Reinvention

It's hard to believe that a month has passed since I got back from Europe.  The month of June has flown by.  I recently passed the one year anniversary of telling my job that I was leaving.  June 23 is an otherwise insignificant date to me, but this year it spurred a lot of deep thinking on my part.  The fortunate conclusion of all that thinking is that I can say without hesitation that I was a much happier person on June 23, 2011 than I was on June 23, 2010.

I've spent most of the first 10 months post-job focusing on fixing myself mentally and emotionally - regaining my sanity, relearning how to relax, remembering how to be happy.  All in all, I'd say it's been a great success.  But now it is time to push myself to move forward even more.

With the support and company of a few other wonderful unemployed/underemployed/self-employed friends, I have started the ambitious project of reinventing myself.  The obvious first step was leaving my job.  Now the goal is figuring out how to sustain this new, happier me.

A major focus of project reinvention as been fixing myself physically, now that I've gotten to a good place mentally and emotionally.  I've started going to the gym nearly every day in an attempt to reverse the effects of eight years of eating takeout at my desk.  I've also started doing boot camp classes, because apparently I am a crazy person.  I have yet to see any dramatic results, but I can say that I feel better and honestly have more energy.  The trick will be keeping it up.  But as they always say, having friends with similar goals makes it so much easier to stick to it.

Another significant part of project reinvention has been rediscovering why I love New York.  This is the first summer ever that I've had free time to do things, and I intend to take full advantage of it.  I've already seen and explored lots of new things, but that is a story for another time.  All I will say is that, so far, this is the most fun summer I've had since my first summer here 11 years ago.  I'm having so much fun, in fact, that I've decided to push back my next big trip from late summer to some time in the fall.

I'm also going to try to be better about updating this blog with the successes and failures of project reinvention, both for myself and for any of you out there who are still reading this.

For those who are, I hope that you have been enjoying your summer thus far and that it continues to be great!