It’s been about 6 weeks since I arrived in Thailand. Landing in Chiang Mai continues to feel like home. Close to the mountains and the jungle. In the middle of Thailand’s agricultural land. I’ve never seen such a huge variety of raw cooking materials in my life. From Europe to South America, Southeast Asia is an absolute culinary delight. I am getting great pleasure from cooking the foods that call to me on a daily basis. So much fun!!
Termination or Retirement?
I remember watching my mother as a child work 60+ hours a week. Only to come home, one long day after another, upset, that she had to discipline her boys who did not perform their chores and cook dinner for the family. There was no way I was going to live this life. While money is necessary for survival, I did not put the importance on it as many did. I had my eye on retirement at 55 years old. And, whallah, here I am, doing just that.
After 25 years of employment, this week I have sent my letter of resignation, termination, retirement to the college. It is not without mixed feelings. I have devoted a quarter century of my life to teaching students culinary arts and hospitality management. Supporting teachers in online learning, and other special projects for the college.
Why isn’t my 25 year completion called retirement? Mainly because I am not 59.5 years of age, the official retirement age. I could not hang out for any more time in academia. I have witnessed how other countries revere, honor and respect their teachers. Unlike in America.
I’m too young to retire… so resignation is how it must be. What might be next for me? Only time will tell.
Divided No More
For the last 15 years there have been parts of me I needed to keep separate from my teaching career. My personal vs professional growth. While at times both could be considered the same. They definitely needed to be separated.
I got divorced in 2009 (ish) and made the commitment to myself to have the most healthy and fulfilling relationships I could possibly have. This meant I was not going to leave any stone unturned. To look underneath the hood, in all the dark places. The past generational traumas, lies and betrayals, I was determined were going to stop with me.
This meant that I needed to do some things differently. The serial monogamy needed to stop. I wanted to explore other forms of relationship styles. Polyamory, open relationships, swinging, relational anarchy… anything that allowed me to fully express myself in the most genuine and authentic way… through my heart, my mind and my body.
Along the way, I learned about sexual healing through modalities like sacred intimacy, sexological bodywork, somatic sexology and other alternative relational and sexuality expressions. I found much of my own openings and healing through people supporting me via these practices. So much so, that I began my own journey as a practitioner to help others and eventually teaching in California and Canada.
Paying A Price
But there was a problem. If the board of trustees found out about this side of me, I believed that the price I would pay was I would lose my job. So I invented an online alias (Isiah @ www.wakingeros.com) and created this deliberate division in my life. Eroto-phobia is a real thing in our hierarchical society. I am one who felt that fear.
Along the way, I was able to reinvent myself as a teacher. Taking some of my practices and integrating them into the kitchen classroom. When I was teaching students proper knife handling skills, it required them to drop some old habits to acquire new ones. This was not the appropriate environment to tell them to masturbate with their unfamiliar hand, so I had to tell them to switch hands with their toothbrush.
Parker Palmer wrote “A Hidden Wholeness – The Journey Towards an Undivided Life”, where he talks about finding a way to build a bridge between our identity and integrity as adults and the work that we do in the world. He writes, “I pay a steep price when I live a divided life-feeling fraudulent, anxious about being found out, and depressed by the fact that I am denying my own selfhood. The people around me pay a price as well, for now they walk on ground made unstable by my dividedness. How can I affirm another’s identity when I deny my own? How can I trust another’s integrity when I defy my own? A fault line runs down the middle of my life, and whenever it cracks open-divorcing my words and actions from the truth I hold within – things around me get shaky and start to fall apart.”
Now, I have nothing to be concerned about. I have no job I need to worry about being fired from. I am only subject to others’ judgments and criticisms for the choices I make on how I live my life. Much easier for me to contend with.
But… Who Am I Now?
Who am I now? Am no longer my father’s son as he has passed away. I cannot be identified as my job, because I am no longer a college professor. No longer can I call myself a landlord as I sold all my rental property. I can no longer be identified by my car or my personal belongings.
Am I only identified as a social security number and a bank account in this capitalist world in which we live? Can I be identified by the service work I have performed over the last two decades as a teacher and through my hospice volunteer work?
After 55 years I have sold or given away 90% of my belongings. Stuffing what was left and what I wanted into a couple of suitcases. Why did I choose to keep my entire essential oil collection and not any of my cd/dvd’s?
Every Morning
I have awakened every morning here in Thailand happy to be here. Not having to worry about the random shootings that happened 200m from my home in Maine. Or the largest mass shooting in 2023 that happened close-by my home.
I use the words “self-policing lawlessness” to describe the social environment here. I do not see police patrol cars cruising around the neighborhoods. When outdoor shops close the owner’s tie a tarp around the place and it does not get vandalized. When a person cuts into the queue, the people tell them to wait their turn.
No doubt, I miss the support systems that were created over the last 30 years in Maine. I miss my close friends mostly. Loneliness creeps in at times. I do not miss my “stuff”. I miss my teaching but I do not miss the politics of my job.
I am confident in time I will get more and more comfortable. Especially when I move into a quieter home and as I learn how to speak Thai.
For one of the first times of my life, if not for the first time, I feel divided no more!