What Am I Going to Do Now?

Surprise! I don't know.

Here is the thing. I have been living in Vancouver since June 23, 1973. In October 1974, I married the most amazing young woman. I met her in California in December 1971 at a Bible study. In 1976 we started a family and raised three sons; we were married for thirty-seven years. 

For all those amazing years, my purpose was to be the best husband and father I could be. I'm not deluding myself by thinking I did a pretty good job, yet I know I could have done better.

The reality that stares me in the face today is that I am single once again, and this causes me to feel unmoored most of the time. When one has spent such a long time together with your best friend, it is easy to take how that person completes you for granted.

When a relationship ends, I have been told a thousand times it can be as traumatic and painful as experiencing the death of a loved one. Sometimes death would have been preferable to divorce; at least there is a sense of finality, but when the other person is still around and enters into one's fly zone, the pain erupts all over again. This is not my observation; I heard it in a movie once. Okay, not the fly zone part, but you know what I mean.

Where am I going with this?

I've been reluctant to loosen my grip on the rope that no longer moors me. I've been holding on to too much material and emotionally, and their combined weight has been causing me to list dangerously. I need to let go. Furniture and household goods that once filled a four-bedroom townhouse must go away. I need to sell, give away, or dispose of a lot of stuff (and that is what it is, stuff) or sink.

2012 was not my best year to date. It started with the painful aftermath of the most painful Christmas for me on record; it was the first time my wife and sons celebrated Christmas without me. Work-wise, I was severely underemployed, and my freelance graphic design practice needed to produce more for me to meet the monthly expenses. I decided to look for full-time work and sent out dozens of resumes. I only got one interview but no job. I'm still looking, still sending out resumes, and still hoping.

I don't like allowing my circumstances to affect me the way they do, but they do! Damn it.

Let me see how many more metaphors I can employ in this happy rant.

It is a happy rant if there is such a thing. I just returned from a conference that affirmed me; that was my experience. I won't bore you with the details, but I will leave you with this final metaphor: I feel as if G_d is standing behind me and has placed his hands on my shoulders and is telling me to keep taking small steps into the thick fog in front of me, that He is with me and won't let me fall.

So here I go into 2013, taking one step after another into the thick fog with a renewed sense of calmness.