Obscurity is the hard bit. Invisibility after being on stage as a guide. Settling back into a hidden role within an ordinary life takes some getting used to. It weighs heavy upon me.
I might have guided just a few people across an obscure bit of wilderness, but it was a unique occupation all the same. I knew plenty about that trail and the land across which it wound, and I enjoyed sharing.
Perhaps life is settling back into a familiar track? After some pushing I've been giving the task of managing communications for a large construction project with a staff of hundreds plus thousands of contractors. Again, I'm becoming a guide.
It was the combination of knowing, telling and being in the limelight that appealed before. That mix is attractive still. In the old days I kept two dozen horses in fine condition. Now I'm a pedant concerning use of the English language. It's important to do something well - and to be noticed.
The matter of being seen, that's a hangover from adoptive parents who depended vicariously for their satisfaction upon whatever I achieved, real or imaginary. They achieved little, not having striven for anything greater. Leadership they shirked. As for opening young minds the less said the better. I was supposed to provide the family with honour. Instead I flew to exile. Well, screw the honour of people who were absent whenever advice or support were needed.
I am working through anger and frustration. In a way I came back from exile to do this, stepping back in order to move further ahead. That's the way it is. Well at last I've seen through the lies. Life isn't just about work. Leisure isn't predicated by the need to achieve something. Only old habits die hard.
Some habits linger. But prejudices are cast aside to be trampled. So the culture that they despised I'm back here to explore. There is so much to investigate and enjoy. I wish that I had tried my hand at music and song years ago. But I grew up in a home from which such things were banished, unless it was some bourgeois easy-listening to fill the gaps between the nice safe acts of some dull Saturday evening television show. Does life begin at fifty? I don't know. Free thinking maybe. But life, extruded through the gaps between work, more work and other responsibilities? It's a challenge to expand at an age when work demands so much whilst energy is beginning to flag.
There were times out guiding - usually by around September when exhaustion had set in but the season was by no means over - when I day-dreamed about a drug that could invigorate my body. Nowadays that drug would be nice year-round.
I know my enemy: ingrained habits aided by tiredness. Recognising my foe I can fight or avoid him as I choose. I shall not carry any longer the chains thrown upon me by others.
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