Burning My Bridges at Fifty (Part Two)

Yes, I know. I am writing about not kvetching by kvetching. I am trying to explain, though, how I started to let go and move forward.

Ferriss was right about the opportunity to structure my life so that I could go anywhere and do anything. Here I was, though, farting around and playing Scrabulous, buying shit on the web, trading jokes by e-mail, and compulsively checking the market. The days floated by. I didn’t have the concentration to read a book. I didn’t even watch movies at home. They seemed like too much effort.

My coach, Bradley Foster, said I had reached what Frederick Perls called “The Point of Creative Indifference.” Doing things the same way didn’t make any sense. I hadn’t found the way to move past that point and find a better way. Albert Einstein said: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” I was drifting through my days, doing the same thing, with virtually no purpose and no results. I wasn’t winning any Kick Boxing championships. I wasn’t forming a Pirate Reenactment Society. I hadn’t received any calls begging my advice for restructuring the mortgage crisis or writing and directing the latest comic book movie.

I said, “fuck it” to my dreams of writing. It would be better if I just let them float away. I was upset and embarrassed that I didn’t know what to do next. I let my friends know that the writing was dead. Thirty-five years of trying and failing…it just wasn’t worth it anymore. Self-loathing and darkness descended. The shade had been pulled down and clouds rolled in. The sunshine went to a secure, undisclosed location. I couldn’t stand my apartment anymore and I would hike out to Starbucks, sit in the sunshine, try to read, and end up wasting more time with Google.

I looked at Tim Ferriss’s book again. He explained that this isn’t about sitting under a palm tree.

D’oh! I hadn’t made the connection. I not only had to make time, I had to fill it?

I took a trip to Germany this past summer with my family. My brother-in-law, a native of Germany, speaks five languages. We were touring Germany, using Frankfurt as a base because my nephew and niece worked there. I was trying to say a little German: Goethestrasse…bitte…hunt…kaffe. We spent a day in Strasbourg. Some of the French I learned in college was floating up. I couldn’t really speak, but I could say un table pour cinq, s’il vous plait. My brother-in-law was watching me try, amused, but also supportive. He told me of someone he knew that had taken several six-month sabbaticals in Europe. I should do that and I would learn a language. Maybe I could be a concierge or assist in some other form of trade. The Europeans would like me, maybe.

I filed this under the Great, But Not Going To Happen file, and got back to my post jet-lag grump, riding in the back of the van, feeling like I was part of the family in Little Miss Sunshine.

Now I was back home. The idea of filling the void ricocheted about the unutilized synapses of my unemployed brain. I was still a void, but a less miserable one.

Then it hit me. Foreign Travel. Language Study. Pursue Hobbies. 50^th Birthday.

I looked into the French Alps. Learning fluency in French and skiing from December through April seemed to fit the bill. By the time I got a quote for the trip, the school and the airfare, I filed this idea back in the Great, But Not Going To Happen file.

I was indifferent again.