and thank you for your long post and faith in me. I really appreciate your and everyone's spending the time to write. Only here is where I can really talk and really share.
Your post was difficult for me - if I can't spend money, invite others, cook or travel, what remains? Just me, I guess, and I sometimes feel contentless, like you have to do something external to me for amusement, not me -
Sure, I can talk to others, and have been told that I am a good listener, but after a while there is nothing left, and I am not sure how to refill the vessel.
I used to write love poems, a long time ago, and so wrote some doggerel today, for amusement, and to do something different, just for me. D contributed a bit too, which was fun.
Then, it being a nice day, I went and sat in the sun, also a bit different than my usual, but not wild or illogical or anything big.
Went and looked up going to the nearest fun house (2 hours away), but it is for families and kid groups. It'd be odd going alone probably, and D is not interested.
"Crazy, fun, untypical, illogical..."
That is really tough -
Read up on how to play Monopoly Deal, a card game I gave my son, and asked if W or D was interested, getting only mild interest from D and a no from my W (I hardly ever play games). D then came up later and we played 3 games.
Listened to Titanium (thanks Mr. Bond!) a bit, but mostly read and liked the lyrics; also found another version, by a band called Ocean Blvd, that weirdly fits my sitch.
My work uses my education and I like it. I work with safety systems, doing (very rational) engineering, so can help people that way.
It was fun hanging with the dance teacher.
Maybe I should do something with him?
Radically different would be something with people, something beyond my risk averse limits, staying out late.
We don't have a car, yet, so are a bit limited in mobility just now. Luckily Sweden is good with public transportation, and we live in town and so don't have to have a car.
I would like to play something like the song 'Dead End' you find on Youtube by the band Tantrum - scream like that into a microphone, play the minor chords, get out the blockage. I have an electric version of my musical instrument in the States, along with an amp and distortion pedal - would be great to bring it over here and play with someone else (wife would be suspicious of this). Also not the usual over 50 backward-looking, sentimental stuff.
"Not a life filled with excuses for others, and with no friends or loved ones around you. "
wow - you sure hit the soft underside -
Maybe EE can help here. I am told there is an EE person in the UK who might be willing to talk about it, so hope to do that next week. Not sure how to sell EE to those around me (MIL, W, kids).
I am accustomed to thinking of life big-picture wise as a series of losses - your kids move out, your health goes, your girlfriends or W leave you, you die, the end. Maybe that is not a good way to look at it.
I'd love to bike tour again, with someone again, visit many countries. That is sort of an ideal to me - sport, culture, travel, food, activity.
Read about a single old guy in Cooks Illustrated to whom it was most important to be needed and be of service to others, which I understand, though that philosophy is fundamentally empty seeming to me.
Really have to think more about your "crazy, fun, untypical..." challenge.
(Mr. Bond - saw Kate and Leopold as mentioned in Cunningham.)
Luke
M58, xW54 S22, D18 M 1984, D 2016 Living a new life.
