In this episode, we explore what to do when our plans get shredded by Reality Department…
It would be around two years ago now that the long years of eldercare in England were slowly coming to a close, and likewise for the long years working mostly unpaid helping others develop their enterprise-architectures. At long last, change a-coming in the air. Both of those changes were opening up new freedoms at last - even though though also meant that I would have to find somewhere new to live.
I needed a plan…
What made it hard was that there were still far too many unknowns in each of the options. For example, most of my belongings were still in storage, from almost a dozen places where I’d previously lived, scattered variously around the globe: I needed to collect it all together in one place. I was unsure I could continue to stay in post-Brexit Britain, and the chance and choice to live anywhere else in Europe had been lost for the same reason. It felt that my most likely option would be back in Australia - although even that option too still seemed too riddled with too many uncertainties for any kind of comfort.
Still, take that as a first working option. Develop a plan - have fun developing the plan, too. And yes, it was a good plan - or seemed to be so at the time, anyway. Meet up with colleagues: find some work out there again. Take some time off to travel around, explore the place for a while, find a place to stay, to collect my belongings together and cull them down to a more manageable amount. Find a new direction where I could be useful, too.
Everything coming together nicely. I had an invite to do another conference-session; also an option to book a camper-van for a month, to travel around and visit old friends. If the camper-van worked out well, I was going to get one of my own, get it custom-built to use it as a travelling studio, for writing, editing, film-making, maybe even some on-the-spot consultancy-work too, other things like that…
And if the plans ultimately didn’t work out , I could just go back to Britain: no big deal. It was all just exploratory, really, nothing set in stone: commitment, if any, could always come later.
Flight booked, hotel booked for the conference, work-interview appointments booked, camper-van booked. Everything ready. Ready to go.
Except that Reality Department had other ideas…
I set out from Heathrow, looking forward to the future.
By the time I arrived at Melbourne. just one day later, everything of the future was gone. Everything shut down everywhere. COVID-19.
And every part of my plan now shredded into oblivion. Nothing left.
Frozen in limbo: no way forward, no way back.
Conference cancelled. No meetings allowed. No travel allowed. No camper-van - though the agent kept all of the booking-fee anyway. The hotel was still there, but now more like a prison for mandatory quarantine.
And once out of quarantine, nowhere to go - nowhere stable, anyway. Just living out of suitcases in AirBnBs, month after month after month.
Can’t move forward, can’t move back.. Stranded in limbo.
Half a year goes by. I at last find a rental, big enough to start sorting out my stuff. Doing that much-needed cull, true, but not a place where I can get down to work.
Stranded in limbo. Can’t move forward, can’t move back. With all the lockdowns and the like, can’t really make any move at all. And watching my meagre saving dwindle further away with each passing day.
Dispiriting, to say the least…
Yet that isn’t the point here.
The real point is in how to keep dancing, even in the hard times. Even in limbo.
Finding the joy in each moment. Even in limbo.
Not easy, of course. Not easy at all. Especially so when the lockdowns here grind on and on, day after day.
Yes, I’m still stranded in limbo, the same debilitating limbo. No way forward, no way back.
But I’ll keep dancing anyway. Dancing in limbo.
Because at least it’s some kind of movement, even when there’s no other movement to be had.
And something to share with others, even when we’re dancing alone.
Just another example of when things fall into place, the place falls apart. I always thought limbo was a dance which originated in Trinidad and was popular at a wake., and I was never supple enough to partake. Dance has always been food for the soul and if it can help in keeping us all same then I am all for it.
Hopefully your parole comes through soon so that you can resume normal activities, we can all live in hope.