Every seven years, you change., apparently.

For me, if I look back over my life, there’s some truth in that. 14 spells the beginning of a formative age, 21 the beginning of adulthood, 28 the beginning of family life, 35 the beginnings of a new maturity and so on.

It doesn’t hold exactly true, of course. We don’t change each seventh birthday, but around and about each seven years there’s a kind of shift.

At 56 I retired. Not because it was 8 x 7, but because I’d always hoped and planned to retire at 55. It took a year to extricate myself from the hamster wheel of work and actually do it. We (my wife and myself) bought a home in Spain last year where we’ll live at least half of the year and enjoy our middle age and twilight years.

After seven years and four months (2704 days, at the time of writing, to be exact) I’ve reached the end of the SL road, in a sense. I won’t be renewing my rental in a month’s time, and will be exiting SL on a regular basis as a result of real life ‘commitments’. I’m not actually committed to anything, but the death of Prince, almost the exact same age as I am, made me think that I should try to do stuff that thrills me (i.e. music) while I can.

It seems an appropriate time to bring SL Naturist to an end and go back to my first love, music. You’ll probably never hear that music, of course, but that’s not important. The important thing is to flex the creative muscle in that regard. I’ve always regarded SL & RL as entirely separate, so I’m not even going to point you at my real life, real world website (or real life, real world recordings).

With hindsight, no disrespect to Trine and Abigail’s terrific work, we should have closed when Ella and Pookes called it a day last autumn.

We’ve weathered changes in personnel, a shift in attitudes to SL nudity, a shift in attitudes to RL nudity, a shift in the way SL is over that seven years.

It feels like the right time to say goodbye, and close SL Naturist. I’m grateful to Trine, Ella, Pookes, Abigail, Harry, Diane and others for their input over the past four and a half years, but there’s something that’s telling me that this is the time to call a halt. So I will.

SL Naturist, 821,000 visits later, 1000+ visits per day later, is closing. I would like to thank all who have visited the blog over the past four and a half years.

We will remain online, but as from today it’s unlikely there will be few further updates. (I reserve the right to blog on redirecting readers to any new blog the staff may wish to set up, but SLN, in its current form, will no longer post or update).

It has been fun. It has been great fun. But the world moves on, if it’s real life or a Second life, and for me it’s time to exit SL almost entirely, due to a shift in thinking. Of course my avatar ‘lives on’ and I’m not ruling out occasional forays into SL, but regular visits are almost impossible, moving forward. There’s much to do, and SL won’t be an integral part of that, moving forward.

I promise that I will redirect you to any new site, should the staff, past and present, decide to continue blogging on SL naturism, but I’m done, I’m through, I’m finished. The SL office presence in world will exist for about another month, but I won’t be renewing my rent at the Eden Estate thereafter, and will be moving on to pastures new, in the real world.

My very best wishes to you all.

 

Howie