Radical changes - leaving everything behind

[Taurus]

Thank you so much for these stories, I like reading them.

 

It is amazing how everyones second guy turns out to be completely different. Which ofcourse makes sense - somehow it wouldn't be right to have a copy of our lost love. We have changed too. And as was pointed out by MrsT85, we are older now.

...

 

Our departed loves will always be the originals against whom no new partner can compare. At this stage of my journey without my beloved, I'm a spectator watching others and reminiscing about my wife from the many reminders I see day in day out. I'm not the least bit interested in any new relationship as I still have my relationship with my beloved in my memories.

 

Maybe in a few years' time. And when I do, I will not consciously look for a replica of my beloved. It will have to be someone with whom I can connect with her own personality, attitudes, laughter...

 

But I'm in no hurry.

[Adley]

To Milojka and everyone else who posted here, this has left me breathless and inspired. Thank you, Milojka, for building this beautiful post and your beautiful world. I have some things I can't wait to share, but I have to tend my goat herd and go shoe some horses. I'll be back. Thank you all, I am really touched.

[Milojka]

Hi Adley

Yes, please do tell us how you are doing. It might be useful for me, I might need it.

The previous posts were written more than half a year a go. Meanwhile, I have crossed the 2 year aniversary. Things feel different now, but not better. I am wondering if other people can relate to this: for the first 2 years I was fighting hard everyday to survive his departure. Which I did. But now... I now have to learn how to deal with his lifelong absence. Does any one recognize this? It isn't easier. Lifelong is ...long.

 

I am not doing well since the build up to his 2nd dead aniversary, which was end of November. Also the so called festive month of December was dark as ink. I am still struggling now, in January.

 

I started studying at the textile college in September but quit after the first module because it was very disapointing. This took away my purpose for the next years, my reason to get up in the morning, a path to follow. I am still doing sheepwork and I still love it. But it is at this moment difficult to find an official job - which I need - currently I work at a crabfactory until I find something better. As a labourer, I can tell you that it is not the nicest of jobs.  I moved out from my friends, I thought I was ready for that, and it was hard at the beginning to live on my own - no one asking about my day, no hug, no teasing or laughs, no meals together. I am used to it now but it was harder than I expected. Things went wrong with the man with the sheep - of course they did. He isn't used to contact with humans and reads signals completely wrong. I do not blame him, but being together was no option.

 

So... having a hard time right now, and missing my other half contineously. However I am sure things will get better with the daylight that soon will come back - we have hardly seen any of that in the past months. There will be a nice job somewhere where I can make a difference. My friends haven't stopped loving me. The skies, the hills, the wind, the animals are wonderfull as ever. I still see no reason to go from here - and I wouldn't know whereto. I still aspire to have a simple, quiet and beautiful life. This is a good place for that.

 

There has been an important positive change - I could never watch pictures of him because it hurted so much but since a couple of weeks I can. I like that :-)

 

I am looking forward to hearing from you.

 

 

 

 

[Kater]

Oh my.  The fact that there were new posts added to this topic that brought it to the list of "Unread" posts today is a co-incidence I needed.  I just finished meeting with my boss and requested a one year leave from work (after this term ends in April).  I haven't really nailed down yet what I want to do with the year.  I have some ideas, but up until an hour ago, they were just that.  Now that I have the OK at work, I need to transform some ideas into plans.  I've talked to many people about my idea for a year off.  They all express how exciting it is.  Frankly, I am not really excited at all.  It just feels like what I need to do to figure out this life that is in front of me.  A life that I don't really want; that isn't a result of any actions or choices I have made.  A life that was dropped in my lap.  So now to figure out what to do with it.

 

I am slightly terrified.  Worried a bit about money (I've been asked a few times if I can afford it....wouldn't be thinking about it if I couldn't).  Wondering how it will feel to be venturing out on my own without S beside me. 

 

Well, as scary, or exciting, or whatever it may be, the trigger has been pulled, so here I go.

 

Thanks for some inspiration, Milojka. 

 

Kate

 

 

 

   

[Milojka]

Hi Kate,

 

Well that is good news. I wish you all the best. Let us know what you have decided.

 

Don't be scared... Ask yourself the question: what is the worst possible thing that can happen? What do you have to lose?

The worst thing has happened already. You have lost the most precious already.

 

I also want to say that I spent very little money. In the very beginning I worked for bed and board. Later I worked for money, and paid part of that to the people who rented me a spare room.  At the moment I earn enough to pay a (very small) house.

Offcourse one of the things that I craved doing, was working very hard - not sure if that is what you want - with my hands. So no wonder that I didn't spend much money.

And there are not many shops and hotels in the remote rural area where I am anyway :-)

 

This self composed life that I lead since 1 year and 8 months, a menu with my very favorite things, was my attempt to make life worth living again, even without him.

I really hope it will be good for you as well, and that it will give direction and meaning to your life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[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!