Radical changes - leaving everything behind

[Adley]

Awesome Kater! Sorry Milojka, between farmin and the flipphone I'm having com issues. Luddite? Lol
   Like many of us, I suspect, I grew up in two worlds. Primary one was very rural, where reading, science, hunting, subsistence farming, and all education was
strongly encouraged. The other, with my father,was just outside an urban area that was, and still is, undergoing a population explosion. Hard physical work and making lots of money was, and still is, strongly encouraged. So was trophy hunting, as opposed to slipping into the woods for groceries. The trophy thing is is still weird to me.
I gotta post this or my phone will erase it again.

[Adley]

I was so looking forward to college. I was almost immediately disappointed. It felt like a daycare. Six weeks of it and I blew off my full ride. I wanted some of the world! I planned to hop a merchant ship and check it out.
   My father shamed me so badly that I just went into industrial construction (carpentry was a fact of life for me very young) to save money for trade school. Never was money hungry, but I knew I needed some land far away from town.
    A few years later, on my first flight to contract in the middle east, I could see the wakes and the tiny outlines of fishing boats far below in the north Atlantic. 

[Adley]

Little did I know that I was soon to discover my new career in explosives, and that it would lead me to my lovely wife, and to fish those very waters. The image of those boats from far above still haunts me very much.
   Years later found me happily married with a great career. My wife had married a travelling man, but we lucked out and I landed a gig 2 annd a half hours away and I only had to be gone 3 nights a week part of the year. We were having babies and buying land and building a farm.
   I had always done a little construction here and there, I liked the guys and the banter was enjoyable in short doses. Made lifelong friends at it. But the bomb tech world was just right for me. Conversation more stimulating, problem resolution more involved. No white or blue collar, just handle whatever comes up. Work in the woods, get sweaty and dirty, blow stuff up, and enjoy the perspectives of travelled and well read coworkers from all different backgrounds.

[Adley]

The plan was to get the kids old enough and travel and homeschool them all over the country for a few more years, come back home debt free and farm and laugh the years away. She was smart as a whip, but our relationship was not intellectual. It was humorous. We laughed together for years. That's one reason your and Mizpah's posts on this thread resonate with me so much; if I ever recoupled for real how would it be?
   

[Adley]

I have to attempt this one more time. Phone keeps kickin me off after I hen peck my post.

[Adley]

 Long story way short, how long did you wait before you went to the island? I've been offered a chance to go to New Mexico with my old career and the kids are old enough now. It would be a complete change for them and a big one for me. Just a cpl months but more moving would probably follow. My simple peaceful beautiful life that my wife and I wanted is so empty now. I see so many parallels and some direct opposites in our stories. I am intrigued. I will get this phone lined out lol

[Mizpah]

I'm sorry things are hard right now.  I think darkness and loneliness can be so difficult.  You seem committed to staying there, though.  Is there a way you could begin some kind of social routine/structure/tradition?  Would it be weird to invite all your neighbors over once a month for an evening get together?  Is there a pub somewhere there you could go to to be among others?  Thinking of you much. 

[Adley]

Hi Milojka. I am sorry for your troubles too. It has been windy here lately and I think of Shetland. I live in the outdoors, and there is peace in it, but its a lonely peace. At a year and eight months I was just getting comfortable in a lonely routine and derailed it with the wrong relationship. Many here had much better experiences and I am so glad. I know well how difficult social life can be in rural areas and am glad you have a good support network of genuine people. 
  A couple weeks ago I saw the first videos of my wife. It was better than I thought. I still cried, but almost in a good way. And ditto on living very cheap. Wishing you the best, Adley

[Milojka]

Hi Mizpah
Thanks. Yes I will stay, at least for the moment. I don't have much to go back to. And I do not want to start all over again on another place.

No there is no pub here :-) but I do not need more people. I like my own company and I have friends who would give me help if I had a problem. Also since I am here, the women come together on Thursdays for spinning and knitting.

I think at this moment what I do need is a purpose, something to live for, a goal. That would have been my study at the textile college - a path to follow during four years -  but, as I surely will have mentioned, that is gone now. A good job would do - here is a shortage of care workers. And I would love to care for some one. Sadly, the organisation that  matches that kind of offer and demand is very very dysfunctional and inefficient...

I do have a structure/ routine. I go to the crabfactory for a couple of days a week. I go working on the croft (farm) on the other days - which I love. I take one day a week off, sometimes more. In the evenings, I am happy to be on my own. I have my spinning wheel and my knitting machine here. I have been encouraged to sell my knitwear, and who knows this might happen in the future.

Hi Adley,
When I came back home alone from the hospital  where my  favourite person had just died, I locked the door of our lovely house and I went away to my brothers place. He lives at the other side of the country. I have never gone back to our home. I left my brothers place 5 months and 1 week after that day.

The decision itself was made in an instance after the thought had come up. Making a list with keywords what the place had to look like took 10 minutes. Picking the place took 2 or 3 days. I had no doubts about it.
I didn't realize I would stay that long, though, I thought I would be back after the summer. I remember thinking: after a couple of months I will be more on top of this pain. Well... mmm... no not really. And especially not now, even if it is a bit more than 2 years after his death, I am not on top of it at all, and it seems worse than ever.

It was good to read your story. Our stories are quite different, I think. You have children, even when they are grown, you have a family of your own. I haven't.
I only have a brother and a sister, which I had hardly seen for decennia,  each have busy families of their own.
You have an affinity with rural life and farming, I hadn't.
I hope you will see clear soon what path to take!