Time's Up

[Delete Delete Delete Delete]

I was upset this evening and I wrote a blog post.  I needed to vent and get my feelings out.  Some of you may still be able to see it in the RSS reader.  The short version is that it is frustrating to save and scrimp to be able to take a short trip when others in my same financial situation or worse just seem to have the same or better things handed to them.

I decided to go for a bike ride to try to work out some of these feelings.  I knew on the way there that the blog post wasn't quite right.  I had not put my finger on the real problem.  I rode around, sometimes pedaling faster than I've ever gone before, trying to escape these demons and the answer started to become clear.  I'm not happy with my life and I don't know if I know how to fix it.  I'm starting to feel like it is already too late.

I really have worked the last year or so to try to focus on the things that are going well in my life and try not to compare myself to others.  I hate the jealous, petty side of me that appears when I feel like my life is lacking.   It doesn't happen all the time, but the monster does rear its head when I see others with money, lots of friends, and a love of their life.  I know that to achieve true happiness I need to be content with what I have and who I am.  But I don't know if I know how to do that.  I've been trying and I feel that all I'm doing is treading water, barely keeping my head above the surface.  And I'm running out of time.

For some reason I feel like there is this happiness clock and it is ticking away.  Now the psychologists in the audience would say that it is my biological clock and maybe that is true, but I don't think so.  I've never been overly enamored with babies, but I can't help looking around at people my age and how settled their lives are.  Married 10 or 12 years with their 2.5 kids.  Soon I will be at an age where none of that is possible.  I feel like the happiness clock is running out and there will come a point where I'll just have to accept being a boring, frumpy school teacher with scant friends, living on the crappy side of town and no love interest.  People change their lives, but I just don't know how anymore.  And the clock is running out.  And my deepest fear is that it isn't the happiness clock that is running out, but the hope clock.  And once my hope is gone it is all over.  That is the only thing I cling to and it is getting smaller and smaller.

Comments

[Andrew Smith]

No magic words here, but I'm wishing you well. Hopefully time will treat you well.

[Amy]

I collect quotes. They often serve as the knot at the end of a rope for me until I can get back on track. One of the best I have...

Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

Rainer Maria Rilke, 1903

[laanba]

Thank you for your kind thoughts Andrew.

Amy, I appreciate the quote and I do know what is saying, but I like the visual imagery of the knot and the rope even more. The fact that sometimes we need to knot the rope and just hang on for dear life until things settle down fits perfectly.

[Amy]

I guess it's just a matter of finding what works for that "knot"...words serve best as the knot for me (songs, poems, quotes).

[laanba]

Very wise. I have no idea what my knot is, but I must have something because I haven't fallen. Yet.

[Network Geek]

You know, of course, that the idea that "Soon I will be at an age where none of that is possible" is false, right? Oh, perhaps you'll pass an age where you can have babies of your own, but the rest is just not true. I have a friend who married, for the *first* time, at the age of 38 and, just months before his 41st birthday, has become a first-time father.
But, Laurie, I think you're better off being happy how you are *right now*, however that is. The one thing I know for certain is that people, men and women both, are attracted to partners who are happy, joyous and free, *right now*. When I've been just intrinsically happy, that's when I've been the most attractive to others. It didn't matter how poor, or out of shape, or anything else, I was. If I was happy just being here, alive, walking around *right now*, other people found me attractive and wanted to be around me.

Now, I'm not saying that being happy with your life as it is will guarantee that you'll find someone to be with, but it will guarantee that you'll be happy and it won't matter.
In short, just be happy.
(And, yes, I'm still working on that myself.)