More than a Web Developer

I’ve been deeply immersed in web design and technology, and the small business arena for the last 10 years. I’ve loved every minute of it (ok, so not so much some of the hair pulling technical puzzles, but most of it!). I’ve loved the creative side, the puzzle element, and the associations with absolutely wonderful people. But I think I’m near the end of a season in my life. I can feel it coming apart – my interest is declining, the desire to go to the next level with it is fading. Other interests are reasserting themselves into my life again. I’m ready to be more than a web developer again.

I don’t know if it is the farm stuff that is piquing this interest or whether it is partly the poor economy and the effect it has on our business right now. Whatever it is, I find that I am pulled by things I have had no time for the last 5 years. I want to crochet again. I want to bake and make things for my family. I want to be a part time web developer, and have a life around it again.

It was necessary for me to be completely immersed in it for the time that I was – we would not have been able to build a business for our family if I had not been there first. So it was good and needed at the time. It was the season for it. I don’t have any regrets about it. And I don’t want to completely abandon it. But I’m ready for it to no longer dominate my life – for it to be a rewarding part of my life, but not the whole of it.

I used to read a lot (not just novels), I cooked a lot, made craft items, built some of our own furniture, and did a lot of home do it yourself stuff. I painted, drew, and designed things. In the thick of business, every creative effort I had was channeled into that – there was no time or thought left over. I read technical books. I created site designs. I “painted” custom graphics. I designed site structures.

I find myself longing for something else now. Not absent of what I have, but balanced with what I have. I’m finding that the “simple” life as described in the bucolic ramblings of the nostalgic is not really simple at all. And it is in no way unintelligent. It is complex, difficult, and involves a lot more than just drudging hard work. There is a highly academic side to it – you learn, or it fails miserably. A good farmer is an artist, a scientist, a veterinarian, a creator. He must be. Less than that does not succeed.

But the farming is only part of it. I miss parts of me that got set aside to develop the business. Again, it was the right and necessary choice at the time. But it may just be time now to bring them back.

I’m ready to be more again.