Eremition: Take Two

Someone wrote to me through the website about my first post on this subject.  He did not leave an email address so I could not respond.  I wanted to.  So if you, the 55 year old dude in the woods, with a similar habit of Zillow stalking, send me your email and I will respond to what you wrote.  If you don’t read this, well, never mind I guess.  Haha.

I still feel this desire to retreat.  Although I will admit, since my children have largely flown the coop, I am going through some loneliness and feelings of uselessness.  I guess I really didn’t put much stock into that whole “empty nest” thing.  I guess it is a thing.  Who knew? (Everyone who has ever gone through it, but I don’t listen well).

I still stalk Zillow daily.  There is a property now that I have found and it calls to me.   Deeply.  But still it is not time.  I am needed to be exactly where I am.  There will be time to run into the woods later, if that is in the cards for me.

What is coming up for me now is that the life I want to have in the woods isn’t really different than the life I have here.  Just the wrapping is different. If I don’t read and write and collect barnyard animals now, what makes me think I will do it then?  It is so easy to picture yourself in this quiet, simple life.  But there are many ways to distract yourself from yourself, no matter where you live.

Right now I feel the paralysis of the hallway.  Life is in transition right now.  My kids are launching. My parents need me.  I have way too many cats.  Work is grinding.  And I am tired.  And this week I really just don’t have a lot of extra.  Just attending to the stuff of the day is overwhelming me which is not my usual operative status.

And, as hard as it is for me to admit to feeling lonely, I do.  I think going through hard things makes my single and alone status exemplified.  I still don’t want someone here all the time, but fuck if I wouldn’t love to have someone that cares for me to snuggle up with and to.   That is an acute need right now.  And one that is going to not be met...and that is also as it should be, I suppose. 

Oh sure, I could busy myself with dating and the like.  But I admit, I just have no interest.  I don’t want to go out, I don’t want to do idle chit chat.  If I am honest, I just want someone to come over, help make me dinner, sit in front of the fire pit in the backyard, then climb into bed with me and hold me while I sleep.  You can’t really put that on a dating profile...I mean, I could but I would get all kinds of weirdo responses. And with the way dating sites work, no one would materialize for that date anyway.  It would just be endless texting that led nowhere.  Again, still...

And as sad and hard as things are right now, the thought of that being my lot makes me want to hurl myself off a bridge.  (I am not going to do that, nor do I really want to do that, it is a dramatic effect statement...).

What is funny is that I have retreated in several ways but the peace and tranquility is being drowned out by the loneliness that has to come with the removal of oneself from the fray...

I guess this is good information to know before I lock myself away in the Redwoods.  Wherever you go, there you are!  Again, still...

The good news (yes, I am always about the good news) is that I can make changes here and now that will bring about eremition in my life.  I can read more (I already read a lot, like a book a week but I guess there is always more time for reading) and I can write more, different stuff.  I can use my time more productively.  I can relax into my life which for some reason doesn’t come easily for me.  I tend to be more of an anxious overdoer than someone lying in repose...

Perhaps I require this time now to ever be able to get to a place where nothing to do all day but live and breathe and walk amongst the woods is necessary for me to ever enjoy the dream escape to the woods.

I guess the hard truth right now is that I am in my own way, again, still...and right now, while doing my best, I do not have a lot of energy to make huge sweeping changes in my life.

And this too, is as it should be.  I am good right where I am. Doing what I am. Living this life.  It is not magically better somewhere over there.  It is just a different same that will also bore and lonely me.  So I might as well begin to make the changes now...right now, where I am currently planted which is a sanctuary all to itself.  There may not be Redwoods but there is peace to be had in the here and now.  I do not have to wait for someday...someday is now.  I guess I see that now...

Again, still...