A Fallow Year

283 words, 1 mins
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The fields awaken as the snow disappears.

I was travelling through Czech with a friend a couple of weeks ago. The fields were just seeing the light of day after a winter under the snow, the colors that greenish yellow of vegetation that hasn’t seen sun in a long time, the ground bare in patches. What do they grow here? I asked. I don’t know, he answered. Sometimes they leave the fields empty for a year so that they can regenerate, how do you call that? A fallow year I said.

Later I realised that that describes this year for me. A fallow year, a year to regenerate, to learn some new things, to rediscover what it is about programming that excites me and intrigues me. A year for thinking off the grid, for dreaming, for following up ideas to see where they take me. I can live for few months without worrying about income. And I can choose what work I do so that I do things that really appeal to me.
Cause last year was a bitch of a year, with a death march project (mostly through my own fault) with a bunch of long days and a chunk of time that I would never get paid for. A year that ended with me questioning whether I wanted to continue working with computers or maybe do something completely different (wait on tables, be a roadie, wrestle alligators). Space is needed.

Maybe over the next months I will find time to regenerate myself, my motivation, my blogs, my writing. Find some time for the guitar, for some running. Who knows… the sky is sometimes the only limit.