About 20 years ago I set out on a journey to finally be true to myself and to be true to the one being that matters most to me. I had to follow what I believed to be my true path in life or as some people would call it – my destiny. It took about 10 years of training and perseverance to make it to that goal. That goal was quite literally my heart’s desire. It was the one thing that had ever given me peace and meaning in life. Achieving it meant I was finally the person I was meant to be. I had fulfilled my calling.
However, just a couple of years later, I discovered everything was not as rosy in paradise as I had always believed. The curtains started to be removed as I saw perfection and ideology were far from the truth. I was torn in two. Why did I have to find out that all was not as I had believed? Could I still make it work? What did I need to do?
After much painful soul searching and with the help of some dear friends at the time I came to the understanding that if I stayed were I was then yes I would be fulfilling the person I was meant to be but at what price? I would be slowly killing the very essence of who I was meant to be – of who I actually was.
I realised I had no real option but to leave that life behind. It was the hardest thing I have ever done. Everything I had dreamed of and worked towards. Everything I knew to be right and true to myself. I knew deep down it would have eaten away at me from the inside out and I couldn’t let that happen. I knew that the one person apart from myself that I was answerable to would not want that for me. Leaving was the only option. Through that one decision I lost my home, my job, my livelihood, my standing in society, and many friends. Through that decision I crashed from having the one thing in life I thought was real and was meant for me to having nothing and having to start my life over again.
That was seven years ago. The intervening years have been incredibly difficult for me. I have been through quite severe depression and suffered terrible anxiety. I have wanted to kill myself but here I still am today. I am still a very weak being but today I understand that I need to again try to be true to myself even though now I am not as certain as to what that means.
One thing that it does mean for sure is that now I am a husband and a father and so I need to be true to my wife and children. For the past few years I fear my wife has been carrying this family along pretty much on her own. That is not fair on her. I need to do more. Also my children need me to be more of a father to them. I owe it to them to be a better example, a better role model, a better person.
For most of my life I have been living in the past. It is what I know and where I feel safest. The past can’t generally spring too many surprises on you. The past is steady and secure. It has actually happened. It is real. It is factual. But in reality it gets you nowhere. At best it is like treading water. At worst you are slowly dying. Becoming, like the past, history.
So yes I need to start again. My children are proof that there is a future ahead. I need to prepare for that future while living for the moment. Before I know it they will be grown up and I will be a pensioner. It is bad enough that I am more than half way through my life with next to nothing to show for it. It is one of the reasons I don’t like mixing with other people. I am embarrassed by my life, by who I am. Or more to the point who I’m not.
All this requires a huge amount of soul searching. There are lots of answers to be found but I am still struggling with the questions. All the things I know I need to do absolutely terrify me. Today I have taken a huge first step. I have admitted here, in print, that I have a problem. I have spoken as honestly as I can about what that problem is. And I know I have to find a solution. I need to find a new and lasting meaning as to who I am and I have got to follow that through every step of the way and with every breath of my being until my last.
Grumpy Old Daddy 