Youth is the gift of nature, but age is a work of art. ~ Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

Part 2 – The Eye of the Nexus

In continuation of A Wanderer Looks at Sixty – Part 1.

Currently in my life, I’m living in a bit of the eye of the storm.  My life is currently centered on leaving and moving.  I’m winding down everything, my job, my time in California and even my current life in most every aspect.  The reason I use the term nexus is that I’m at another great change point in my life.  I’m going from living on the west coast, in California, where I’ve been living for the last 22 years and in total 25 years of my life.  I’m changing careers, for the last twenty years I’ve been the guy in charge, the overworked, stressed out boss of almost everyone I work with.  The responsible one, the one on call 24/7, the guy everybody turns to for the answer.  My next job will be focused on one thing, working with students more directly and no longer having the personnel management responsibility I have had in my career.  Personnel management makes up a large part of a dean’s job, and in my current and utterly dysfunctional college/district, that dysfunction leads to this particular job being almost exclusively personnel management.  It is also by far, the worst and most stressful part of the job, so I’ll be more than happy to let that part of my life go.  Of course that large amount of stress also leads to a pretty nice salary, I will miss that part of my current job but my pension is pretty solid.

My current life is pretty boring.  I don’t have many friends, hell, locally I really don’t have any friends.  There are some people from work I’m connected to but my social life is pretty much non-existent.  I live a pretty solitary life, this will be important as a driver for most of what I’ll talk to in part 3. 

Now a lot of people may argue with this, my life definitely benefits from Instagram reality.  The best way I can describe my life is long periods of boredom punctuated by short, intense adventures.  My day to day existence has always been a bit boring, but I still find ways to take adventures.  Over the years that has included hiking to base camp on Mt. Everest, photographing polar bears in the Arctic, hiking the Appalachian Trail and writing a book about it, swimming with whale sharks, walking across Scotland, biking around Ireland, hell I even almost got killed by ISIS while in Jordan.  Most recently I even got to hug a whale in Baja.

I keep my Instagram and other social media feeds full of good stories and pretty pictures.  So people see the pictures and hear the stories and so they figure my life is one big adventure.  And on social media, this a perception I need to cultivate.  My social media feeds lead to book sales and speaking gigs as well as other paying and non-paying opportunities.  It’s also a way for me to stay connected to all of those people in my life who are at the fringes of true friendship.  People I like, who like me, but aren’t the type of person you call at 4AM when your world has melted down.  But people you want to stay at least somewhat connected to in life.

This is also a reality for life as a wanderer.  I’ve encountered a lot of people in my life and my travels.  But I keep moving and they don’t.  It’s been a real issue in my romantic life when our society puts a premium on roots and living in a single place and I’m always moving.  American society considers wanderers less than, there is something wrong with us that we don’t want to follow the American script.  The fact is, America has always been a place that looks down on people who don’t fit the script.  Don’t believe me, ask any 30 year-old childless woman how many times a day someone asks her about having kids?  I get the same disregard when people find out I’ve never been married.  I get the occasional “confirmed bachelor” suggestion, wink, wink, nod, nod.  But typically people just jump to, fear of commitment.  It all gives me a laugh.  The reality has been that I have insanely high standards that I’m not willing to settle on to be married and check off a box on the script.  I’m also not easy for others, my high level of introversion and high personal space needs make me a tough person to be with, particularly if a person doesn’t have a handle on their own insecurities.  The dichotomy of me being madly in love with someone and still needing time away from them is really hard for people to handle and it’s understandable.  Finally, I have the absolute shitiest timing when it comes to relationships.  I have never considered it a necessity to be married, it was always a hope so, not a need to, in my life.  But lot’s more about this in part 3.

So right now I’ve been on a several week extended birthday celebration.  I got to hang out with some friends at San Francisco’s Pizza, Bagel and Beer Fest.  I then had two of my best friends come into town and we did two days of walking and eating in San Francisco.  After that I spent a few days in Calistoga doing absolutely nothing.  Basically, eating, reading, resting and floating in an Olympic sized hot-spring pool several times a day.  And finally I’ll be heading east soon, a few days with family and a few days on the beach on Cape Cod enjoying the ocean and eating a whole lot of lobster.

After that, everything is focused on cleaning up, organizing, and getting ready to move!

Coming soon, part 3 – What the Hell is Next?