My last post on this blog was in August 2016. That's almost 18 months ago as of this writing. I wanted to post an update and explain why I've basically disappeared from from this site and my open source projects.
In September 2016 myself and my wife moved from our home in Dublin Ireland to Lansing Michigan. This move was driven by a new opportunity offered to me in my work which we both agreed would not only be a good career move for me but also a great opportunity to travel and experience some new cultures for a few years.
The move was much more taxing on us than we had initially anticipated. For this reason I made a conscious decision that the most important investment of my time was to spend it with my wife and set the remainder of 2016 and all of 2017 as a time of growing together, making new friends and building relationships. The side-effect of this was that many of my side-projects, this blog included, were put aside for a time to allow me to concentrate my time and energy where it was really needed for that season.
We are 16 months into life in the US now, and things are going great. We have made some really great friends, been able to travel around the country exploring new places and, most importantly in my opinion, strengthened our own relationship and learned more about who we are as a couple.
One thing that we realised in making such a large life change was just how much our behaviours and actions were influenced by our families and other relationships and situations. When all that is stripped away as it was for us, you get to see who you really are and make some real decisions about how you live your life, what you value and where you invest your time.
Don't get me wrong, we love our families and friends back in Ireland, and we are exicted to return. This experience has taught us so much though, and despite how hard the first year was, we are now thriving and living life to the fullest.I want to mention the people at Element Church who have become like family to us in the last year and made the transition so much easier.
My advice to anyone reading this who is considering making a big life change as we did would be: do it. It may be hard, you may feel lonely and homesick as we did, but you'll come out the other side changed forever. Now that we've come out the other side we can see how much we've grown and learned in the process and wouldn't change a thing.
Now that things have settled down and we have developed a new life rhythm, I am looking forward to getting back to some of my projects. I've already pushed a few updates to iota in the last few weeks, and I'm looking forward to reviving that some more along with perhaps starting a few other things in coming months.
Stay tuned.