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| Blogs > ChrisChadwick > Letting Go |
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Everything old is new again Well, I've taken a new job as a contractor with my old employer. This is a positive for me because I initially turned them down, but they came back with an offer that I couldn't refuse: After the initial training, I will work from home. This solves--at least for the length of this contract--the caregiver issue (though not the issue of caregiver fatigue, certainly). I've been cobbling together a solution to my caregiver issues for several years now. I'm guessing it started 3 or 4 years ago as her problems mounted, and my capacity for dealing with them shrank. Really, that's why I decided to "retire" at 62--the stress of the 2 years prior to that had exhausted any reserves I might have. So I took about 8 months off away from everything before starting out with my first contractor experience. Returning to my former long-term employer will be my 3rd contracting experience. It helped. Since I started contracting, my strategy has been to give one in-office assignment to the new employer, then I've refused to accept anything but a home-based second assignment. On the first attempt, I pushed the home-based option heavily. They solicited my application, but in the end, they declined to extend. I'm convinced that they'd have kept me if I'd have been willing to be office based, but I wasn't, so I was briefly out of a job. At that time, I switched agencies to this present one. The job I just left ALSO did not allow me to work from home (although regular employees have that option once or twice a week), but it was close enough to my house that I could run back and forth at lunchtime, as needed. That worked well enough, and I'm convinced I could have managed it for a 6-month stint, but when my old employer called, I had to listen, and THEN, when they said I could work from home, it was an offer I couldn't refuse. So that's where I am work-wise. As to the fling issue (I read the comment), you'll be happy to know that, while we had lunch, I doubt VERY much that the relationship will blossom into a full-fledged fling (How's that for an alliterative response?) I should probably stop there, but I never can seem to resist going the extra unconscionable mile, so I guess I'm not QUTE finished. I think the porn sites attest to the fact that men like casual sex more than women do. Don't get me wrong--I KNOW that a lot of women like sex-it's just that relatively few of them like casual sex with strangers, or near strangers, while PLENTY of men do--trust me on this last point. For my part, in the past, having a lover has given me a solace that I sorely needed at the time and that I have not gotten in my primary relationship (even though I hasten to add that none of the lovers I have had could ever matched THAT relationship on a mental or emotional basis.) So, I've risked hurting her some by taking the occasional lover. ("Some?" you say, thinking in your ignorance, that finding that you had a husband who could not cleave to the eternal fidelity of the marriage vows would be a pain considerably more than the "some-ish" pain I suggest.) Yes, yes, I've tossed that one around some, myself, and, in a vacuum, I suppose I'd have either done something different or, at the least, felt somewhat guiltier, but the truth is, I don't feel all that guilty. We don't live in a vacuum, and we all -- men and women both -- have had our limitations and we all -- men and women both-- have committed our separate betrayals. Is it "right"? Honestly, I've been beyond caring for some time now. I think of my life in segments--I have known in the past that leading a life of celibacy for from then until the end of my time was unthinkable. I don't think in terms of absolutes--I don't CARE, at this point, if god's gonna get me for my sins. I think more in terms of the sentiments expressed by that song about, "I know it's late. I know you're weary. I know your plans don't include me. Still, here we are, both of us lonely, searching for shelter from all that we see....." The TRUTH is that relationships don't work in an ideal or in a vacuum--but they either work or they don't work. My wife and I have a VERY imperfect relationship--we will NEVER be ideal lovers who cleave to each other only. But our relationship works at some level, obviously, because we've been together for about 35 years. At this point, I may never have another lover--I hope that's not the case, but I'm feeling increasingly old, tired, and isolated, so it just might be that thinking makes it so. Does that make me more virtuous? No, of course not--it only makes me old, tired, and increasingly isolated. Perhaps it's good that I'm going to be haunting soon my old haunts. |
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