Emotional transition, decompression

As most of you know who have been following my emails and weblog, I had a very difficult first week leaving work and starting on this new journey

I felt awful, lonely, pointless, a yawning pit in front of me. To Quartzsite, but why? To sit in the desert and wait to be older and wait for a really killer disease? As you know I worked through it, recognizing that I had let my life get tiny, shrinking only to work, work, work, and TV. And of course that part of the transition was planning for this - the actual out there part. Well maybe many of you have an idea of what your next transition will be like, and if you're as short sighted as me, you be focused on the dreamy aspect of it, and not the total loss of a big chunk of your life.

I woke up to the fact that all my social contact, my herd, was work. I have some connections to friends outside of work, but it was a small part of my day, my week, my life.

This is very difficult for me to write about, I keep skirting getting to where I am. hmmm.

To create my life as I want it- to lead an examined life, not to accept that I should be or do something just because it is a traditional function in our culture. I want to look at what I do and accept me as the little herd animal that I am, who wants to live at the edge of the herd.

Right now that means recognizing that this transition from work to free chicken caused the loss of contact with the good social parts of my life too. I've lost daily contact with my friends at work and my relationship with my step daughter. Phone is NOT the same.

So I am off to create a life that gives me the best of both worlds, free chicken and friend and dad. And I'm off to create the new connections that will support me outside of my old world too. I plan to go back to work for a while to give myself social contact, and to save more money to make my road work - all internet - possible. To do that I bought a satellite dish and I'll have to work at least 6 months to pay for it without touching my savings.

But this is a different part of the transition for me, the emotional transition that requires me not to be so conceited, not to pretend to understand what will happen to me in the next 10 years. I will join a writing group when I get back to Eugene, and I will seek other free chickens who can help me create my new social structure for the next part of my life.

Maybe everyone's transitions would be easier if we remembered that the difficulties are not the physical problems to be solved, i.e. internet, broken water pipes, etc. but the hard part of transitions is the loss of social contact and identity. Yes, that's it, it's a new identity that is forming. I need to think about that more.
Later gator..