Grand expectations

Anyone reading this blog might be forgiven for thinking that I’m trying to find some means of writing my way through this being-in-the-middle-ness because I have nothing better to do. Actually, it’s not quite that simple. During the past several months I've been slowly, gradually but very purposefully edging towards an effective antidote to any whiff of the onset of a mid-life crisis.
There are some observers, better informed than myself, who debate developing trends in what we expect in life...and I claim no expert overview on the subject. But I rather suspect that, in blogging and in life, we express our lives in a context which was not previously commonplace and would in past generations have had us regarded as unconventional. Are we simply following on the trail of the quaintly termed (disease of) ‘personal development’ which drives us to maximise our experiences, our impact? Like many others, I’ve certainly caught a dose of something and I’m not even trying to shake it off.
You could say it was sparked off several months ago when, after a lapse of several busy years of domestic distraction, I re-discovered the multiple positive effects of putting my ponderings into words. Simultaneously I began exploring an intriguing world of new language and concepts. These notions emerged from reading around the work of others on the stories we humans constantly create to describe, understand, categorise or remember our experiences of life...much of it typified by the literary output of an army of bloggers, but encountered in all aspects of social contact. To my surprise, these spindly seedlings have grown into a forest of ideas and I now find myself on the verge of signing up for an MPhil/PhD. I’m in part excited at the prospect, in part terrified at what I may have started and wondering if I will ever complete the task, and hoping that on the way I’ll meet some others likewise treading a new path while continuing to juggle with part-time work and domestic commitments.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I have been reminded that I should regard this as a journey, a process...as far as I’m concerned, having found a focal point of interest, I’m embarking on an ambitious expedition. Hey, I’ve lit the blue touch paper; let’s watch to see if the fireworks will light up my sky!