Choices Made and New Paths?

During a conversation with some friends last week, it came up how much I dislike my job (in this particular context, when I say "dislike", I mean "hate with the burning intensity of a thousand suns"). More than my job, it's actually the whole stinking computer, high-tech industry that I can't stand. I want out in the worst possible way.

I majored in computer science, but could have - or, sometimes I wonder, should have - majored in art/photography, music, or culinary arts. But I opted for what would pay better, instead of what I was really passionate about.

Now here I am, 40 years old in a career I despise, and even with the larger income (compared to if I had taken one of the other paths), I'm often at a loss over how the bills are to be paid. There are some days (not all mind you, but enough for me to take notice) that I feel utterly "trapped".

Before you say "just quit and get a different job", it's not as simple as that. Taking a sizable pay cut to take a more "creative" job elsewhere is simply not acceptable (bills, remember?). And as much as I'd love to go back to school and "start over", who's going to pay for that? I'm still paying off my student loans from the first time around.

What I'd really love to do is to buy a couple of adjoining storefronts and open up a cafe/coffee-shop on one side, and an art gallery on the other - a place where local craftspeople and artists can showcase their work. I want to somehow get good enough with my photography that someone would actually consider buying my work - I'm not into sitting around taking pictures of screaming brats (God bless those with enough patience for that!), but want to get into "fine art" photography.

I did decide today, though, that even if I couldn't go back to school and major in "what I maybe should have in the first place", there are still things that can be done. For instance, today at the library I checked out some books which I will be working on absorbing over the next few weeks. The first of which is "The Ultimate Field Guide to Photography". So far it's a really good, informative read, and I can work on picking up some of the basics that I have woefully been missing. There's no substitute for experience, of course, but this is a start, and the experience will come over time.

So my free time (what of it there is) in the near term will be filled with reading about photography, possibly crocheting one more afghan before the year is out, perhaps making a cheesecake or three, and - not to be forgotten - catching the occasional Patriots' game on TV.

At least someone is annihilating the Bills...