You might remember a year ago, while attending Pathology Visions, we had a banquet on the Midway aircraft carrier.  And that in addition to being a great experience for me, it was also quite moving; I reconnected with the memory of my father, and I felt in some senses I was "midway" in my life, grappling with turning 50 in a couple of months.

As I noted at the time: "Midway is a great name, and a great concept, full of ambivalence and implied meaning.  Almost anything can be halfway between two other things."

So.

Last Tuesday night, after this years' Pathology Visions, I took a little bike ride around the back bay of San Diego.  And it took me right by the Midway.  And I was able to re-experience all those emotions from a year ago, with the new perspective of a year. 

Whew.

Has it been a good year?  No.  It has been a tough year; the first year of my second half (if so it will become) did not go as planned.  My family are great, Aperio is doing great, all the "big important things" are great, but my head is not.

It does not feel, in retrospect, like the Midway was in any sense an inflection point.  I didn't do anything differently, and nothing happened differently as a result.  I am still midway to figuring it all out.  It is ironic that the Midway has a banner saying "Welcome Home"; of course it is intended to seaman returning from war in the middle east, but for me it has another meaning; do I really live "midway"?  Perhaps I do.

Revisiting the Midway gives me an opportunity to rededicate myself to changing.  I strongly hope that when I ride by it again next year, I'll feel that this year was really a turning point.

We'll see.