Fevered

Still have a headache. But managed to make it to Starbucks, where I was able to forget that fact for a while.

And got to some good ol' fashioned writing in my journal.

I addressed to myself a question that's been hounding me over the past couple of days: "What are you going to do with your life?"

Just that. There I'll be, all content like, and out of the blue, I'll wonder, what are you going to do with your life?

I mean, of course, afterwards. After I'm no longer here in Bucks County, looking after my dad. Which in all liklihood, won't be any time soon.

The first problem that arises is, what will you do for work? I mean, I'm pretty sure that the location of the next chapter of my life will be somewhere in Southern California, a climate and population to which I feel much better suited.

And I'll work doing what?

Because, I am increasingly aware of the fact that as I get older, it's harder and harder to find a job. Nobody, of course, wants to hire a 50 year old. And 55 is, of course, the Magic Number. You'd better be in the job you want to do for the rest of your working life when you're 55, because after that, you ain't going nowhere.

That's not fair! That's unjust! That's entirely reasonable! Let's face it, I just can't compete with a 22-year-old college graduate. They have fresh ideas, boundless enthusiasm, and they're willing to do things like work for eighty hours a week. And I'm just not. I want a comfy sinecure. But the world is not willing to provide those.

So that'll be a tough one.

And, add that to the fact that it's a changing world. It's all plugged-in and decentralized and non-hierarchical and connected. Will there even be things called jobs by the time I'm needing to get one? A fair question.

Okay. So that's something of a tricky issue, huh?

And this other thing I've been thinking about.

Note what it says up in the corner of this weblog. All the blah-blah-blah. "My commitment to bachelorhood." Y'see that?

Back after I emerged from my benighted sojourn in the seven-and-a-half-year relationship, I was moved to reflect. One of the things that seemed verrrry obvious to me is that I have never been able to make the relationship thing work. Maybe I just hadn't met the right guy, but maybe I wasn't cut out to be in a relationship. Maybe I was made to be a bachelor.

I though about a wonderful book I had read, Paradise Piece By Piece by Mary Peacock, the poet. In it, she discusses how she has managed to make for herself a complete, fulfilling, satisfying, and joyful life, even though she made the decision to not have children. And for most women, the short cut to a complete, fulfilling, satisfying, and joyful life is by dissolving into Motherhood.

I decided that I would stop causing all this grief by making vows and such to men I would inevitably disappoint, and build for myself a complete, fulfilling, satisfying, and joyful life as a single man. I would not be half of a couple ever again. I'd make sure all the elements were there, and I would go it alone. In some ways, it would be tough, but I'd think through how I could make the tough things less so, and keep in mind that coupledom had many aspects that weren't a bed of roses, too.

And that was going pretty great! I was engaged, busy, having a blast, meeting new people and making friends, and making it work.

And then I met Special Guy.

I wrestled at the outset about the whole single guy thing. But I decided to scrap it. He was worth it. And he sure was worth it. Because here was a guy with whom, for all intents and purposes, I was compatible. We clicked. Being beside him was where I wanted to be.

But when that ended, I made what we used to call in my high school debating club, a "fallacious assumption."

Because I couldn't be with this guy who was perfect for me, I'll just go out and find another one.

And to a greater or lesser degree, I've been looking ever since.

Riding that same carousel, going from horse to horse. No, not this horse, that's the horse for me. All that switching horses, not realizing that I'm just going around in a circle.

Right.

I am a single man. I will have a rich, full, complete, satisfying, joyful life as a single man.

When I thought--deeply--about these things back then, a phrase resonated with me: I will be a secular monk.

Monastacism has always appealed to me. Life in community strikes me as a perfect mode of being. Alone, together. A walled garden. Preserving what's best, but inviting considered change. Learning from and caring for my elders, mentoring and learning from my... uh... youngers. Having a home.

Right.

Right.

The whole intentional community thing. A community of leathermen. With numerous guest rooms, so that we can always welcome visitors. Tops, bottoms, Masters, slaves, switches, pigs, older, younger. The only thing we share in common is a desire to live more deeply, and a conviction that SM is a way to do that.

That's what I'm going to do afterwards.

And so I can rest.

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