I resolved to do something today during my daily writing exercises. I resolved to start changing everything. The first part of this process is to start a new blog.
I don't expect anyone to read it, but it will be out there, tracking the decisions I'm making the accomplishments I have and the lessons I learn.
So what am I talking about?
That will take a little history. More history that I've allotted the time or space to outline in this post. It will come, a little at a time as I think of what to include. For now I'll say that I'm somewhere near the midpoint of my life (if I'm lucky) and I'm coming to some realizations. Maybe these thoughts have always been there in the form of fears. Fear that I may not get to do the things I wanted when I dreamed of my future. Fear that I might end up alone. Fear that I may not leave some kind of mark on the world around me.
I thought of such things early in life. I used to lie awake at night and think about my own death. What it is like to not exist. To be completely removed from the world that we live in. The first time I remember thinking these thoughts I was barely six.
I didn't dwell on them. I was an unhappy child for no external reason, but I wasn't morbid. Thoughts of death didn't occupy my every waking moment, just those times I was alone in a silent room, trying to drift off to sleep.
I learned that if I concentrated on a black box in a dark room, imagining it turning slowly so that each face passed in front of my straining eyes, eventually I would fall asleep. Asleep where the thoughts of my own mortality couldn't get me. Not often anyway.
(It is hard to write about myself without starting every paragraph with 'I'. Hopefully there is a skill I can pick up along the way.)
Now I have a wife, three kids, two dogs and three cats to keep me company. I haven't had a night alone in a bed in my own house in years. I have had a few times in hotels on work trips that I've been alone in a dark room, but the weight I carry and the age and unhealthy lifestyle make sure I fall asleep fairly quickly. There's no need for black boxes and dark rooms anymore.
Sometimes I can't sleep, but usually that is after an hour or so of exhausted torpor. Then something will wake me. Sometimes it's because I can't breathe. Either my head is congested, or undiagnosed sleep apnea makes me sit up and gasp for air. On those nights I usually end up out of bed.
I wake up many times a night with arms numb or feet tingling. Regardless of my sleeping position, something is always not getting enough blood or nerves are getting pinched. I fear that one day I'll wake up and the feeling will never return or the tingling will never stop.
So I'm looking at an opening. With the exception of my wife, son and daughters (and okay, fine, pets as well) I'm not pleased with any aspect of my life. I would sell it all and move somewhere far away taking only a laptop to record my venture, and the family that means everything to me.
I've considered getting a truck, a camper and living on the road. If I thought I could provide for us I'd do it. I'm getting sick of the trappings of the life I'm leading. That's what the stuff is: a trap.
We have also considered selling the house and as many of our possessions as possible and moving to a small town. The equity in our current house could buy a similar number of rooms in an older, rural house. Expenses would be much lower, but opportunities for earning money would have to come from the skills we can sell at a distance.
It is this latter idea that we're currently working on. Our house is posted on Zillow as a "Make Me Move". There are some things I'd like to fix before we take pictures and really go at the market. For now, we're just there in case luck has it that someone wants the place as is.
But that will be a slow process. It may be a year or more before we can really consider a move without some sort of lucky break. So I decided to start this record of everything I'm hoping to change. This is actually the first step in what I hope becomes a new life for me. A new life and a new attitude.
Today I saw an opening. It's a small one, but it is there. I hope to develop the tools I need to pry that opening wide enough to fit us through and move us on. Writing this page was the beginning.
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