A place to contemplate…

Why does looking at one piece of paper evoke sadness? Grief level of sadness. Grief for letting go of something that I cannot recreate now, as I am presently. I am too different. I have gone through too much to bring forward that girl that I was. She was full of life and love of the excitement that the unexpected could bring. She was confident in who she was. She took what she wanted, and enjoyed every satisfactory moment of it. She said what she meant, and meant what she said. I miss her. I want her back. It shatters my heart she lives only in my past. I don’t know who I am anymore. I know I am a wife. I know I am a mother, both step and biological. I know I am a person. I just don’t know what type of person I am. Am I scared? Am I depressed? Am I uninteresting? Am I dumb? Am I losing my mind? Am I sick? Am I worthy of giving myself permission to enjoy life? Am I?…Am I?…Am I? What am I?

I feel so very messed up and lost in this chapter of my story. Is this how the rest of my chapters play out? Sadness overwhelming me. Tears always brimming just below the surface. Mentally feeling so fragile. Not recognizing myself in the mirror. Having serious health issues coming to fruition. This isn’t me. I do not like this person. She is not me.

But she is. She is a 43 year old mother and wife, who worries non-stop about her teenaged step-children and the paths their lives are going down. Worrying that we will miss something along the way and get “the call” that something horrific has happened. Terrified, my ten year old stepson will get lost in the shuffle. Fearful my five year old daughter will live life with only memories of me. I have wonderful bursts of energy one day, and then am crashing the next and can barely get myself off the couch. This is not life. This is not a great life. This is barely existing and praying I live long enough to see my daughter through life’s milestones. I know having her at 38 means I will, by sheer math, miss out on some things as I cannot live forever. It hurts to know I am robbing her of fun moments because I am unable to do the simplest of things at times.

I just want to feel happy. I just want to feel like I am something more than nothing. The sadness is all encompassing at times. I don’t even know how to let it go and relax anymore. How do you fix something that you have no way of knowing what is wrong? Where do you start? What do you possibly say to the professionals to explain what your symptoms are and how you are feeling?

It is an exhausting never-ending cycle that I just want to find the end of. I want to feel like myself, in my own skin. I need to know and feel myself again. Alive. Thriving. Happy.