I’m coming to realize that I’m not becoming the person I want to be. I’m holding myself back. I carry the weight of my failures and shortcomings. I wonder how things are going to be better. I feel the burdens of the house, my job, my responsibilities as a mom, bills, the impending financial changes, the impending uncertainty of the move…
the living of a life that is responsible for so much more than it seems I can handle.
Yet I stay quiet.
The people around me, they all see the front. They see the witty joking coworker…the determined problem solving teacher…the frustrated ‘keep it all together’ mom…the supportive “team mom”…
…what I see is the underneath failings. How I don’t have the social group supporting me. How when the weekends come without my kids I spend them alone even though I would LOVE to have a fun flirty companionship. I feel that there is something wrong with me that the dating sites don’t work for me…that I must be somehow broken…and all the guys I’d be interested on there can see it…right through me. Smell the desperation the emptiness.
And then I go back to the idea that I’m not really working on myself to BE a person that someone would WANT to be involved with…
I haven’t been active with exercise of any sort in longer than I should and I’m starting to feel the results in my waistband.
I’m not getting out where I could reinforce social connections…I’d love to be hanging with friends, live music or sporting events…with a group, you know…one that I feel connected to…not like I can go to those things by myself in an effort to ‘find’ that group. Most the people I know from work are young families just starting out…not really interested in, nor have the money to get out…other options seem to be lacking.
My faith has floundered and I wish I had a church home…I haven’t felt connected there (spiritually or emotionally) for longer than I would like. Any of the other churches I’ve “shopped” don’t have the right feel either.
I truly just want to run away and start over.
Somewhere that isn’t here.
Somewhere that I can reinvent myself.
Somewhere where I get to call ALL the shots. First off being the fact that I’m even there to begin with!
Somewhere I don’t feel confined.
Making Sense from MY Perspective 
I wish I had some words of wisdom for you, but I feel a lot of these feelings too – sometimes more than others. I just think it’s hard to start over. At least that’s the way I like to look at it.
Hard to start over…yeah…I’d agree with that. Thanks for reading, commenting, and even commiserating.
Find a new companion … join a social group … find a new place to live … start an exercise plan … attend to self-improvement … check in on spirituality … learn to live alone … adapt to financial changes … WOW!
These are HUGE changes you are confronted with. Massive changes to your life. No wonder you feel overwhelmed with the walls seemingly collapsing around you.
I know only too well those feelings.
One of the ways I find works for me – whenever I feel like that – is to stop for a while.
For a little while, I just stop trying so hard. I get off the tread-mill and take some time out, sometimes for fifteen minutes, sometimes for an hour, sometimes for a day.
In those moments of stopping, sometimes I do different things such as
– nothing
– put aside everything on my plate I know I eventually have to fix.
– breathe (sometimes that is all I can manage)
– go for a short walk in nature
– listen to music
– watch a DVD
– bake a cake (for some reason that makes me feel good, I do not know why)
– sit and allow myself to be miserable for a while (I even allow myself to cry, let it all out)
Then after a while what I then do is these:
– Write down things I have achieved in my life and since D-day; this is my achievement list
– Write down all the things that are overwhelming me, that I still have to do: this is my task list.
– Write down incremental steps for everything on my task list.
– Pick out just one thing, one step, for one task.
– Start on that first step of one task on my list .
– Finish that first step.
– Cross it off the list.
– Add it to my achievement list.
It is amazing how much better I always feel when starting and then finishing that first step.
It makes me feel so much better to think in terms of what I have already achieved, rather than what still needs doing.
Elizabeth, you always find a clear, sensible way of presenting the first steps. (and compassion for the overwhelming odds I’m facing) Thanks for your support…it means a lot.