Setting Sail

I’ve been blogging on Shell’s intranet for two and a half years now, and this is the first original post on this new platform. I’ve imported most of my Shell material onto this site, with apologies for the occasional Shell-specific context or acronym. From now I’ll try to post here at least once per week, using a similar style but no doubt a wider range of content.
So writing this new blog feels a bit like setting sail into uncertain waters. But this is far from the biggest transition in my life around now. The reason for escaping the confines of Shell’s intranet is that I’m also escaping Shell, just a couple of weeks before my fiftieth birthday. Escaping to what exactly is rather unclear, defined more by what it will exclude (work mainly for pay or fee) than what it will include.
Add to this that this week I sat down with my estranged wife and two lawyers and hammered out a settlement for divorce, after twenty two years in a generally stable and calming marriage. And that I closed the lease on the house I’d lived in for nine years, went to the town hall to deregister from the Netherlands, and now divide my time between various countries, partly in a furnished flat with few of my own possessions, and no car.
Perhaps this defines a mid life crisis. Certainly it defines a series of transitions. It describes the wilful casting away of many of the anchors that we traditionally use to give our lives ballast and security against turbulence. On a good day, this feels like total liberation. On a less good day, it just feels scary.
Of course, these changes have been brewing for some time. I made the decision to do different things with my fifties about two years ago and have been manoeuvring an exit from Shell since then. That, combined with my daughter leaving home, led me in the wholly unexpected direction of questioning my marriage, and moving out a year ago. Even so, it is strange how the milestones always seem to pop up in groups.
And I am not totally without anchors; indeed I have many privileges to be thankful for. I have great friendships and activities, have discovered support from Higher Powers, and am not short of assets either. Furthermore I’ve started a new love relationship, which provides peace and joy. However, compared with the convention and rock like stability of what came before, this journey does feel quite unnerving.
One theme in this blog will be to document that journey, both where it leads and how it feels on the way. Seasick at times, no doubt. Maybe you yearn for some liberation from your own anchors? If so I might spur you to action or be someone to remind you that the grass is not necessarily so green on the other side and that anchors serve a purpose.
Right now it feels good. Bring on the new life! Possibly that is driven a bit by a desire to move away from the transition itself, with all its doubt, pain and guilt. I have also started to learn to cherish adventure and uncertainty, to be able to find the surprises life has to offer rather than plan a safe route to avoid the rocks, to rely more than before on fate and humanity. Now I plan my life three months at a time, and have simplicity and maintaining shallow roots as goals, at least for a while. People in Shell all ask what I plan to do after leaving, and are very bemused by the answer that I don’t really know and will work it out when I get there.
I guess the boating metaphor signals the biggest risk with my approach. It is great having a flexible, fast machine and no anchors when the waters and the weather are somewhat predictable. You don’t want a calm sea and no wind, but then again, you don’t want an unexpected storm either. The test of my new approach to life will come when the storms gather, for example my own ill health or that of a loved one or a financial catastrophe. Who knows what lies ahead. But we only live once, and a boat that spends its life in the harbour may come to regret its caution.
I’ll keep you posted.