ranting gets you no where

I have found myself at an impasse in my life. I am caught in this in-between of parenting and adulting.

My kids are 20, 16, 15 (almost 16) and 11, about to be 12. One doesn’t live with us anymore and the other has a foot out the door. And with the way time is passing…it won’t be long before I have an empty nest.

I never really spent much time focused on a career. The only real drive I had was nursing and that went out the window years ago. I took a safe route and stuck with what I’d been doing and what I know. Don’t get me wrong, I am good at it and I do like it but it can be mundane at times. It is nothing exciting or fantastic but I just thought I was meant for much more.

Being a mom is all I’ve known my entire adult life. I have been raising babies since I was 17. I don’t know much else and what I do know is an array of useless knowledge that seems to be getting me nowhere. I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.

As I’ve gotten older, my circle has gotten smaller and smaller. I don’t have much for family and what bit I do have, doesn’t show much interest in my life. Friendships are sparse but I take the blame for that. I’ll admit that I have an expectation when it comes to relationships because I’ve been burned far too many times and I don’t allow much time for anyone to tear down my walls. I was and have been the friend and companion who constantly checked up on others, went out of my way for them but soon discovered no one was willing to do the same for me. So, fuck ‘em and feed ‘em fish heads, as my hubs would say. I don’t have time to beg, borrow and steal time for other who simply aren’t willing to do the same for me.

I like real people and that is hard to find. People who aren’t afraid of exposing themselves mentally and emotionally. I’ve grown incredibly tired of social media because everyone is fake. It is fake smiles, fake lives. Everyone is okay with saying everything is great and wonderful even when it’s not. You don’t get “likes” when it’s not great and happy and wonderful news. The truth is, life isn’t about liking the good stuff. It’s about acknowledging and understanding that even though we are blessed, there is still really bad, crappy stuff. Not every day is gonna be rainbows and butterflies. Some days, it’s deep, dark and mucky. And that’s okay but we still want that acknowledged too. Because it means someone actually gives a damn.

It is no secret that since I was six, I have battled depression and anxiety. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I actually accepted it and started to take it seriously. Managing it isn’t always easy either. I recently changed meds because healthcare makes it next to impossible to find something that works and that is affordable. Affordable healthcare? Right. If you have ever experienced changing antidepressants, then you totally feel my pain and know the struggle it causes. I used to think that meds that made me feel like a zombie were bad. I have since discovered that for someone who feels everything 100 times over, it’s actually pretty good. I felt my pain and everyone else’s around me and it threw me into complete chaos. Every decision I made was made based on emotion and not just being logical. I over-analyzed everything. I cared too much about situations I had absolutely no control over. I managed myself as a control freak.

Since the new meds, all that has changed. For the most part, I feel nothing. Comfortably numb, as I like to call it. Some think that isn’t healthy. For me, it’s perfectly okay. It has allowed me to think clearer and realize what an emotional nutcase I’ve been all my life. If I’d been wiser to it, this would have changed years ago. I don’t cry at the drop of a hat, which I hated more than anything. I don’t care to open myself as I did before and if I do, it’s only to those who fill my small circle. Clarity is amazing when it’s not filled up with un-needed feelings.

I’m not desperate to have people in my life. I’ve never felt like I needed to be with someone 24-7. I have spent my entire life alone, if we are being honest. I just needed to be loved and I wanted to be around other people, I wanted to have relationships but relationships require work and when the other person isn’t willing to put in their work, it becomes one-sided. I can’t do one-sided. It drains me. I used to do one-sided because I was struggling to hold onto relationships that later I found were just toxic. Over the years, I’ve decided my family gets me first, everyone and everything else comes after. 

But now my family is dispersing. They are growing and starting to move on with their lives and that brings me back to this impasse. Still trying to find my place in this world. Trying to find out where I am being led. Maybe I am already there and I just can’t see it yet but part of me still thinks it should be more. I guess only time will tell. I waited this long to start a career, a little longer won’t hurt.