Where to Turn

After spending a lot of the week reading and watching TV (although there was some house cleaning going on), I think I've identified that I'm lonely.  Now I know that my therapist would strongly encourage me to do something like join some community clubs or get a job (for the human interaction, if nothing else), but I'm not sure I care that I'm lonely.  I don't care enough or am not lonely enough to want to do anything about it.  In some ways I'm enjoying my loneliness.  And I've realized that part-time teaching, whether on a campus or on-line, is really a lonely endeavor too.  The only interaction I would have would be with students for a short period of time each week; but there's really no interaction with colleagues or anything. 

I just finished reading "A Prayer for Owen Meany" by John Irving, and in it the character, Owen Meany, says "IF YOU’RE LUCKY ENOUGH TO FIND A WAY OF LIFE YOU LOVE, YOU HAVE TO FIND THE COURAGE TO LIVE IT.”  I really like that.  I think I used to have a life I loved, namely academia.  Maybe I no longer love it, or maybe I've lost the courage to live it.  Either way, I'm left without a life I love.  Don't get me wrong, I love my family, I love my friends; I just am not doing anything that concerns me that I love.  And I'm struggling with finding meaning in life.  Religion, of which I've been actively involved in all my life, is no longer providing the answers for me that it once did.  Academia no longer provides the answers that it once did.  Friends are not really providing me with any answers.  I have no idea where to turn now.  I feel like I spend all of this time cogitating on the meaning of life and I don't seem to be getting anywhere.  Maybe I'm spending too much time thinking and need to be doing more.  But I don't know what to do. 

Off Day

I’m feeling off today.  I don’t know why.  Yesterday I had a great conversation with my therapist, but today I’m just down.  I feel like all of my emotions are bubbling up to the surface and I’m afraid I might lose control of them.  I’ve worked so hard at keeping things under control.   

Today I went to my nutritional therapist and she talked to me about energy work, suggested I might look into it.  Part of me is really curious, but the scientist in me balks at the idea.  I don’t know what I’ll do, but I’m feeling somewhat desperate.  It definitely wouldn’t hurt to get some energy work done, it’s completely non-invasive.  But would I just be wasting my money?  We'll see.

Movies, Books, TV

Well, I'd written a post this morning and had internet problems and lost it all.  But oh well.  Maybe this post will be better.  Who can say?

I spent the weekend reading books and watching "The Big Bang Theory," which always makes me laugh.  That's a good thing too, because the books I read were sad.  I read "The Silver Linings Playbook" by Mathew Quick and "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky.  Both deal with mental illness.  Both seem to have an overall optimistic ending.  Both made me really sad, though.  Life is just so difficult for so many people.  It makes me wonder what the point is to life, anyway.  I suppose the best we can do in this life is to be there, in anyway possible, for others.  I know I've been blessed to have people do that for me.  And I can only hope that I've been that for others.  But I just worry that I'm missing out, in an important way, of being there for others.  I worry that I'm going to miss some cue from my children and be totally ignorant of struggles they have or will go through.  I worry that my kids will grow up and I won't really know them and they won't come to me with their heartaches.  For sure that's the pattern for me and my parents.  I don't think my parents really know me; I surely don't share with them how I'm really feeling.  Maybe not my dad as much as my mom, but my dad's dead, so I'm left without him.  And I seem to have a hard time just letting people in.  Sometimes what I carry feels so heavy and scary that I don't dare share it fully with someone else.

I think I need to find a lighter book to read.  I also need to go grocery shopping and pay some attention to my messy house.  I hate housework.  On a more positive note, I found some on-line teaching gigs.  The only problem is that I can't seem to find the energy necessary to apply.  You have to write a "teaching philosophy" which I seem to have lost.  I can't say I feel teaching is all that important anymore.  I used to be sure of things, at least a few things.  Now I'm unsure about everything.  I must be going through a mid-life crisis.  How can I be this far in my life and feel so lost?  It's like I'm back in my teenage years.  Except back then I felt a passion about life, about learning.  And also, I have teenagers of my own now. 

Lately it feels like I'm living my life very superficially.  I don't want to analyze things--people, ideas, events, myself.  I used to do this all the time, but now I don't want to think too much.  I don't want to dredge up anything complicated and messy.  I want to assume everyone is trying their hardest to be the best person they can be.  This makes it hard to really be there for other people, because life is basically complicated and messy.  I just don't want to have any conflict in my life right now.  But I worry that I'm sacrificing relationships because of it.  I'm even tired of trying to figure myself out.  I guess that's why I so readily loose myself in movies, books, TV.  But, as this weekend showed me, I have to pick my books, movies and TV out carefully.  Just good escape stories, nothing that will make me think too much.  This makes me sad though, because there was a time in my life when I loved a challenging story.  Maybe this is just a phase and I'll find my old, analytical, caring self again. 

This Life

I was going to write yesterday and talk about how much better things are going.  I was feeling more energized, more hopeful, more interested in life.  But I didn't take the time to do that.  Now today, I'm feeling down again.  It's exhausting, this life.