Quiet

I am tired of the sound of my mind.  I am exhausted by it's endless restlessness and thinking and planning.  It never stops.  I cannot quiet the unrest that begins when I open my eyes in the morning and continues until I drift off every night, still dissatisfied with my life.

I try to remember the last time I was happy, utterly and truly happy.  I would classify myself as a happy, optimistic person.  My whole life I have been cheerful and fun-loving.  I am game for anything and am always open to any new person I meet and any new situation I find myself in.  In fact, I am most delighted when I find myself in new and unusual situations.  That is where I thrive. 

All of that has changed.  My life is dreary.  I get through the drudgery of one day just to wake up and repeat it again the next.  I am never enthused to get out of bed.  In fact, some days I lay there and wonder how I'm going to muster up the energy to get out and begin again.  What's the point?  I can predict my day to a letter.  Specifics of the routine may vary, but the routine is the same, nonetheless.

Yes, I know.  Get a job.  Get an apartment.  Get the life you want.  I know.  I'm so angry.  I don't want to get a new life.  I want my old life.  The one where I was happy and content.  The one where I loved my husband beyond reason and my children were the light that carried me through every day.  I want to feel quiet in my mind and contentment in my soul.  I want everything the way it was and I'm so angry that it is not happening.  I feel stuck and hopeless and too tired to do a thing about it.

I'm panicking that time is running out.  There were so many things I wanted to do and my son will be off to college next year and my daughter the year after.  I have not done 1/3 of the things I had planned with them and then it will be too late.  They will be adults and have their own lives.  I have missed my window.  I have spent so much time bemoaning what cannot be that I've wasted precious years when I could have already started on my new life.  I'm angry about lost time.  I'm sad about wasted energy I spent worrying about things that don't matter.

When did life get so hard?  Why couldn't it just stay the way it was?  Why can't I be stronger than all of this?  I will myself to do and be a certain way and it just doesn't work.  I'm frustrated and defeated.  I want to close my eyes and wake up and have everything the way I want it.  It's not going to happen.  Coming to grips with that fact is the hardest thing I've every had to do.

Once I make my changes, they are permanent.  I do not go backward in my life.  It will be all forward steps from that day on.  I think that is why I'm so stagnant.  I know that once the process begins, it is game on.  No more wondering or trying.  I will have admitted defeat and from that moment on my life is going to be totally different.  For better or worse, but definitely different.  It's scary.  It's overwhelming.  I'm not an impulsive person.  When I do something, I have thought long and hard about it and I am confident in my decision.  I guess I'm just not there yet.  If I were, wouldn't I already be doing something about it?