The old me

— Photo by ML

I am slowly disassembling the "old" me piece by piece. Some changes are voluntary, some are not. Some changes are quite profound and often very difficult, while other changes are trivial and should have been done a long time ago. The most visible change is, of course, material: I have a lot less "stuff". In fact, I have almost no stuff left.

The strange thing, though, is that I don't really care. Come to think of it, that alone is a profound change in my personality. Sure, losing it all was rather painful, at least initially. After all, we're talking about big things like cars, house, furniture, and other "stuff" that one accumulates over several years. And it didn't happen over night, or due to some freak weather incident or fire. No, it happened because of my divorce, and I was actually "awake" the whole time.

Yesterday I dropped off my car. The lease was up and my new life doesn't justify keeping it. But the experience really drove home the point of how different my life is today from two years ago, or even just a few months ago. It's actually quite unbelievable how much everything has changed.

In July 2007 I was still married, lived in a house in Connecticut with wife and two daughters. I will not go into the details of how and why the divorce came about, as it is irrelevant for this story. But to clarify, it was a long marriage, and it didn't unravel over night over something trivial.

We had the usual suburban accouterments: two cars and lots of other things. We had a big yard that took up lots of time and effort, and the house was a never-ending construction project. I worked long hours every week as a self-employed software consultant. And while I've been in technology for over 20 years, I didn't really "live" online.

Today, two years later, I live in a one-bedroom apartment smack in the middle of Philadelphia — pretty much the polar opposite of the quiet and quaint town in Connecticut where I used to live. There you have to drive everywhere (5 miles to nearest supermarket), while here I walk everywhere. There it is quiet and peaceful (at least on the surface), while here it is hectic and noisy (but surprisingly not in a way that bothers me).

The most difficult moment was to go back to the house after my now ex-wife had moved out with our daughters. The house was completely empty, and it felt like an empty shell. I had lived in the house and worked on it for many years, and I know every nook and cranny, every pipe, every valve, every appliance, every system, every single thing that makes the house work. But seeing it completely empty was really difficult — I hardly recognized it.

I used to have two cars (and at one point even three). Today I have none. I went from driving a Lexus GX 470 to riding SEPTA. Having a big car like that in the middle of the city when I hardly even use it, simply makes no sense. Besides, I can use ZipCar whenever I need a car (I'll write more about this some other time, but I really like the ZipCar concept). But don't get me wrong: I loved my big SUV, and I absolutely love to drive (more about that some other time). The big change here is that, while I once could not even imagine not having car, I now find it difficult to justify actually owning one. Of course, this may change if/when circumstances change, but the "old" me would have had a car regardless of circumstances.

I used to be a total news (financial, politics, social, you name it) junkie — we're talking BBC, CNN, CNBC, PBS, and NPR all the time! Today I hardly follow the news at all. Somehow I just don't care anymore. I don't even have TV. I have cable, but only for Internet access. I also only have mobile phones (one personal and one from work). Almost all my media consumption is now online (Hulu, Netflix, NYT, SomaFM, ProtonRadio, FriskyRadio, and so on) — I say "almost" because I actually do read some things that still use dead-tree technology.

The other day, as an experiment, I started to map out my online profile: it ranges from Twitter to Last.fm to Flickr to Urbanspoon. Throw in some iLike, a little Yelp*, and a few more services, and you can see how I now live almost completely online. My iPhone is with me all the time, and my laptop (with aircard) almost all the time. The funny thing is that I have met more people here in Philadelphia (first online and the in real life) then I ever did in Connecticut. Maybe it's because I not only feel different, but probably also am a different person.

I have a lot less stuff today. In fact, I have almost none. It's almost as if by shedding this "burden" I'm now able to walk with more bounce in my steps. I feel that I have much more energy, and much more focus. And I seem to notice and appreciate things that I see and hear around me much more, and experiences seem to have a more lasting effect. It's almost as if I'm now seeing the world in vivid colors, as opposed to just in muted grey tones.

I guess the next question is: will I rebuild? The answer: yes, absolutely! But not exactly the way it was. More than anything, this experience has taught me what is important, and what is just additional ballast. And the "new" me will pay much more attention to substance, and a lot less to quantity.

-martin.