Sometime back then
I was going through my stuff and found my journal from the mid-90s. It wasn’t a great time for me. Here’s an excerpt:
For the past while—the past year, certainly—I’ve been “in touch with my anger.” I’ve let out a lot of built up rage, and it feels good. I’ve allowed myself to be mad at things that make me (and any normal person) mad. But maybe I need more focus. I find myself inflicting anger on innocent people, just because I can. I need to direct it at the source of pain, not the first poor sap who crosses my path.
I remember that version of me. I’m so happy to not be him anymore. And I’m happy to no longer be the me from the early 2000s. The anger was back, along with pessimism and anxiety. Something needed to change.
Would retiring, selling the house and giving away my stuff to live in a van be the change I needed?
Yes.
Van dwelling isn’t a trouble-free life, but it’s my life, the life I was meant to live. At least now. Those angry years? I was trying to live someone else’s life and it was a very bad fit.
Good Grief. You just described my last couple of years before full timing started.
ReplyDeleteMisery breeds contempt. Freedom, allows retrospect to make reparations to those you impacted, and yourself, it gives us another chance to get it right. I'm addicted to it, in so many ways. Seems to me it chooses knumbskulls like me, even though I'm hard headed. FREEDOM IS AWESOME.
ReplyDeleteThe expanded version of your blogspot sub heading is:
ReplyDelete“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.”
—- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Riddle of Strider,
The Lord of the Rings: The fellowship of the Ring
And on top of it all, you've survived a bout of cancer!
ReplyDelete