So here I go again, and I'm giving myself the goal of getting on here every week, or at least twice a month. I see people who blog every day, so weekly seems like a goal I can manage. That's one of my major flaws, and one of the most frustrating parts of my depression. I make goals all the time, very small easy goals that most people take for granted, and I can't seem to accomplish them. This week has been one of those weeks, today has REALLY been one of those days. My head hurts, inside and out. The self-hatred and negative thoughts have overwhelmed me and beaten me down. I had been doing well, at least for me. Last week we took a vacation and as it always does, my world crumbles when I get back home.
I don't know what it is about taking a vacation that inevitably pulls the rug out from under my feet. I think mostly it's because J still travels full time for work- it's been 3 1/2 years now of him just being home on weekends- and when we go on vacation together it's a comfort and happiness and safe feeling that I don't normally have in my day to day life. Then we come home, he unpacks the vacation suitcase, packs the work suitcase, and I'm home alone again for the week. We've had four vacations so far this year, with one more on the calendar, and of course J will have time off with the holidays. I feel like my world, my life is split into two parts. Time with J, time on my own. Most of it is time on my own. A little is a good thing, no doubt, but too much of it brings a crushing yet empty weight down on me. J isn't likely to change jobs any time soon. He's been with the company 22 years now, and although he's recently been offered promotions which would mean coming off the road, they all also meant moving again and we just don't want to do that right now.
We talked about this being our forever home. I talked about how I thought moving here would be the "cure" that I needed. Now neither of us is sure about that. We love our house, and our eight acres, but I don't know if we see ourselves here twenty years from now. Maybe not even ten years from now. I thought living here would open up a new existence and new opportunities for me, and although the potential is there, I'm still hiding in the house and not living out in the world. I'm starting to wonder if moving somewhere we were both already so familiar with was a mistake. J was born and raised here. And in the 16 years I've been with J, I'd visited here a lot before we bought this house. Before we even moved here, we already had favorite places to go and things to do. So in a way, although I'd never lived here before, nothing was really new. The only thing new was that I had the ability to go and do and see it all on my own, any time I wanted. Now we both think it would have been better to move somewhere truly new, to explore and discover and be awed with new experiences and new sights.
So much has happened in the last two or three years, it's been a very difficult phase for me. Not just turning 50 a little while back. Moving here to J's hometown and being around his family, sometimes more than I would like. J still traveling full time- the "glamour" of that first year has worn thin. My mom passed away. I'm still struggling with my own health issues, not to mention the depression and paralyzing anxiety. We lost one of our beloved cats, we took a new stray kitten in. The other cats have all either had life-threatening illnesses that required surgeries and long recoveries, and one currently has cancer and is going through treatment. I still fumble around with my pottery, but I can't seem to elevate it to anything more than a money-losing hobby. I am still unbearably overweight and in constant physical pain. I hate being so old and feeling so lost. At my age, I should have the answers already, but I still feel tragically behind the eight ball, all the time.
Well I'm going to keep my normally epic-length posts shorter, so that I will hopefully blog more often. My favorite, newly discovered quote: Never A Failure, Always A Lesson.
MISS GEE
