Enough

Learning to Live with the Victory

This book is dedicated to my long suffering wife Robyn who hangs in there regardless and my sister Tracey a voracious reader of that which pours from my fingers. I love you both

Prologue – Coming Home to a Place I’ve Never Been Before

I have come to Condobolin. Oh there are lots of reasons, all of which are peripheral. There is fishing to be done, there are wood samples to be collected, and of course there are clients here, albeit family, extended family, who whilst excellent workers, could be swallowed up in the quest to earn.

For me it’s like the words from Rocky Mountain High, I am coming home to a place I’ve never been before. This was never home, nor have I ever felt at “home” here or anywhere for that matter, only ever residing.

I am in the twilight of my life yet if you look at the maths there is still potentially a long way to go and that worries me. In a life spanning in excess of 65 years, I have “done” so much but “achieved” so little. Life has been always a bouncing from wall to wall without the apparent euphoria of what some might like to suggest was “well spent”. I think I am still searching for the “who” I really am.

The Planning

Retirement has been a mish mash of not being able to let go. Feet stuck in the mud of an inability to say no, a fear of being alone and the inner drive of the seeking of enough. The haunting of my childhood where you were never good enough, endlessly driven by the fear of parents looking simply to survive compounded into an endless drive for more. Being labelled as “having potential” yet never seeming to actually blossom into anything other than a thorn.

The Mens Shed started as a revelation but quickly became a burden much like most things in life the repetition of attendance, the inability to fit into any niche and a burning ambition to not fit in persee but be seen as meaningful has made it a chore. Don’t get me wrong, I was welcomed with “open arms” and if I am to pass any member in the street, a conversation, a friendly one would ensue, but its guarded, not mate to mate, not that I really have any of those, not since Richard, not in the sense I perceived the forefathers of the institution really wanted, seeking a place for lonely men to take solace knowing they were not alone.

So here with the potential of delivering a load of timber suitable to be manufactured into trinkets for the kitchen table, bread and cutting boards, perhaps even a table top itself, I am using that excuse to get away and “clear my head”.