Deliberate absenteeism, or not?

There’s no excuse for being a deliberate absentee from your own blog, is there? Deliberate, not in the sense of lacking the inclination to write, but deliberately letting life get in the way, or simply being lazy.

When I was doing it for a living, words would pour out effortlessly. I'd jot down my thoughts on blank Word sheets if I was using my laptop, or on different notepads in each of my purses and bags. You'd always find random notes on pages with the dates. But ever since I quit my job and moved to London, it's been different.

Now, I do want to write about things, but these thoughts often come when I'm in the middle of other tasks, and they become fleeting instead of chronicled. What could have been proper noteworthy thoughts wither away as the day progresses. One day becomes a week, and weeks become a month. It's now been over a year since I last posted something on my blog.

It's not like it's been a dreary year; could that count as an excuse? Quite the contrary. I got my master’s dissertation published in SportsPro. I worked at Two Circles on The Hundred and Formula E. I visited Meghana in Ireland and travelled to Gibraltar. I watched Man City play twice at Wembley. I visited York, Bath, Oxford, and Cotswolds for weekenders. I attended two days of the World Test Championship. I experienced the hype (and have joined that bandwagon) about cherry blossom season, aka spring. I caught up with heaps of friends and family from around the world in the summer, which didn't make me miss home. Mum visited in the winter, making it even better! (I did feel bad about the timing for her, considering the layering up she had to do just to step out, but hopefully, the Christmas lights were worth it.) I watched my first play here: Luke Evans starring in Backstairs Billy. Oh, and I traveled back to India for the first time since I moved to the UK. And I graduated! 

(The sequence of the events in the above paragraph is the indication of my ageing brain, which is bringing them one at a time and in haphazard chronology.)

LinkedIn became my new Twitter, consuming my hours. I networked like a crazy person but had valuable conversations with people from within and outside the sports industry, gaining great perspective and changing my mind about things I may have been quite set on prior to it. I also appreciated people being friendly and helpful if your first message was effective. Those who don't respond probably have more on their plate than you can imagine, or so I'd like to believe.

In essence, it's been quite an interesting year between blog posts, filled with challenges and transformations. I hope this year is better than the last. I will not say 2023 was bad, but we can always do better, can't we? I'm not insinuating that I won't write until next year. Hopefully, I can make the mundane a tad more interesting.