Exile

One week ago today I got in a U-Haul and started driving from Arizona to Texas.  The decision to do so was easily the most difficult choice I have ever made, because it meant I left three of my kids behind.  And now I live in Irving, Texas.  A city in which I have no friends, no family, no acquaintances.  For the first time in over 20 years, I am alone.

I wake up in a strange city, get dressed in a quiet apartment, drive to work on unfamiliar roads, work with strangers, return to an empty apartment, sometimes eat a solitary meal, then go bed.  As far as lives go, I should not complain.  Each time the urge to whine rises, something in my mind reminds me of the truly bad lives I've seen.  Gypsies in Spain living in squalor, homeless men and women squatting in shade under the Arizona summer sun, third world countries where being left alone would be a blessing.  So this is not a complaint.  I am grateful for what I have.  But I am also gray.

Gray is a term I heard somebody use to describe her life.  She defined it as "not happy, not sad, and not fulfilled".  And that is how I feel, empty and flat.

How do you establish anchors when you find yourself in this situation?  Once upon a disappointing past, I would rely on my religion to give me the door to human connection.  Today that is not an option that I will take, as the cost is too high.  How do you make friends from scratch?  How do you develop a social circle?

I write here, in a blog I signed up for years ago and never used as a way of communicating how I feel.  Maybe I can figure myself out through the written word.

Nothing else has worked to this point.