Monday, July 21, 2008

Venting Session

I feel like blogs are all about making one's life seem interesting and exciting. Although I have a relatively good life, sometimes it's just hard, and every once in a while I need to vent and be honest about it. So, I'm going to take the liberty to do so now. If you don't want to join my pity party, stop reading immediately. If you choose to continue I'm fully disclosing that I'm going to take the next few minutes to whine and complain like a pathetic 2 year old just because this is my blog and I can.
In general, I feel lonely, frustrated, angry, hopeless, sad and depressed. I'm on anti-depressants that have worked wonderfully for the past year and a half but are failing me now. Granted, I am under a lot of stress. Financially, I am hurting more than I have in years. My business has died. The economy is in a recession. The housing market is declining. I'm not expecting a pay check anytime soon, and in 10 days bills will be due again. My savings is almost depleted. I'll probably lose my house that I built as an investment which will screw up my credit and leave me in a bunch of debt.
In addition, i am STILL the only one in my family who is without a companion. Even my neice and nephew ( I love them dearly) are in-love and getting married, and I can't even make it past the one month mark with anyone I date. I'm almost 35 without any children. Do you know that you can't even donate an egg after the age of 34 because you are out of your prime child birthing years? I'm so tired of living my life alone. I can't even find it in me to feel hope anymore. My heart just feels numb and heavy. I don't even want to be around couples because it just reminds me of what I don't have. I feel a lot of anger, distrust and resistance towards men which I would love to let go of, but how do you do that when you just keep having one miserable experience after another with them?
I'm frustrated with God for making me go through this and frustrated with myself for not handling it more gracefully. Spiritually, I feel very disconnected and unmotivated. Sometimes I can barely take the loneliness. I'm exhausted from trying to figure out what I can do better and how to get more desireable results. Don't tell me to pray harder or be more obedient and especially don't tell me not to think about it because there's a lot worse things than being lonely. iIrealize this, but it doesn't change the fact that in this very moment my heart feels like it's being wrung out like a sponge and all it wants is a living breathing loving male companion to balance out all of this whacky estrogen. God himself said, "It is not good for man to be alone". I agree. It's not natural, normal or healthy to be single at this age. It's just not. Oh ya, and whatever you do, don't tell me that if I don't get married in this life, I will in the next because that is one of the single most annoying phrases thrown around in the LDS culture. It's second only to, "any worthy man and any worthy woman can get married and make it work". PUKE! VOMIT! BLAH! That phrase is sooooo taken out of context in the first place, and second, it is usually spoken by people who by some stroke of luck got married early on before they had experienced the extreme frustration of dating for years and years without ever having the opportunity to marry. Those are the people who think it's so easy, and I should be able to just go out and get married. AARGH!
OK....I now sound like a very bitter old maid. I think I will go to bed now and tomorrow I will write about all the opportunities I've had by being single, the lessons I'm learning and how I'll be such a better wife and mother because of the experiences I've had...oh ya, and how God is in charge and is always doing what's best for me even when I don't see it, and I just have to trust in him. That will be tomorrow. Tonight I am going to bed a bitter old maid.

4 comments:

Joanna said...

WOW!You should write an article in the daily paper. You would be famous in a hurry. Like that lady who has the talk show on the radio who just says it like it is and doesn't sugar coat anything and people love it! Watch out Dear Ann, here comes Linda!!!

Yeehaw said...

Honestly Linda, that's very brave and admirable of you to be so honest on the Internet. Now I will call you and vent in private all the things I'm too chicken to write down...
I hope tomorrow your glass is half full.

Linda said...

Fortunately, I think you two are the only ones that read my blog regularly...besides a few friends every now and then. And it's okay to vent to family....they have to love you no matter what. :)

Jason and Emily said...

Linda,

I read the beginning of this when you gave me this address last week. I just read the rest.

I've been thinking about sadness a lot lately (wonder why). People always talk about living life to the fullest, which by different definitions means loving fully and being active and pursuing dreams and all sorts of good joyous stuff. I know because I'm one of those people preaching that stuff. But it occurred to me yesterday that living life in its fullest is FULLY experiencing ALL of the range of colorful emotions in us. And I believe in the life in you, Linda. Your venting session doesn't have to end with a hope that you feel a brighter color tomorrow. Today you're experiencing electric reds and blacks and fires of what hell feels like (my definition of hell is feeling the absence of love). How can anyone expect to feel differently if they don't fully experience the feelings and colors of their NOW. We've gotten used to hiding our full emotional palettes, but it doesn't mean they've disappeared.

I know that's not the point here, in what you're saying. That was just my own stuff coming out. I guess in my own sadness, I want to be allowed to feel everything, not just "good". And as a fellow human alive person, I give you permission to feel every ounce and every speck of rage and depression and confusion. I expect the same from all my fellow human alive people. All this is just a preface to saying this:

At the same time you have one foot in hell, you also have one foot in heaven. That isn't something to cheer you, because that's the last thing I want to do. It's simply a truth, without any meaning attached to it, except the meaning you place on it...it can mean nothing at all.

But Linda, thank you. Because in my own hell and heaven, I'm glad for the chance to share this earth life thing with you.