Moving Out

September 17th, 2009

Next week officially ends my time of residence with my second wife and family.  My wife has asked that we end our marriage, and I’ve agreed.  So I’m moving my (relatively) small store of possessions out of the house, and shipping them to Kauai, where I have been living during weeks at work.

For almost two years I’ve been living on the Big Island and working on Kauai, coming home on non-call weekends and weeks off.  Now I’ll live full-time on Kauai.  I never, ever imagined that I’d reach Medicare age while working nearly full-time in Hawaii, much less on Kauai.  My life has run completely off its screen, so that each day is full of surprises that I never would have expected.

Officially, I say that I’m living in the land of NFI – No F’ing Idea.  I have no idea ahead of time what’ll show up, so I just keep showing up for surprises.  I do, of course, have some grounding principles and routines.  I’m chief of anesthesia in a small, rural hospital that does top-notch care, and I’ve found to my surprise that I love the people and the work – both the clinical and the administrative parts.  I’m a part of this community, close to people in a way I’ve never been in a series of larger or more academic practices.

It’s my personal life in which NFI primarily appears.  Even there, I do make some plans and carry out some actions.  My wife and I have negotiated most of an amiable settlement (basically, we’re splitting everything without regard to who brought it into the marriage).  We’ve got the on-line divorce papers almost ready to print and file.  And I’m going back to the Big Island next week to pack and move.

I’ve been living here in rented housing for almost two years with very few possessions, so I’ve had a good look at how little I need.  Still, I’d like to have some favorite books, some music, my tools, my pedal kayak, my financial and life records, and a bit of furniture – a favorite recliner, a couple of good bookshelves, maybe the desk I’ve had since the time my oldest son was born 36 years ago.  No problem – an afternoon with a U-Haul, and move-out is done, right?

Not in Hawaii, at least not if the move involves another island.  Instead, I rent what’s called a G-Van (basically, a closet-size portable steel container), hire a mover with a fork-lift truck to bring it from the harbor to my house, and spend two days packing it tight.  Then the mover comes back, carries the container to the harbor, and it’s placed on a barge for the trip to Oahu, and then on to Kauai.  I reverse the process at the other end, have the container brought to a storage unit (the condo doesn’t have enough space for tools and a kayak right now), and move my possessions into my rented, furnished condo.  Space will be a little tighter here now.

That’s the mechanical process.  The result is that I’ll no longer make any claim to live on the Big Island, or with Krystyn.  Separation will be a reality, though it’s already been real enough as we continue the process of living apart begun as a work necessity.  Communication falls to the level of communicating necessary information only.  Life updates, and calls without intention, no longer occur.  There’s no rancor, and except in pockets no pervasive sadness.  I’ve had a great time being married to Krystyn, and I’ve learned and grown enormously.  And it’s time to move on with a life in which Krystyn is no longer a major player.

I signed on with match.com to take a look around, sure that I was not really ready to pursue another relationship yet.  I wrote in my profile that I wanted “a partner who’s warm, loving, kind, wise, sexy, good-humored, and willing to love fully and be loved fully… I’d like my partner’s life to be rich and fulfilling so we could add our well-filled lives together and watch the cup run over.”

Almost at once, a series of coincidences occurred that brought to mind the assertion that there are no coincidences.  In the land of NFI I found myself responding to a contact from an unseen person – not even a picture – who seemed to have read between the lines in my profile and come directly to talk to me alone.  When the picture was added, I had a strong intuitive sense that it would be important to meet this person, and that’s been the start of a remarkable story.  A story for another time…

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Ending a Marriage

September 17th, 2009

This blog is about a coach as human, dealing with the same issues others face. I wrote the following piece on August 7, but didn’t post it then because it simply seemed too vulnerable.  I think, though, that if this blog is to be of any real value, I’ll need to say what there is in the moment, even if later I wish I hadn’t said it quite that way.  Otherwise I’ll never see the growth.  I’ll wait until I’ve got it right – and I’ll never write a thing.

My wife Krystyn asked this spring that we end our 12-year marriage.  She wanted to stop being married, but not stop being friends. In many conversations since that time, she’s been steadfast in that position.  She loves me, but doesn’t want to be married any more.

I’m writing this during a brief retreat with Krystyn and all 3 of our kids at the Hilton at Waikoloa Village.  The atmosphere is congenial.  Krystyn and I chastely share the king size bed in the single room that all five of us share.  She holds my hand as we walk to the breakfast buffet.  Yet she doesn’t want this marriage to continue.  I’m puzzled, and I feel powerless to produce a different outcome.

I listen when she says that she is done with her desire to be married.  I hear that she believes she loves me, but she also believes that there are some things that she wants to do as part of her own growth and development, and she cannot do them within this relationship.  I ask for more details.  She says she wants to individuate.  I ask whether she believes that individual development cannot occur within a relationship.  She cites an example of a relationship in which one partner opposed the growth of the other, but says ours is not like that.

I ask whether she’s dealing with actual times when she wanted to grow and I opposed it, or whether she’s dealing with her thoughts about how I might oppose some things she wants to do.  Our daughter arrives at the pool, so we put the conversation on hold for a while.  I walk back to the room perplexed, unable to resolve the incongruity of ending a marriage to a beloved person with who it’s been possible to build so much.

I know that by writing about this in real time I risk seeming passive, uncaring, or just plain stupid.  I’m not any of those.  I love Krystyn, and I love what I thought we’d built as a relationship.  But the reality is that she says she’s done being married.  I’m able to accept that without resisting that it’s what is so. That declaration trumps all my good reasons for staying here myself.  I can’t “make” her feel differently.  It’s not open to logical argument.

We’ve spent a large part of the past year with Krystyn expressing unhappiness with the marriage, and often with me.  Intention to end the marriage has more than once been followed by a change of heart — suddenly continuing seems like a good idea.  And then the bad feelings return.

I’m reaching a point from which I won’t be willing to re-commit to continuing a marriage that can find itself in trouble again on a moment’s notice for no apparent reason.  It’s such an energy drain – like living in a house in which one has to make a new decision every morning about whether to keep living there, rather than just going about one’s business in the world.

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A Season for Inquiring

June 14th, 2009

            To everything there is a season, and now is the season for inquiring.  The central inquiry for this blog is this: what’s possible in being completely human as a professional – open, vulnerable, in touch with fears and failings as well as strength and wisdom?

            Twenty-six months ago when this still-empty blog space was created, that would not have been the theme of this blog.

            Twenty-six months ago the idea of living in Hawaii had never occurred to me.  I saw nothing attractive in the idea at all.  I loved the Pacific Northwest.

            Two months later, in June of 2007, we bought a house on the Big Island.  We’d be here in time for the kids to start school in August.

            In the two months between April and June we’d entertained an intense family inquiry into what it would be like for us to live in Hawaii.  Where would we live?  What would our lives be like?  What would we love?  What would we miss?  How would we support ourselves?  The inquiry results were unequivocal – the family wanted to move to the Big Island.

            I made a commitment to the family to do whatever it took to make a Hawaiian adventure possible. I envisioned a series of locum tenens engagements on the mainland.  My first locums contract, however, was right here in the Islands.  I loved the month at the small but high-quality hospital, and returned frequently over the next year.

            Only one problem.  The hospital was on a neighboring island, not the Big Island.  So I became a saltatory family man, home in large discontinuous leaps, housed and fed on a neighboring island during the weeks between home visits.

            Twenty-six months ago I thought I was about to enter a season of life coaching, of becoming a coach for other physicians, of semi-retirement as a clinical professor at the University of Washington.  Krystyn, also a physician and also a life coach, would share this new undertaking.  We created a website, and on the website we created a blog. 

            But it was not to be the season of coaching, nor yet the season of writing.  It was the season of practicing medicine intensely again, of being up all night on call again, of learning to live in the Islands, of adjusting to an intermittent family dynamic and continuing to grow.

            And so the blog lay idle.  Coaching happened, but with limited numbers of clients.

            And growth and development occurred.  I took a permanent 80% position at the hospital where I’d been doing locums work.  NowI live on a neighboring island 36 weeks per years, and I’m home on the Big Island on vacation weeks and non-call weekends. I’ve accepted a request to be anesthesia section chief for the hospital and clinic starting next month. 

            Our oldest has gone off to college, and her brother will be in college in the fall.  The youngest has two more years at the private school they’ve loved.  Krystyn has become a two-time triathlete and fiercely competitive outrigger canoe paddler.

            Now it’s time for the blog.  We’re living the inquiry.  What’s possible in being fully human as a professional, both in medicine and life coaching?  This blog will have thoughts and insights on being human, on coaching, on medicine.  Once I had all the answers.  Now I have mostly questions, and this is where I’ll explore them.  Thanks for being along.  I welcome your thoughts, too.

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