The Upside of Isolation by Pamela Francis
This month marks the third year since I purchased the four tickets that launched my household up out of our beloved desert community in California and into the Southeast. Two of us landed in Georgia into the lap of extended family, and two of us flew into South Carolina to take care of other, ailing, family, eventually converging in Sandy Springs six months later, our four-person unit reunited, and with varying degrees of willingness or un, proceeded to give the ante-bellum south a shot.
We changed our drivers licenses, enrolled in schools, got jobs, learned our new routes and locked into our new routines. We learned how to speak mosquito. And how to keep a straight face whenever people tried to tell us we had arrived in the new Hollywood, or that Buckhead was just like Beverly Hills. We all hated it. In fact, we all still hate it, 2 years and 5 months later.
Sure there are “plenty of jobs” here in Atlanta but we’re not into jobs. I run three businesses out of my home and have done so since my first born arrived on the scene thirteen years ago. My husband used to design menswear in New York in the 90’s and would be quite content developing his own line. My son thinks Ninja is a career and has acted alongside Melissa McCarthy. So, no, you can’t get our hearts pumping by talking about all the jobs there are here in Atlanta. Sorry.
We stumbled during the recession — first in subscribing to such a concept and its philosophy of lack, which we later realized we’d been hoodwinked into believing, and secondly in leaving relatively stable and certainly established conditions where we were, in favor of striking out on adventurous, sometimes foolish, risk-taking in 2009.
Now some people say Los Angeles can be isolating. It’s a die-hard car culture that tends to experience itself socially in very cliquish (“The Industry”) and closed off (your car) ways. But I would have to say nowhere have I felt more isolated than my three years here in Georgia. Even in rural South Carolina, where I lived for 7 years once, I had more fulfilling social interactions and good old fashioned fellowship than my Sandy Springs, Georgia experience has afforded me.
Isolation’s an interesting thing, though. When I knew I was going to write about it, I started thinking about its many applications. For instance, it can develop some killer abs. It makes algebraic equations a cinch to solve. It can create laser focus on a goal. And Henry David Thoreau swore by it.
Sandy Springs has become my own personal Walden. The isolation I’ve endured here for close to three years now has produced two more published works, the rejuvenation of my businesses, and a masters level self-actualization regimen I’ll never regret. Do I miss all that hobnobbing, beach frolicking and the impromptu Thai dinners, foot massages and Happy Hour Sushi dates with my besties…? (heavy sigh). Or, as they say in Sandy Springs on those quiet starlit nights… cricket cricket ; )
Tags: #cabin fever, #focus, #Georgia, #Sandy Springs, #self actualization, isolation
