If I had all the time in the world what would I do...

I'm coming from a unique perspective. I mean of course we all are, but let me explain.

Over the past year, I've been living a completely different life. I left my job of 23 years to travel in South America. Previously, I was always rushing around. I worked odd hours and sometimes too many. I always felt like I was trying to catch up. When I had spare time, I found friends, but I didn't really look inside enough. My quality of life suffered. I wasn't getting adequate exercise or nutrition. My house was a disaster to the point that I never had friends over. Talk about hiding. I was almost never home. A need to be creative and to do something meaningful nagged at me, but I couldn't sit still long enough to give it any consideration.

I needed a change. I sold my house and car, gave away lots of possessions, quit my job and moved to South America. I started living two weeks to a month at a time in various AirBnBs and working less than 15 hours a week teaching English online. The plan was to keep this up for a year, making a little money, but mostly spending savings.

Suddenly, in my new life I had all the time in the world. Have you ever asked yourself, if you had all the time in the world what would you do? I thought I would write a novel or draw comics. I would design a Rube Goldberg machine. I would get fit. I was dying to be creative and see what my brain would think of if I gave it time. And I did write. I drew very little. I walked a million steps. I started getting comfortable in the kitchen and not eating out too much. I kept putting off the Rube Goldberg.

Then the world caught the Covid and I'm back in the U.S. four months early. It's sad to end that exact journey too soon, but people are missing out on much more important things. All I have to do is stay inside.

Now many of us have a lot of extra time suddenly, but this isn't new for me. I'm used to having all this time and headspace.

And to be honest, I don't know what else to say about that. The virus isn't normal. The future won't be normal, but having all this time to myself is normal. Working online is normal. Not knowing what I'm going to do next is normal.