One year

One year ago today, I left the life I knew to come here. I won't lie, it's been hard. It helps though that there is no old life to go back to. This is all that there is. The house I lived in has been rented to someone else. I'm divorced from the person to whom I was married. I have a completely different job and live in a different city. I don't even look the same as I did, to where I don't know if the ID photo I had at the time would even be usable at an airport.

Whether it's been worth it or not remains to be seen. I'm happier in some ways, though I know I have developed unhealthy habits. I've decided to isolate myself from in-person contact for a time. I have things to do, things to write, etc. I don't have the bandwith for in-person contact, with its many demands.

I miss my old life, but it's like missing a bygone era that no longer exists. The creative life, that's the only thing that means anything to me these days.

The Solo Act

This past weekend I went on a vacation alone for the first time in nearly 20 years, to the coast here. I enjoy traveling alone--I like setting my own schedule and doing whatever I care to do. Dining alone is something that doesn't really bother me, though I will say when you're going out with someone else it feels a bit more normalizing as far as fitting in with other people. You also don't have to worry about someone grabbing your table/seat while you're gone, something that has happened to me before.

I spent most of my time walking around, looking at the ocean, and drinking beer. Went to a more touristy area later and didn't like it as much, though I had fun playing this odd skeeball/bingo hybrid called Fascination. I still feel sad sometimes, but it's more of a baseline of sadness that doesn't draw attention to itself. Sadness as an ongoing condition, like eye color or the shape of one's nose.

My father-in-law, about whom I wrote in the early days of this blog, passed away ten years ago today. We did not often get along, but I was glad that I was able to make things right with him in his final days. He had flaws, but was a good soul, and was a better man than I could ever hope of being.

Larry McMurtry, (1936-2021)

Even when you know it's coming, it's always tough to cope with the death of an artist you cared about. As I wrote about previously, I started reading Larry McMurtry in high school, and he's one of the few authors from back then that I continue to read as I head into late middle age. I used to idenfity with his younger characters, and then his somewhat older ones...often the same characters in different books. Although he is better known for Lonesome Dove and the other Westerns, I seldom read those. I've written about the Thalia cycle, and another of my favorites is All of My Friends Are Going to be Strangers. His three book memoir about book dealing, screenwriting, and novel writing are gems. I am sad that he is gone, though I'd had difficult with his later work. But it is sad when you know that a body of work has come to an end, that there is a limit to the number of works out there.

Reading MOVING ON, which is like his contemporary version of LONESOME DOVE in that it's a very long book. In his preface he writes about how he couldn't come up with a title and initally named it after its main character, Patsy Carpenter, but the publisher wouldn't go for it. I am looking forward to revisiting it in the coming days, it's one that I haven't read since college, and might appreciate it more now that I've been married/divorced.

"I'm transforming, I'm vibrating...."

I am not the same person I was a year ago, and not just in the obvious ways [being married, living in a different city, with a different job...] I do miss my old life, my old home, the ease of my marriage even if it ultimately didn't work out.

Life is better in many ways. I don't have as many worries, and feel good about the future regardless of some of the things I'm dealing with at the moment. I think I'm through the miserable winter, and am hopeful next time will be better.

But as so often has been the case, I often feel my happiness is a delicate balance and the slightest setback could send me into despondency yet again. Hopefully I am learning and adapting. Several online acquaintances have gone through divorce fairly recently and my only advice is to eventually try to view it as an opportunity for growth and transformation. Early on, this will likely be impossible, but once an equilibrium is found---do something you've wanted to do but didn't think you could. Try something you haven't before. Run with a different crowd, or maybe no crowd at all. Become a stranger to yourself.

Hunger is the best sauce

My [now ex] mother-in-law had a saying, “Hunger is the best sauce.” The sense of need, of lack, makes everything taste better. I had no electricity for most of the past week. All I could think of was how much I would enjoy things when the power came back on. My neighbors had all left after the first day or so without power. I had candles which had a overpowering floral scent that made my apartment smell like a grandmother’s house. My next door neighbor came by to check on his place and asked how I was doing, but was giving me a wide berth. I probably looked a little crazed. Someone who goes without heat and light for four days in winter might be capable of anything.

Without meaning to, I’ve developed a practice about many physical comforts, where denying them for a short while makes me appreciate them more. I am that way a lot about food, and heat/cooling. Heat feels wonderful when you’ve been very cold, but is not that remarkable if it is on regularly, even in winter. I tend to skip meals often, in order to more fully enjoy the meals that I do eat, and of course the benefit of weight loss. I freely admit to not having the healthiest relationship with food, and struggle with putting too many psychological associations on it. I often enjoy making myself uncomfortable in order to better enjoy it when the period of discomfort is lifted.

My electricity returned in time for the weekend. I was out walking, trying to see if there were any work trucks in my neighborhood. Seeing none, I began to despair, but then saw that a traffic light that had been out for days was now working. As I grew closer to my apartment, I saw more lights on. When I opened my door, I returned to the 21st century. Today I replenished the food I’d had to throw in the trash, though I noticed myself being hesitant to buy too many perishable items. I wonder if I will always be skeptical about electricity from now on, always assuming it could be taken away again at any moment. Perhaps that’s not the worst way to be. Earlier in the week, I was walking to an emergency warming center that had electricity to get some work done on my laptop. As I walked, I saw everything closed for blocks…gas stations not working, traffic lights out, businesses closed. I felt as if I was in the prologue of a dystopian film or novel, like The Road. Perhaps this was an early glimpse of the future.

Stillness.

It snowed and it's the first time I've lived someplace with snow for about 5-6 years Thankfully, no need to get out in it unless I want to. Three day weekend but I'm stuck at home due to the weather and transit being shut down. Hopefully by Monday I might able to at least go somewhere else.
I often feel like a fugue took place in 2003 and I woke in 2020 in another state, older, with a different job. "I used to be darker, then I got lighter, then I got dark again..." My ex used to work in a nursing home and often spoke in horror about a patient who suddenly had a psychotic break one day and no longer recognized his family. I don't feel like the same person I was a year ago, for good and for bad. There's one good thing about being alone, there's no one to define you. It's easier to write your own story, wahtever that might be. Not that I write much these days.

I need to view this weekend as an opportunity to just be still, and think, and decide what's valauble, and how I want to write my story going forward.

Reinventing the wheel would be an improvement....

My workplace woes continue. I've been there almost 10 months now, and don't feel much more capable than I was on my first day. Still not too clear about most of my duties. Sometimes it feels like some really boring, unamusing game at a party that you never wanted to attend. I need to do X, I'm told to do Y, only find that doesn't work, so I need to try to find the name of anothr type of report from this other person, who responds after a few hours. But in the end, I'm still not sure how the report helps with my objective. I would say we re-invent the wheel every day, but that's giving way too much credit since having a wheel would actually be useful. This is more like trying to understand the concept of shapes everyday and choosing a rhombus.

Longtime readers [if any exist] know this is not a new problem for me, and it makes me think of the saying about how if you run into one asshole, you ran into an asshole, but if you run into assholes all day long the asshole is you. If you continue having issues getting started in job after job, and having communication issues with your boss, maybe the problem lies with me.

I've enjoyed a couple of my jobs since changing careers---I enjoyed working at the medical clinic in Oklahoma though I had a similar case where I never quite understood some of the things I was supposed to be doing. And I liked my job at the nonprofit, though I had similar issues with a noncommunicative boss. But I felt like I was supporting valuable work, and felt like I knew what I was doing at least half of the time. Since I had to leave the nonprofit a few years ago, it's just been a lot of uncertainty. I think I was happiest in my first full time job after college, as a data entry clerk for the Post Office. I'm lucky that I've been able to return to the federal system, so I should be in a position to retire in not too long now. But it's weird to be heading into the last decade or so of my career and to still feel so unsure of myself, and still trying to find my footing.