Hi as i am getting older and wiser [i hope] i realise that there are a lot of things one can change but fundamentally not.
I started out as a happyish teenager on the future of life with much to look forward to and hopes and aspirations intact,i still had my inner worries about what the future may or may not hold,got a job bought my house in early twenties and was conscientious without missing out on too much partying.
then i met and married my 3rd girlfriend i converted the house into flats [as in the eighties prices were rising] bought another house and carried on working to finsh paying the mortgage so i could the relax a bit and enjoy some freedom with my family.
it all went pear-shaped due to a divorce i swear i did'nt see coming,i then decided f**k it and went travelling with what little i had out of the divorce settlement,
when i came back house prices were way out of my league,the old job i had had gone,[i was self employed] it had nearly gone when i left but at least the mortgage would've been paid for by then.life is full of ifs buts and maybes if i had'nt had a divorce i would'nt have broken my back as i would'nt have gone travelling,
now i am in a council flat on benefits,don't give me all that retrain rubbish,i don't want to work another twenty years until i'm seventy and then buy a place [probably be 2 million quid by then]
don't get me wrong i'm ok but sometimes it feels like i'm just treading water,now most things bore me

So what are you saying?
Find a woman I hate & just buy her a house.

Retraining rubbish???? What else you got to do????

Sounds like you're going thru a midlife crisis,,, 50 is about the right age,, give or take ten years. Hell, dom,, you made it thru that post SCI negativity,,, you'll make it thru this "getting old" crap , too.

Anything you feel like doing? No?? Well, everybody has a few of those "F**K IT" days,,, just don't string too many of them together.

Get up early, go outside, and watch the sun come up. If that doesn't do it for you,, come on back and vent a bit. We'll be here.
ed

yes ed you probably right,i typed that late at night in a depressed frame of mind,now i read it in the cold light of day and it sounds kinda stupid!!! lol

Actually, dom, in some respects it sounds like you're not in a bad place and well placed should some opportunity come along. I was in a similar spot a few years back (not quite as dramatic as your story).
You've got all you basics secured (shelter, food). Now you have the luxury of looking around for what you want to do with the rest of your life. At the moment you may have some empty space around you but any space always get filled by something.
Your life doesn't have to follow on from what you were doing before. You don't have to have a house to be happy. You've done the house thing. Why not go chase something completely new in your life, become a Hari Krishna, write a book, tell people like me where to go...

Thankyou again Nomis for your wise words,there is nothing worse than kicking a man when he's down but sometimes he needs a kick to get up!
funnily enough i was just reading an article in the newspaper about the pursuit of happiness and contentment today and it was a professor of psychology doing a study on it,he suggests that spending money on experiences is far better than buying material goods as they decay with age and the memory is short-lived but with experience-travel etc our memories naturally filter out most of the bad experiences and leave us with the good,when i travelled i obviously had bad times but now all i rmemeber are the good and even the bad ones bring me nostalgia so maybe i need some more of these to 'top me up' before i descend into dementia!
It's nice as you say to think of my life somewhat as a clean sheet without all the ties and responsiblities that went along with ownership and upkeep, [i remember for instance mowing the lawn for hours after a 12 hour shift]
My brother in the states is wealthy and is 48 with a wife and two young kids he wants to do the travelling bit but is tied down not financially but physically i suppose we all have something stoping us from doing what we want if we set obstacles in our path,only the brave and selfish generally go on to live lives,we have to be a bit of both.

Dom,
I feel the same knowing my health isn't as good as it was pre-SCI.

If you don't mind my asking, where have you visited/ lived in your travels and for how long were your stays?

HI qbounce,when i was in my twenties my brother and i went for about 4 months travelling through Spain on a train ticket we stopped in Barcelona,Valencia and Alicante,i have some great memories especially about the friends we mad in Alicante,even to this day i have a friend Juan Carlos [not the king] who is a university lecturer now living in Murcia,
years later i lived for a year in the Algarve portugal and travelled extensively there.i aslo travelled through France staying in various run down hostels
I was an English language teacher in Slovakia in 98/99 and got married there and travelled around the country,[thats where i had my accident] i stayed in the states in new york for a few months with family if you wish to know more you can always pm me,i miss the open road and love to watch programmes about travellers especially Michael Palins and off the beaten track ones,if i had the opportunity i would like to go further afield.all the best do you live anywhere near manhattan beach? dom