It is August 1st and it is beginning to dawn on me that in just over six weeks I will be unemployed and homeless for the first time ever. The prospect is scary. I am discarding the employment security that I have known since high school and will trade in my sensible job for a career hauling an 8-ton trailer across the country for free. I am starting to feel the butterflies in my stomach.
Not that I have much time to dwell on the future; I am too busy trying to finish all of the chores that need to be completed before that future arrives. I just spent over 8 hours preparing my desktop computer so that my son could use it. I thought that it was nearly ready to go as I have been slowly making the laptop my primary computer all summer, but transferring or deleting the residual files and applications took a full day of effort. Like my house, I was amazed at how much “stuff” had accumulated over the years.
My brother says I “have a 10-year head start”. He means that the work I am doing now is the same work that most people have to do when they downsize to go to assisted living. He is right – most people have to massively downsize at some point in their lives. I am doing it with a happier prospect than most.
But it is still scary.