I Hope This Doesn’t Last Much Longer
Life has been overwhelming me, and in the past this has led me to write copiously about things that are going on. Things have changed, and the things I used to be able to write about no longer flow out of me. I used to be able to see a post through to the end.
I have become more private and withdrawn, more moody and less able to talk to people about the things that are bothering me. I don’t know whether it has to do with my dad dying the same year I turn fifty, and realizing I will never live up to his hopes and dreams and expectations for what I will make of my life, but I think that this is part of it.
It has a lot to do with the realization that the older people get, the harder it is to reboot and start fresh; my dreams of what I wanted to accomplished were thwarted by my bad decisions that I seem to make at every turn. Dad had been able to plan his life pretty well, and so when things didn’t go his way he had the means to find his way through and fix them squarely.
He taught me well, and I lived his lessons faithfully until my mid-thirties. Then I changed. I tried to do things without planning, and I started taking measures out of desperation thinking that I would be able to fix them later. But the “later” is caught up with me, and I see so few avenues remaining for straightening them out.
I am not going to go into detail about what is happening in my life, but I find myself tempted to withdraw and resign from most of the volunteer opportunities from which I had been getting pleasure and fulfillment. Now I am starting to see them more as chores and obligations, and I don’t think that I am really able to give people what they need.
I am exhausted, mentally. I can’t see how tomorrow is going to work out let alone next year. Step by step, I am sliding backwards and I just can’t write much about it.
I sincerely hope that this is a funk and that my constant struggle will soon pay off. But the hours seem to get darker and the promised dawn further away.
When I get arighted, I will pass it along. In the meantime, please listen to my radio show. It’s the one fun thing that I have left.
