Well, I finally had enough and realized that I was taking a far greater risk living a life that was causing me misery than playing it “safe”. I absolutely hated what my life had become, but it always felt like too big a risk to take a chance.
I kept looking for answers. Astrology. Tarot cards. Siri. Alexa. Cloud animals. Nothing told me what I needed to know. I needed a blueprint, or a script telling me how things would turn out if I chose plan A, plan B or plan Z. There were no guarantees to be found anywhere. No angel visited me in my sleep or strangers appeared out of nowhere with divine messages. Nope. It was all up in the air.
The only thing I did know was my current situation, which had become beyond ridiculous. My life had become dreadful. I couldn’t even imagine myself surviving until the next year, let alone retirement.
I worried about losing health insurance and then realized my health insurance was pretty much useless. They paid for next to nothing, while I paid for nearly all my health bills. The hoops I had to jump through just to get them to pay for the little they did was completely aggravating.
I realized I was already taking an enormous risk every single day living a “safe” life. My health suffered, both mentally and physically. Being a fish out of water does that.
Fear. Fear of change. Fear of doing something different from everyone else kept me in suspended animation. It was also a pandemic that put everyone’s life on hold for a couple of years after graduation. Then, of course, a divorce that came out of nowhere put me in a spot that required a lot of reconfiguring of plans. I’ve been through the wringer the past few years.
Marching to the beat of other people’s drums has done my life no favor. Unless I wind up in Guatemala with a drug lord and a guillotine, my chosen path couldn’t possibly lead me to a worse place than I already am.
So, I finally got the ball rolling on a life that I hope will be something worth living for. While there aren’t any signs showing what my future will be, there have been many signs nudging me out of my current situation. It’s almost comical how obvious the signs have been. Nothing has been going right. Still, God practically had to hit me over the head with a frying pan to get me to move on. But, I’m finally moving on.
It would still be nice to know what I’m moving on towards, but I do know what I’m moving away from and that’s enough, for now. I’m not moving out of Decatur, but I am moving out of a cruddy life. I’ll fill in the details later, but it feels great to take the first step out of this pit.
