End of Chapter. Three days ago, we arrived in Fairfield with giant uhaul and close to all our worldly possessions (which certainly feel like too much. Nothing like having to pack up and move everything you have, to make you keenly aware of how much you have and what a heavy burden it is.) We had been packing furiously in the 100-ish degree weather for two or three days before that. And trying to finish getting our stuff into boxes. We woke up at 3:30 am, finished loading the truck and car (a good friend who we paid to drive the truck was also helping load up the truck during the final frantic day.) put the cats in, and drove until around 9pm, to arrive back in Fairfield.
Two days ago, we woke up after a long well deserved sleep (but surprisingly not that long, I think we only slept in till about 7am.) We then had a leisurely morning until 10am-ish, when a group of super kind, thoughtful, helpful friends helped us quickly unload the uhaul, doing in a few hours what would have likely taken us the rest of the day and the next day after it. Then we had lunch to celebrate (we bought for everyone who helped out of course.) and I convalesced for the rest of the day. I don't remember what else happened, just fatigue. Yesterday, we returned the truck, ran a few errands, I took a nap in the afternoon for an hour, but it could have gone on for a few hours, but I had some fourth of July things to attend. Good food and friends, and then fireworks. then I slept in some more. That whole day (and the previous, especially after unloading) I was profoundly exhausted. I wanted to do nothing but sit quietly and stare off into nature. Almost shell shocked.
Today, I am back to work, though I slept in even later. About 8:30 I think. Though I also went to bed later, past 10:30, because of the fireworks.
The house does not feel like home, it feels like a storage shed for boxes and furniture mixed with a well kept abandoned house that I, as a hobo, am camping out in. There is still a number of things that need to get done. I have to pack for my upcoming trip to Vail, Colorado, for a spiritual retreat type thing. Packing is made abit more difficult, because finding just about anything is an ordeal. I need to go on a treasure hunt if I want anything I didn't pack specifically for immediate use.
And in regards to that, with any spare time and energy I have, I need to be figuring out how to more conveniently all the boxes and furniture that we won't need until we find and purchase our new, larger house. And in regards to that, we are continuing to look for and visit houses as they come on the market. And I also need to do some research about the feasibility of building a house, in case we can't find what we want.
And we still have some simple moving things we need to take care of. Changing our address on various things, mail forwarding, etc.
Even so, even with all of that, it feels like I've finally reached at least the beginning of a reprieve. I've been going hard for 5 years +. Now, finally, I'm starting to slow down a little bit. To have actual time to breath. I am deeply thankful for it. I sit here, on my couch, with our two kitties napping next to me, without anything deeply pressing that I need to complete. Without the need to rush. With the opportunity to choose what I wish to do, and do it. Or just to sit quietly and enjoy existence, enjoy the beauty and abundance and love around me. Something I love to do and think I'm quite good at. Something I haven't felt I had the time to do very often in the past several years. I do not need to rush. I do not need to do things I do not want to do. Within reason. I still have to put boxes away, pack for the trip, etc. But it doesn't not feel bad. It feels good. I do not have a job I dread, that I have to gird my loins for at the end of my short week or three day long break. I am free. I have gone once more into the breach, for the last time. We have held back the enemy, once again, and now, finally, the battle is over. We have survived. Peace has returned to the land.
The long, forced march of the soldier, through dark cloudy skies. over barren, muddy ground, with no end in sight, long past the point of exhaustion, is finally over. The halt has been called. The hope I had dared not hope for, is realized. I may sit, I may rest, and not just for a few moments, to catch my breath before continuing on for an unknown further length of time. I sit now in green forest, surrounded by natural beauty, with no further march called for. I have arrived at safety, shelter. A place to settle down and live in. I have a chance to create a work life that I don't dread going to every single day. I have a chance to do all the things I just didn't have time for before.
I paid a grave price over the last several years. Gray hairs, deteriorating eyesight, nervous twitches, and a general lack of energy or enthusiasm for life. It has been really, really hard. I don't want to cast any negative aspersions on the people I've worked with, adult and child. I've liked them. But I have hated work. Or maybe dreaded it is a more accurate word. I've wanted so badly to stop doing it. I pressed on, because I thought it showed weak character to quit, I pressed on because I was so sick of how I quit almost everything I ever started. I pressed on because I believed (and I'm quite angry at you, Cal Newport, for giving me this horrible, damaging, incorrect or at best half-baked idea) that if I just got good enough at something, which I could do with anything, then I would end up enjoying doing it. That doing so was a viable path to job satisfaction.
I don't think that view is wrong so much, as only half of what is necessary, and thus totally insufficient to actually achieve job satisfaction.
In yet another area of my life, I am now done listening to other people over and above my own internal wisdom and knowing. It's time to trust myself and my own internal guidance and direction. I hope I can take the lesson of this more holistically, and not wait for another awful several years in some area of my life, before I learn it for that as well. It's already happened for spirituality, relationships, and now job. How about I just say that's my MO in general, rather than having to re-learn it for everything.
I've got a lot of trips and journeys I'm doing this summer. I already mentioned the one I'm going to start packing for in Colorado, which I leave for this Thursday, but I also have a trip to meet up with my Tracker family, a few weeks later. Something I haven't done during the last 5 years of pain. And a relaxed family vacation, something else I haven't done during the last 5 years, I think. And finally, near the end of the summer, I'm doing a vision quest. Vision quests can be for seeking clarity on many things, but one of the original is to find out what your work is, in the world. Vision is somewhat synonymous with purpose or dharma, and I am specifically interested in what my vision is, in terms of work, but I think also a bit more broadly, in how I want to live my life.
I don't feel alone in this uncertainty and worry. In this unanswered question, "how do I live a good life?" It fills me with compassion to see so many of my friends also with this feeling of emptiness and/or anxiety, which they generally try to ignore or distract themselves from. But I can't help them if I can't help myself.
Teaching was interesting, in that while it felt awful on many levels, I never worried that I was not doing something useful, that my life was meaningless. I had 30 to 40 dear little people who very much needed me, every day. And I was doing something that was clearly meaningful and in my own estimation, as important as you could possibly get.
That's why I chose teaching. I went big on the premise that it didn't matter if you enjoyed it, that came with practice and mastery, so you might as well just pick something you thought was important. So I picked the thing I thought was most important of all. I still do. I still hope that I can find some permutation, that I do actually love to do. But I have discovered through great sacrifice, that you can't just choose anything and get good at it to love doing it. We all have predispositions, and that's something you need to take into account, when selecting work.
What that really specifically means, and how to find and clarify those dispositions, and find work where you get to lean on them, are things I plan on discovering, because I do not yet know them.
For now, the old sad story has ended, a new, happier one begins. Soon. But for now, rest, enjoyment, gratitude.
