When I was young, I proclaimed I would live in a certain community until I died. But, eighteen years later, I was driving a 24-foot moving truck 300 miles to a new destination and a new life. No job, no house; just my family and our stuff. My entire adult life had been spent in the community, with no worries about salaries or car payments or insurance or even daily meals; I was "free to serve" and free of the mundane horrors of middle-class American existence. Now I was face-to-face with those horrors, and there was nobody there to take care of them but me. And I didn't have a clue what to do.

I picked up as much information as I could at the library (and later I'll tell you about a couple of the best resources I found that I still consider to be crucial to getting on your feet), but it was all patchy, and it meant reading through a lot of stuff I didn't need to find the one or two bits of information that were truly helpful.

The community (a religious commune, actually) was not much help. This isn't meant to disparage them--their focus was on the things God had called them to, and developing a comprehensive "exit" program was not a good use of their time or resources. But it did mean the people who were leaving had to figure out quite a bit on their own, and this often led to hurt feelings on both sides that, in some cases, never healed. Our family left with most friendships intact, and with good relations between us and the community in general. We just didn't know what we were doing!

Since leaving, I have started to write down tips and ideas several times, but never really put much effort into it. But the thought has never left me that there should be a resource to help people who find themselves in a similar situation, whether leaving home after high school (or college), or leaving a broken relationship where the other partner handled most of the details of day-to-day living, or maybe a spouse has died, or maybe even leaving a community, as we did.

So, I have pages and pages of notes on practical topics, ideas about bigger "life" concepts, and the desire to make a site that will help others in the ways I wish I could have been helped. And one of my main goals it to try and run the site with a positive spirit; posts or comments that contain personal attacks against those you are leaving may be edited or deleted. The one-sentence summary of the site is "Finding your way in life--positively."

If you have ideas or pressing needs for information, please be sure to leave a comment, or drop a note through the contact page, or leave a message on the message line. Let's get moving!

Pat