Divorce

Can Lost Love Be Found?

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 7 Comments

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I have lived these past 12 months with so many conflicting emotions. I have changed. I have bent. I have been driven down on my knees so many times that sometimes it feels like they are calloused and worn. Yet, through all of this I have had to believe that this work was important for me and for my marriage. And it has been for me…not so sure about the marriage.

Yesterday, B and I were talking and I said something to the effect that it must be hard living with someone who you wanted to love but just didn’t feel the kind of love you wanted to. I got no reply. That hurt. Just like the chandelier…still not hung… and numerous other things I try not to dwell on. But the fact is, it is hard to keep trying when it feels like nothing you do makes a difference. And sometimes it feels like I am getting closer to the point where I am not sure I can keep trying.

I am a good woman. I am a great wife. I am a good mother. I am determined. I am stalwart. I am fun and I am sexy and I can tell a great story. I am not a drunk nor a big spender. All together I am a pretty good package… NOT perfect but desirable and loving and the real deal. And here is the thing…I want someone in my life who appreciates this. I want someone in my life who knows that he is a lucky man because I am in his life. Frankly, I deserve to be loved fully and completely and I am just not sure that I can settle for someone who loves me out of obligation or “because of the children.”

Sometimes, there comes a point in time where you begin to recognized the futility of the situation. You realize that you cannot make someone love you especially if they don’t want to see the goodness in you no matter what you do or how you change. I am a woman who loves deeply and passionately and I want to receive this back. I want to be loved for who I am just the way that I am. I want to be loved because I am me.

In a few weeks we arrive at the end of the ONE YEAR TO FIX THIS. It will be 365 days since this saga began and we are still not healed, not head over heals in love, not repaired. Sure things in our relationship have improved.A lot. I like him more and I think he likes me more. We spend more time together. Our communication has improved but still isn’t where it needs to be. The sex still remains combustible. And one thing has remained the same throughout… I do love him deeply and I still think he is a sexy man after 30 years.

I wish I could say that I understood where this was going. I wish I could say that B loves me the way both he and I would like. But he doesn’t and I am no longer sure if that is alright with me because now my heart and soul believes that I deserve better…because I do. Yes, I want that fairytale ending even though I know at my age that you may be riding on the back of a mule to a castle that is a money pit. I want to know that my true love is true and forever. I don’t think that is too much to ask.

Drivers Ed

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 1 Comment

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It’s early in the morning and Paul is sitting at the table with me, sleep still nestled deep in his dark brown eyes. He is studying for his drivers education test and as I look at the almost 6 ft boy sitting in front of me, I ask myself, where did the time go?

When I first saw the boy in the yellow hat, I knew sure as anything else I had ever known, that he was destined to be in our family. In probably the fastest Korean adoption ever, we were on a plane bound for Seoul within 5 months of turning in our paperwork. It was if the universe knew he needed to be settled.

When we saw him at his foster mother’s house he was a chubby thick-boned sturdy 10 month-old already walking faster than the speed of light. The boy was quick and moved like a prize fighter, bobbing and weaving the entire day. Throughout the apartment the drawers were taped shut an indication of the whirlwind that was to enter our lives.

The day we brought him home, he toddled over to his 7-month-older brother, and swiftly knocked him to the floor. Thus a dynamic was put into place in which whatever Andre had, Paul wanted. It’s a pattern that remains to this day.That first day home I told B, “Mark my words there is something different about this kid.” And there was.

We soon noticed that parenting was harder this time around. First came the tantrums the likes of which I had never seen before. They were like HUGE thunderstorms…in your face, with screaming so ragged and loud that I was sure that eventually the police would arrive at our door. Often Paul would rage uncontrollably for an hours at a time. Obsessions with clocks, then water, then spoons developed which lasted for several weeks and then they were gone as if a magician waved his wand only to be replaced by another. Before the age of 2 we were already consulting with behavioral therapists in an attempt to change the path we were on. It wasn’t until Paul was 5-years-old that we got the autism diagnosis, the Tourette’s Syndrome pronouncement came when he was 7-years-old and the Central Auditory Processing Disorder diagnosis a year after that. Then for two years we had ABA therapists in our home 5 days a week working with both Paul and Andre to help alleviate the most pressing challenges that autism wrought between the two of them. Between weekly hippo therapy workouts, psychologist appointments and daily hour-long neuro reorganization exercises, we barely breathed for 4 or 5 years and when we did it was ragged, coming is fitful spasms, like a marathon runner as he crosses the finish line. Sometimes we were broken and worn only making it through the day because we were on autopilot.

But then, miraculously, things started slowly changing. Fewer tantrums occurred. Less resistance. More control. More sense of responsibility. A new willingness to help out and think of others feelings. Slowly all the years of hard work began to slip into place finally resting where they needed to be and Paul began to mature.

Those younger years were often dark. They were sad. They were scary and they were the most difficult of my life but today I have come out on the other side with a newfound appreciation of my two sons, knowing first-hand all the hard work they have had to put into themselves in order to become the wonderful and engaging people that they are.

These days when I see other parents on the on-line bulletin boards struggling with their children; I try to encourage them and assure them that it does get easier as their kids mature. And when I see their pain and fear sometimes it takes me back to mine. When this happens I involuntarily shudder but then marvel at all that our entire family has accomplished together through hard work, fighting the system, and never giving in/up.

This morning I sit at the table watching as Paul studies for his drivers ed test and I wonder…where did the time go?

 

 

 

 

How You Handle Discord May Predict Future Illness

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 1 Comment

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A new study has just come out from UC Berkley  and Northwestern University that followed married couples for 20 years. This study looked at how couples behaved during conflict and the illness that they developed. What they found was this:

  • People who rage with frustration tend to develop high blood pressure and cardiovascular problems.
  • Those who keep “a stiff upper lip,” shutting down, or “stonewalling” tend to develop musculoskeletal problems such as back problems or muscle stiffness.

 

The authors of the study believe that their research shows how emotions effect health and how long-term behaviors can negatively affect health. By looking at marital conflict conversations for just 15 minutes researchers could predict with amazing accuracy the development of health issues which would occur 20 years later.

 

What I would like to know is this: what about the couples who had deep meaningful respectful conversations when they fought? Or what about the people who for some reason or another changed their behaviors through meditation later in the study. Did this change of behavior result in a decreased risk of developing health problems?

As a person who has been a yeller most of her adult life but has now stopped, I would love to know if my change in behaviors will have a positive outcome for my health in the future. Will my daily meditation change the course of my life? Of course, we have no way of knowing that but I would like to think that by creating meaningful change in my life I am making a difference in my health and the health of my loved ones. I can already see changes…Paul is calmer and does not react our of anger like he used to. He is modeling his behavior after my new behaviors and I am thankful for that.

Studies like these are important. By connecting negative (and positive) emotions to positive or negative changes in our health it gives individuals a reason to change their behaviors. I would like to think that had I realized the damage I was doing to my health by yelling that I might have changed my ways of interacting much sooner than I did and I might have saved my family from a lot of unnecessary grief.

Doing Something For Someone Else

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 2 Comments

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For as long as I can remember I have found little satisfaction in cleaning the house. It is a job that involves a lot of hard work, very little appreciation, and with children who manage to undo what you spent hours doing in just 20 minutes, it has also been very discouraging. It’s a job that unless you announce that you cleaned around the toilet with an old toothbrush to get the “grime” not one soul is going to know about your sacrifice of digging into the yellow that has been left behind. It’s a job involving rubber gloves; a symbol of clean that sends shivers up my spine.

Now, this doesn’t mean my house looks like a pig sty…it doesn’t…but it also doesn’t look like something out of House Beautiful either. It looks like a family lives here only with a bass drum sitting in one corner of the living room and a set of bagpipes in the other.Our house looks like it is lived in by people of many ages with many different interests which is exactly who we are. Unfortunately, I am married to a man whose ideal life would be an immaculate house with a garage so clean that you could eat off the floor but he knows THATS never going to happen.

Because I am a stay at home mom, B expects some sort of order to this place we call home. Our ideas of clean are different. He does surface cleaning so that the house looks presentable, while when I clean, I go for the deep cleaning…hence the toothbrush mentioned above. This has led to problems over the years with both of us feeling resentful especially me when you tack on all the other things I do like shopping, paying bills, taking kids to the doctor and psychologist once a week, ferrying kids to lessons, gardening and a host of other things that appear out of no where and have to be done THAT day. I h.ated feeling like everyone’s maid and it showed.

But two months ago, after listening to B talk in therapy about the chaos he experienced as a child and how much his disorganized, dirty, and unkept house affected his psyche; I decided to try approaching cleaning with a new state of mind. Instead of cleaning out of an “I HAVE to do this” attitude, I decided to try and think about how happy B would be. I realized that for B, order and cleanliness makes him feel content, reduces his stress and makes him feel like he is loved. So I started trying to clean with him in mind knowing he would feel better about life if his life at home was organized and tidy. So while I am basically doing the same amount of work, with a new attitude it doesn’t seem quite so much like a thankless task or like complete drudgery. And I have noticed that this change has lightened B’s mood and he is now telling me on a daily basis how much he appreciates what I am doing.

Doing chores that I dislike really doesn’t provide a huge sense of accomplishment for me. But I have discovered that by doing something for someone else out of love elevates what I am doing to a new level. Knowing that B is comforted by a sense of order in our home is allowing me to put a positive spin on things that are more important to him than they are to me and to do them with a attitude that wasn’t there before. While I used to operate like that when we were first married, if I am honest, it has been a long time since I did things solely to please my husband just because he needed things a certain way for his own comfort. I am discovering to my own delight that doing something for someone just because you love them brings me immense satisfaction and I am reaping the benefits because of my change in attitude.  Just don’t ask me to put on the yellow gloves.

Suffering

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 2 Comments

When my therapist says, “Love doesn’t mean you won’t suffer,” I gulp. Hard. For this isn’t what love is suppose to be. I grew up with the promise of the movie Love Story…love until the end of time that went hand-in-hand with the often quoted  “Love Means…Never Having To Say You’re Sorry!” I find myself wondering where did the ideals of the 70’s go and how do we get them back?

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The definition of suffering is

suf·fer
ˈsəfər/
verb
1.
experience or be subjected to (something bad or unpleasant).
“he’d suffered intense pain”

2. To tolerate, put up with, or endure

 

Frankly, I don’t remember saying any of those words in my wedding vows. I mean, who would willingly stand up and say “I promise to tolerate, put up with, and endure life with you throughout all of our days” in front of God and our loved ones? Seriously!
Instead, the vows we most often robotically repeat go something like this:
“I, ___, take you, ___, for my lawful wife/husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and health, until death do us part.”
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Frankly, when most of us marry we really do not have the experience in to understand what those vows really mean and how they will impact us at some point in our lives. Most likely we haven’t been through better or worse yet; we haven’t done the for richer thing yet; and hopefully the sickness and in health part is something we don’t truly know about until we are very, very old. It would appear that vows don’t have a lot of meaning unless you suffer. Really suffer and emerge intact.
So after 30 years our love/marriage is suffering. Greatly. The “for WORSE” part of our vows has kicked in and I’m not even sure how to return to “the BETTER” part. Where is the road map to re-negotiating your place in your marriage after a lifetime of habits and relating to one another in certain ways?
If I am honest, suffering has never seemed like a particularly noble thing to do. I had so many terminally ill patients whose families seemed to believe that keeping their loved ones alive, even though they were suffering tremendously, was somehow important and noble. Calling a CODE in which everything is done to save someone’s life when they are terminal is cruel. I see nothing noble in suffering and I am convinced that the lessons learned are not important enough to endure all the pain.
Therefore, if suffering is part of love I guess I am lucky not to have done much of it up until this point. Yet, I also realize at some point the suffering has to end. I am just hoping we can reach the “for BETTER” part before a CODE is called and our marriage has flat lined.
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Past Tense

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / Leave a comment

I have trouble living in the present. I ruminate about the past and have difficulty letting it go. I also worry about the future endlessly. It does me no good and I know it but I continue to do these things to my own detriment.

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Recently I read something that resonated with me. It said something to the effect that if I hold on to the past with one hand and try to grasp the future with the other, I have nothing to grab onto with today.That got me thinking.

While I would often like to have missed many moments of this past “maybe divorce” year, the fact is that they have been important. They have taught me things about myself and my relationships. They have forced me to examine things that made me uncomfortable and given me the courage to change those things that were under my own control. I have had to learn to try and see things through a different lens and to operate through one too. There have been challenges I have overcome and heartbreak that I have never felt the likes of before but managed to survive and sometimes even thrive. And all of these experiences or “ah-ha” moments have happened when I have lived in the present, let go of the past, and stopped fearing the future.

I’ll be honest, living in the present has not been easy. It still is not and it doesn’t come naturally to me. Yet, I hope that by remembering all I have learned from being in the present, I can continue to rejoice and celebrate the wonders that happen to me everyday when I just let them happen. So now I am practicing giving myself permission to just be in the moment with my hand and head securely wrapped around the notion that to be present is to live fully. I think its something worth striving for.

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Love Letters

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / Leave a comment

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Recently someone contacted me (after finding my family tree on a genealogy site) saying that they had found a box of letters from 1912 from my 2nd Great Aunt (I’ll call her Mary) to her then boyfriend who later became her husband. She had three boys from an earlier very bad marriage and in stepped (I’ll call him Ned) to love and cherish her and the boys. Not many men would have had the heart or the courage to take it all on but he did and I know that Mary and her sons were blessed to have Ned in their lives for another 51 years.

There are about 40 letters in all and they are courtship letters. Mary and Ned were separated at the time by two long train rides from one another and they were trying to find a way that they could be together as a family but things were hard and there was not a lot of work where my Aunt lived, so Ned went to the “Big City”  to look for work. One of the bonuses of these letters is that my Grandfather is mentioned in them twice. He was about seven at the time. In one her letters to Ned, Mary says that my grandfather said to her son, “Do you think that man is going to marry your mom?” He replies “I reckon they might.”

Throughout all the letters there are pronouncements of practical love and a few glimpses of passionate love too. In one letter my Aunt talks about what might happen if they were to work together and says, “But if we do you have to promise to keep your hands off of me while at work!”

These letters are nice reminders of how early in relationships we do our best to impress, to praise, encourage and to believe in the possibilities that lie ahead. I think that is often missing as marriages mature and the letters have reminded me of just how important those kinds of gestures are in everyday life. Mary and Ned’s belief in their love and their future together is strong and its an overriding theme throughout their writings. It was important to them to believe and celebrate what they had and what they had found in each other. It’s some thing I want to rediscover in my relationship too.

Ever since B brought up the”maybe divorce” I have had difficulty celebrating what we have had, what we do have, and what we might have. Yet, as Mary and Ned have shown me celebrating a relationship and each other if important. It is a must do and it serves a much needed purpose to foster love and a sense of connection. So I have decided that if I want B and I to be a couple, I have to live like we are a couple and act as if we will be together forever. I have to believe in the possibilities that still exist for our marriage if this relationship is to survive. I must:

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Weight’s Burden

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 6 Comments

*This has been an incredibly hard piece for me to write because it puts a lot of my own faults and flaws out there but I believe in being honest in my writings and telling my story through my lens whether it be right or wrong*

 

My weight has always been a sore subject with me. When I was a child I was average, not overweight nor underweight.I was just right.Yet, it was never enough. I wanted to look like the popular skinny girls. The ones with legs up to their elbows. The ones you could almost see through because they were so paper thin.

In my early 20’s I was underweight weighing in at 111 while being over 5’7″ tall. Of course, everyone thought I looked fabulous, myself included, with my bones sticking out the way the media says that women are suppose to look; when in reality my health was suffering. But I had a lot of attention paid to me by the opposite sex so it appeared to be a fair tradeoff as far as I was concerned. Like=skinny. Love=skinny. Sex=skinny, so that is what I would be. Only it didn’t last.

Then several years later, I became pregnant and gained 60 pounds and B told me that he didn’t really find me attractive. He made it clear that overweight women did nothing for him. I remember thinking even then how fucked up this was. I remember thinking whatever happened to loving a person for who they were and not what they looked like. I remember feeling that I had to look like some centerfold to be loved by him. I felt resentful and angry which lead to over eating which lead to being over weight which lead to a fucked up thoughts of him having to prove he loved me because I was heavy.Do you love me now? became the challenge. Do you accept me now? became my battle cry. And no matter how much he tried to prove his love/acceptance I wouldn’t believe it because I knew how he felt about fat women and, well, I didn’t love and accept myself either…so how could he?

For years I dieted “for him” and for years I was in a never ending cycle of gain/lost. And when I lost I was mad at B because he paid more attention to me than when I was heavier and I was wounded because of it.  How screwed up is that! Yes, I know… pretty screwed up! Why can’t you just love me for who I am? Yet, he did but I couldn’t believe it because with those few words said years ago about not finding me attractive created a pit from which I chose not to climb out of. A pit that I gave up and into. Wrapping my body around it like a blanket to keep me warm. Anger and resentment piled up and so did the pounds. I was miserable. So was he. Making love in the day light soon changed to making love with the curtains drawn so no light could enter the room.

Finally, I decided that I was tired of looking the way I did. Feeling the way I felt. Joints aching due to the excess poundage, surgery too. I had admired women who felt good about themselves no matter what their size and wished I had confidence in my body and myself. I wished that was like that too. But I was not no matter how I tried. So I slowly began to lose weight but I still wasn’t very serious about it. Until I saw this scan:

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A scan of a 250 woman vs a 120 pound woman. And I could see how the bones of the leg were being impacted. The white fat around the heart, intestines, and in the brain. And that was all it took…with one look at that picture I realized that being overweight was no longer an option. And this time I have lost weight ONLY for me, myself, and I.

In the past 8 months I have lost 30 pounds. And over several years prior to that I had lost 30 pounds. I now set little realistic goals for myself and today I reached the one I had set to reach before I turned 56. Yeah for me!

In retrospect, it is sad to me that I wasted all those years being unhappy with my weight and not doing enough about it. It is one thing if you are accepting of yourself it is another if you flog yourself because acceptance is not in your vocabulary. I wish that society just celebrated all women for who they are instead of what they look like, perhaps, I would have internalized that and loved myself despite of my weight. But I will never know. What I do know is that being miserable about my weight made me miserable about many parts of my life in general. That it is not B’s fault that I chose to overeat and that punishing him and myself for words spoken so long ago was harsh and unnecessary. And that something that was solely under my control was put back on him many times over our 30 years history. And if I am totally honest I am not sure that I would find my obese spouse sexually attractive either.

This unwanted “I might want a divorce” journey has forced me to examine all areas of my life. This work to discover the authentic me has proved humbling, exhausting, painful and eye opening. I have discovered some things that I really didn’t like and needed to change and some things that are pretty terrific about me. And I am still journeying…to where…I am unsure. But one thing I know is that I feel better about myself in all areas of my life because I have finally internalized the fact that the only person I have to impress or lose weight for is ME. It’s all for ME. ME. ME. ME. Finding my own importance has somehow flipped the switch and finally allowed me to reach my goals both in regards to my weight and in other parts of my life.

 

 

 

 

Turtles

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 5 Comments

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Today I was walking by the irrigation ditch trying to get my 10,000 steps in for the day. Last week it was full of cool rushing water but this week there was nothing; the water diverted for some other farmers fields probably to nourish the long rows of walnut or peach trees that rise out of this fertile ground like rockets waiting for a signal to launch. As I looked over the railing I saw two turtles sunning themselves on a rock. How did they get there? I mean its not as if they were in a wet lands area with abundant water. They were parked in the middle of a small but rapidly evaporating oasis.

As I pondered this it got me to thinking about my own life. How did I land here in this particular place at this particular time? B’s job.Further, is this a good place for my soul? No. Does it bring me joy to live here? No. Can I stretch my mind to places that it has never been before? I am limited here. Am I able to sun on a rock and be content? Not without the neighbors watching. As you can see I would probably be happier somewhere else. And like Dorothy I would like to click my heals together and be back where my heart’s desire is. But where is that? What do I need for my soul to heal from my own transgressions and from a broken 30 year marriage?

I have been pondering this question for quite a while, ever since B stated he wanted a divorce. Of course, he mistakenly assumed that should we divorce I would take the kids and I would be stuck here, in a place I do not want to be and could not afford if I was single. But that may not play out the way he originally envisioned it. Because I have been re-engineering my life should things change and I have decided that one of the things I will do is move to a place that gives my soul nourishment and meaning. To a place I want to be with small shops, big pines and the ocean nearby. Someplace where the air is fresh and clean. Someplace that I can call home.Forever. Without the worry of someone else’s wants and whims influencing where and how I live. For I want to be like the turtle, sunning myself on my own rock, without a care in the world.

In The Hands Of Fate

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / Leave a comment

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Sometimes I look over and see the silhouette of B moving against the morning sky, purple and pink, rising over the peaks of the mountains as morning escapes from yesterday’s grip. I see a man, handsome still, in the middle of mid-life crisis trying to make his way towards tomorrow and whatever that looks like; a life he can no longer define nor see for the house of cards he built has fallen and taken him down with it.

I sneak a peak, my eyes heavy with sleep, as his pants slide over his lean legs, over that smoothed over scar that he got when riding his bicycle, pedaling as fast as he could before flying over the handlebars and landing on a sharp rock along the creek. That was a 5 stitcher and he wears it like he owns it because it is now part of who he is and has been for some time. With a swift tug on his pants I see what I imagine to be that same sense of determination and the speed with which he rode that bike but using it now so that he doesn’t have to slow down and make those hard decisions. About himself. About me. About what he is doing or not doing with his life.

As I lay in bed I hear the coffee pot downstairs start to gurgle and come to life. He sits quietly reading the Bible until I hear the pull of the yoga mat and the PLOP it makes as it lands squarely on the floor. Now he will exercise for 12 minutes. No more, no less. Then in go two slices of toast which magically pop up and in 2.5 seconds they will be slathered in warmed butter topped by a generous helping of tart thick lemon curd. The coffee cup I bought him in Michigan drops softly to the counter like water on stone and the refrigerator door softly opens, the coffee creamer in the impossible to reach left hand corner. It never fails.

Sometimes I wonder how it would feel to leave him? Would I miss him alone or would it be all the familiar sounds that accompany his  particular way of doing things…fast, precise, and predictable that I might someday long for? Or are both so interwoven one cannot be thought of without being accompanied by the other? Would I  think of him every time I heard a toaster pop from now until eternity? Eternity is a long time, after all. Is it something as simple as a toaster that makes you stay?

Leaving seems like such an easy thing to do. We leave our children, we leave our friends, and we leave our co-workers but most of the time we have the luxury of knowing we are coming back. How do you put one foot in front of the other if you are closing the door forever? Leaving scares me because I know without a doubt that if I left the loss would be immense, carrying me downstream like a river that has jumped its banks. Can you grab onto something to save yourself when you are being swept away so fast or do you just go under? Do you scratch, claw, and cling until your own blood is shed before moving on or do you step lightly onto the nearest rock with your dignity and grace intact?

Of course, I also know that if I left there would also be relief. Not in leaving him per se but in finally being out of the limbo that has wrapped itself around my windpipe for the past 9 months, squeezing so tight that air can neither come nor go…stuck somewhere in that thin membrane that separates life from death. To taste the crisp air and to rid my lungs of the stale would be a blessing.

Yet even with all the questions and angst, I know that I would miss B desperately. His humor, how he takes care of my sexual needs before he worries about his own, and the shine in his eyes as he watches our children grow into themselves.  I would miss all that we have shared and created…the houses we built, the closeness we had that once knew no bounds, and the walks we have taken through fallow fields in order to start anew. I would miss my best friend, my travel buddy and the man who I watched tenderly hold each child, some born of him, some not; and give them the life and love that each person deserves. We have mostly had an amazingly rich life together and for that I am thankful.

While I stand on this precipice I also think about my own transgressions. I realize that in the past several years I have been so deep in my own pain and worry that I couldn’t recognize the extent of his. His fears about his job, getting older, providing for children with special needs, and living with a woman he doesn’t understand and who no longer understands him. And I confess that even if he could have told me his hurts, sorrows and pain, that I may not have been in a place to hear him and to understand that the depth of his pain was so old and so deep that it had turned to crude.

And so I wait. Trying to act and not react. Trying to find peace within myself before looking for anything from him. And in the back of my mind I wonder that if that time comes to leave…will I know it? Will I recognize it for what it really is or will I see it through my own imperfect and distorted lens… pushing things forward at a pace that makes us fly over the handlebars resulting in a patchwork of stitches; the resulting scars forever visible for all the world to see. Or can I just decide to stop pedaling and make the decision to coast; in an attempt to find contentment with where I am at this point in time and in no hurry to reach some unknown destination? For one thing I have discovered is that we often meet our fate on the road we take to avoid it and truth be told, I am in no hurry to find out precisely what it is.