Departure Diaries 1 - the black dog!

23/2

Filophising our future- We need to really retire!

Looking at the last few months, six months, one year and pondering the medical and travel expenses …….

Now is the time to reassess.

Looking at the monks classes and thinking we can’t stop now even though there are ever increasing student numbers, ever widening age ranges and abilities and ever more erratic attendance. The need is even greater but so is the cost in time, energy and money. 

We need to stop! 

Looking at the slow, simple sustainable and secure existence we we aimed to achieve living here in Kep and realising the traffic is increasing in volume, size and speed, mountains are being carved up and new coastlines created while poverty expands and eco-systems collapse. 

We need to move on! We can’t change this and most folks we know don’t see the need or even don’t want to. 

Looking at the strong connection to community we have always prioritised and comprehending we have very few friends and most mates are often too busy, too broke, too self absorbed or simply too disinterested to even realise we too need to belong. 

We need to focus on us. 

Looking at the first half decade of not working and acknowledging that ‘pretirement’ may be coming to an end and rather than let it all unravel we better start making a plan! “When your memories outnumber your dreams. You have ceased to live.”

We need to relocate.

We need to RETIRE! 

29/3/22

Jan was cremated today at the exact same time that Brian was summoned, incarcerated, interrogated and intimidated by the police. 

It seems the only way to fit in at the moment in Kep, is to be miserable and when everyone around you is, well, soon enough you find yourself sliding down that slippery slope until every little of joy has been leached out of you. 

Once you have decided to move on and made a plan and begun to implement it, the connections start evaporating behind you as you move forward. All the pleasures, exhilaration, achievement and gratitude fade to uncomfortable final episodes and yet we are so far from reaching any end point except in our imaginations and fully intend to return and maintain the relationships. 

Just another day in paradise. 

14/4

I sometimes think that we are not so much lonely as actually isolated. 

I note that we are happiest when left to our own devices and are doing something together without having to include others most of the time. I know that and find it reassuring. 

I know that …….    but I feel that it is not right that we always have to initiate social contact. No one organises anything that we are invited to unless it’s at their own premises and they hope to make a profit. It wears thin. 

I feel that unless we invite people over or go to the bar ourselves, no one would actually care very much if they saw us or not. 

For some, it’s enough to just message to find out what we are doing or that we are OK, but most don’t even respond to messages, if you attempt to connect in that way. Of course, unless they need or want something. 

Usually we can only get any kind of conversation happening if we don’t ask too many questions, as no one is keen to divulge very much detail about themselves on any platform or even face to face individually. Most often once a critical mass of questions have been asked then silence is the only reply! 

Maybe that’s why we can only gather in public places and the greater the numbers the better. That way no one reveals too much and everyone feels…..  or actually doesn’t at all! 

To be fair, A mostly responds and comes for coffee and yet she has no less than three “jobs” that she undertakes and free time is not in abundance. 

I hear myself making Michael Evan’s age old decree, “Not enough birthdays!” But, it is more than that and not everyone we call a friend, is in fact a Millennial.  People simply can’t connect and commit. Maybe I’m just too sensitive. 

Yet we are constantly told we will be missed! 

No wonder I feel discombobulated. 

20/4

Back to 

silence, secrets and subterfuge. 

No one wants to

communicate, connect or commit. That’s a given now. 

I feel 

frustrated, forgotten and friendless. Not new. 

Is it that they are all so self absorbed or selfish? 

or that I am so sensitive and sad? Both and more! 

Today’s final fling was fundamentally flawed, fancifully fictitious and forlornly fatal.  

I once thought I had three friends in Kep. Where are they now? 

Licking their wounds, lying and laying low! 

We are NOT quite as naïve, gullible or stupid as you might think or are we? Well manipulated.