Try It Again, from the Top

I had pretty much resolved to end it all – blogging, that is. As for the other, the jury is still out. There is neither the will nor the inspiration. Then a few hardy souls stopped by and sent me on a guilt trip. I suspect that they may regret it.

I do not read as many blogs any more as I once did. I do cruise around the old neighborhoods and read the posts. Certainly I do not comment as much and when I comment now I am much less verbose. I enjoy your posts as much as ever, but, just as the will and inspiration to post is gone, so is the urge to make my presence known.

Lake Gonebelow has not been a happy place this year and dramatically less so in the last two months. The ole Lem has not been a very pleasant person to be around, quite frankly. So very much has gone south. Late last year I lost someone whom I had loved very much. January brought a brief bright spot, but then it was a series of annoyances and disasters. My car was hit, the shingles of our roof blew off and we had to replace the roofing, the shutters blew off, my retirement funds tanked, I lost my job, I can’t find another job, and last week my MIL succumbed to cancer. Her last weeks were exceedingly painful for her and, by extension, for her family.

Rationally I know that others have suffered so much more than I have and that I am very fortunate to have some resources (emotional and otherwise) that others do not have. Rationally I know that. It is far more difficult to convince my emotions and my psyche.

I hate cancer. It has ruthlessly robbed me of four people who were quite close and numerous others who were friends. Two of those close ones were within the last six to seven months, and there are others known already to be “in the queue”.

The impact of the job loss has been significant. The job hunt has led nowhere. Headhunters and websites, Craigslists and newspapers come up empty. Economics, skill sets, and age have forced early retirement, but it begins as a retirement lacking joy.

I think that there is quite a different emotional journey when one decides to take early retirement (or even regular retirement) on one’s own terms and at one’s own timetable. To be forced into it by persons and factors outside of one’s control engenders deep feelings of worthlessness and despair instead of the exuberance of freedom and release that it might otherwise. I struggle to attain the latter and to shed the former. For the present my life has become a wandering amidst murky shadows, a Sheol of this life. I often feel as if I am being forced to jump off a cliff, or, to use a sports metaphor, that I have been benched.

I am no longer in the game. Yet I have (or feel I have) so much still to give to life. I am not infirm. I am basically healthy. Arguments to the contrary not withstanding, I am not mentally impaired.

I have found that I look at so many things, simple things, from a different perspective now. It has been a sudden and dramatic shift within two months time. Everything is evaluated differently: an advertisement for nearly any product or service, the persons in vehicles that drive by my home, the items on my grocery lists,… Everything is seen differently.

I am hoping that the old cliché will still hold truth: that this, too, shall pass. I am hoping that on the other side will be a redefinition (a redemption?) for me of who I am, one in which I find new purpose and meaning, new direction and hope.

Sorry, guys. You asked for it.

It is always best to let sleeping dogs lie.

* * *

That’s a wrap.

Still sending HUGS to all!