How insane is that. For the first time since my professional career began back in 2006, come 5pm this afternoon, I will officially be unemployed with absolutely nothing lined up for the future.
The thought that on Monday, when all you guys are getting up, getting dressed and hitting your cubicles, I’ll just be lying in bed staring at the ceiling fills me in equal parts with terror and fathomless joy.
So what gives? Why the sudden decision to pull out of the race and just park off by the side-lines for awhile? Did I win the lottery? Inherit a fortune of a distant great-aunt? Finally lose my goddamned mind?
It’s part of a bigger plan boys and girls, that’s all I can say at this point. All these weeks and months your Tiger pal has been hatching plans, making schemes, throwing the rule book out the window, risking everything.
The year’s not even half done and already I know I will never, never forget 2014 because sometimes you just know as things are happening to you, right there in the moment, that in one way or another you’ll be feeling the aftershocks for the rest of your life.
It gives you new eyes, you see the world differently. The important things swim back into focus – your family, your friends, the people you love, the place you live in all it’s disparate beauty, it’s endearing dysfunctionality.
A road you thought you knew so well, like the face of an old friend, reveals a dimple you’d never noticed before. A bus stop spilling over with people in the rain is suddenly so much more than the steel and plastic its built from. You see deeper, right into the heart of the city you call home and instead of the indifference you thought was there before, there is only acceptance, solace and an inescapable feeling of aching nostalgia.
I thought TS Eliot was a wanker when I read his poetry in university. I just didn’t get it, I didn’t understand what the hell he was trying to say. We studied Four Quartets and 90% of it went straight over my head.
But that last 10% stuck and I’m glad it did because the older I get, the more I get it.
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
I don’t know what the future holds for me. Honestly. I’m not writing this to be cryptic, I’m not trying to lead you guys on, I’m not deliberately trying to be vague. I’m just expressing what it’s like to face down this giant beast of uncertainty armed with nothing but the unwavering belief that somehow, somehow, everything is going to be ok.
I’m trying not to jinx this. But all I can say is that very soon I’ll know if this is going to work or if it’s going to fail dismally. When the time is right and the planets are aligned I’ll spill the beans.
If this works, everything changes.
If it doesn’t, I lick my wounds and figure out what the fuck to do with my life.
There is no fate but what we make 
-ST
