Monthly Archives: January 2018

Moving on…

It has been difficult, but I have moved forward, and am beginning to find what I want to be. And what I want to do. It just won’t involve other people much.

Most of us find ourselves having to reconstruct our lives… the nons evolve, but not in isolation. We have to deal with suddenly discovering your world is not what your thot. Without warning, we find our world gone… and we are alone to rebuild.

I have written about how people who find themselves the victims of mental illness, will find their friends slipping away. Gradually, many of us end up without any direct contact with the outside world. We tend to become “loners” because we are forced to, not because we are driven to. The illness does not make us want to be alone… it makes us want to be understood.

What makes us seem to want to be alone, is that we can’t get people to understand what is happening to us. We can’t just “get over it”, or “move on”. We can learn about our illness, and sometimes find ways to mitigate it. But those problems/mistakes will never go away. We will have to always be on guard for each little sign that something is amiss.

People have said I am brave. It makes me feel good to hear… but I do not think of myself as brave. Is it brave to swim ashore from a sinking boat?

This is where I am.

I need to find a life… a way forward. And I need to do it on my own. It is slow going. But there is progress. In reality, I do thing I know what I want to do with my life. I am struggling to try to make it happen. But there are no other options.

I’ll try to write more about how I am doing towards my goal. I will actually be taking a needed step forward today. It may well make no difference at all. There are still major obstacles. But I have to move forward.

Coming to Acceptance

My thoughts have been drifting around my memories, and what is lost. There are so many wonderful things I have done, and seen. I have had great friends, and been involved with wonderful people. I loved my time in archery, college, and teaching. At every step, I thot I was making life-long friends. But I always found that when my life had to shift places all those friends were lost.

“All” is not a fair word. I still know a couple people from my archery days. In Seattle. I have not seen them in many years. That is my fault. But when I left teaching, I was shocked how quickly I was forgotten. Not one person I had known contacted me after I left. I tried communicating with a few… a few times. Some said we would get together when they come to Portland… never seemed to happen.

Retirement was almost 20 years ago. I have not had any new social contacts since. There have been no new people coming thru my life. That makes it hard to make new friends.

I give up.

All my life, my single greatest fear… one I constantly fought, was of ending up alone. Here I am.

So now what? What do I do with my life now?

I have hobbies… they are not very fulfilling though. There is no purpose to my life. I have no goals. No dreams.

That has to change.

I have struggled with what to do. Without friends, I have no-one to read off. There is no-one to react to what I do, to give me any feedback. So I never have any sense of success. If I write, who will read it?

This is where I am. For a couple of years, I have been trying to find purpose. No luck. How can I find purpose with no feedback? As a teacher I understand how important it is to perceive ourselves as making progress, and succeeding. After years of no feedback… my ambition has faded. Now I usually don’t try.

This is where I am.

Next?