Stephen Witherden’s Website :: Personal :: Anniversary

An anniversary is something that happens once a year, in this case, as you can see by my timer on the left hand side of my website, today is the anniversary of my return to New Zealand from Texas. At times like these it’s often seen as an opportunity to look back and reflect on the things that have happened in the year past and look forward to the things that will happen in the year forward.

In my case, a number of things have happened this year past. I found a new place to live. I joined outline (an organisation supporting gay people over the phone). I became more involved with my church, becoming a member of the board and preparing a few services with my friend Alastair. I became lonely & wistful then met a new lover. I climbed a mountain, took up running (dropped it again for winter, brr), unintentionally helping trigger my dear friend Andrew’s fitness obsession.

I became an associate at work, got a pay rise, bought more shares , worked on more projects than I care to mention and even managed to get some real work done in the process. I got a second job supervising students at the university which forced me to grow much more than I’d like to admit.  I have made new friends and reconnected with old friends (like Shane who I literally haven’t seen in over a decade). I also threw my first birthday party, ever.

So, what does the next year hold? Well, I may end up in Adelaide for some period of time doing some military work (if I told you the details I’d have to kill you or something). I am not too keen on Adelaide, though, so we’ll just take things as they come. If I am still in New Zealand I will continue with my work for the university and also for my church. I also want to find a much bigger place to live, I am tired of being cramped. I also want to write a book, about what? I’m not picky.  

Either way, something big needs to happen. As you can probably tell, every time something big happens I reset the life-timer. I don’t want the life timer to ever go over 730 days. I think one big life change per 2 years or so is healthy. This means I hope to be resetting the life timer back to zero and starting a new chapter in my life sometime in this year coming, I wonder what it will be?

You may wonder why I chose the first image for this post. The answer is in the name: they are annuals, they die and are reborn each year. May it ever be so in our own lives