This is going to be one of those epiphany posts where I learn a little about myself.
One of my favorite quotes comes from the sci-fi movie called Tron.
Chaos, Good News
I read that to mean that sometimes we just get too complacent with our life and need something to shake it up. What better to produce immediate change than chaos. The last four months, I have been through more chaos than ever imagined in my life. But as a result, I think I just may eventually end up in a better place than I have been in years. I may just end up throwing off my all-to-frequent periods of depression that have engulfed me in the last decade or two. But, I need to tell you a little more to fill in this story.
In the last decade, as her health continued to decline, my wife became a serious recluse. As a result, our lives became one of almost total isolation. Innately, we humans are social animals, who are meant to be part of a group. I have never been much of a joiner, but I have always dreamed of at least fitting in at some level. My deafness and Asperger’s have stymied that somewhat, and I thought the self-imposed reclusiveness of the last decade had put the final nail in that coffin. I thought I was OK with this, but I am now finding out otherwise.
Before I left the corporate world in 2000, I was around hundreds of people every day. I had the respect of my peers, and constant validation of how valuable I was to the three-hundred engineers who I developed computer tools/apps for. But when I retired from that world, it went from hundreds to pretty much a single person. That time, twenty-one years ago, was when my depression seemed to have moved into high gear. I didn’t understand the correlation at the time, hindsight is always clearer than foresight, isn’t it?
The biggest blame for my isolation and resulting periods of depression is me. I allowed it to happen. I always wanted to believe that I was in control of my destiny, but that was a farce. There was a lot of depression, but no chaos to force the necessary changes. It took my wife’s death to do that. I have been in my new RetComLife for only two months now, but I am just starting to maybe feel I am a small part of the world again. I am praying that some day in at least the distant future, I will be able to mostly shed my periods of depression and replace them with more pleasant times. Maybe, there is hope for me yet. Time will tell…
Chaos, Good News
Postscript: Since I wrote this post, I have had another letdown in this strange journey. It showed me I just don’t have a clue on how to be a social animal in this world. It brought back some of the agony of my dating years some 40+ years ago. More on that in a near future post. One step forward, two steps backwards…
RJ's Corner 