come. Pretentious? Sure; but still true.

However what I took from the day wasn’t how far I’ve come so much as how much I’ve lost along the way. I no longer make games. I no longer draw. I no longer write. I no longer create.

None of this is anyone’s fault but my own, of course, and it hasn’t gone completely unnoticed. Throughout my life I have always created. The form of the creation has changed, but it has always been there: painting, drawing, 3D rendering, computer games, websites, software, photography.

In recent years, however, work seems to have displaced this creativity without really replacing it. Some might see my job as creative, but it isn’t the same thing. True creativity comes from within, and I’m sure it’s still in there somewhere.

It’s time to send a search party.