I am not happy with my life*
Shocker, I know. I also realize I'm hardly alone. (i'm so tired of feeling as if i need to defend myself. i've all these voices in my head--conservative voices i grew up with. ones that say "oh get over it. do you know how blessed you are? do you know how much worse you could have it? suck it up, stupid. you're fine")
I wouldn't count myself as miserable, but the regret! oh god, the regret. So heavy.
I'd do so much over again. So much.
People tell me that I'm fixing things now, and I am. I get that. Yay for me! I know. I know.
Please stop saying those things. Just stop. The last time I heard "good for you!" in response to hearing that I'm back in school needs to be the last. It bothers me. The sentiment, the meaning behind "She's going back to school" and the meaning behind the response just makes my skin crawl.
Good for me, good for me. Yes. Good for me. I fucked up and I'm fixing it. I'm the old lady in the classroom going back to school. It's awful. Do you know how awful it is? I have a love-hate relationship with it. I look at all these kids--kids who were 8-10 years old when I graduated high school, omg--and look at all the extra-curricular shit going on and I just want it all back so, so bad. It's becoming tangibly pathetic, if it hasn't become that already.
I'm not depressed at the moment but these thoughts are patently depressing. I want to cry. I have lost ten years of my life.
But it's amazing to be there. Just amazing. And I so much appreciate the fact that I can even go back. It's become a process of resurrection.
I should leave it at that, no?
It's just in my face, three days a week. I think I'm fine. I can't look that old, after all. I've still got 6 months before I'm 30.
And then the perfectly nice girl who sits next to me makes some comment related to my age.
DILF and I talk about our regrets semi-regularly. They're similar. He speaks of how he wishes he could've grown up with different teachings about life, and he speaks of how he'd ditch the mission. It pissed him off to be two years behind like I am pissed at my ten (well, eight I guess). I talk about what I wish I would've done, even though knowing myself back then and my situation--I may not have. Notwithstanding that, I wish I wish I wish. How I'd do things differently.
And when we talk about these things, we recognize to each other how doing things differently would probably mean we never would've met. But we're okay with this. Is that messed up? We love each other. There are few people in this world, if any at all, who can and will put up with my bullshit and still treat me like gold. Would I be willing to give that up? Yes. I suppose I would be.
He'd be willing too, and that doesn't bother me.
In a perfect world, we'd still have met. We wouldn't have been LDS. We would've just did our thing, encouraged and supported each other until getting married was reasonable. We would've started our careers, built a financial and emotional and whatever base and then had kids. Fuck this shit about getting married ASAP and having kids even quicker despite no job and no money. Fuck it.
School makes me happy. My anxieties blow away there. I feel smart for the first time in years there. I feel respected. I feel like an adult.
(Newsflash: getting married and having kids does not an adult make)
I might have to take all online classes next semester (logistics--better now than later, won't explain), and I'm just...disappointed. I'm terrified. Funny, given how terrified I was right before school started. Enough to make me sick, sick, sick.
I think being somewhere with people and doing things where I'm away from the dirty dishes, laundry, kids, the midday silence that breeds depressing thoughts--I think it's taking away my anxiety, and I'm hoping now that it'll cure me a bit. I'm not happy here. I know that even more now.
I know these thoughts are hardly constructive, and I'd love nothing more than to just move on. But while I'm learning to be kinder to myself, in this arena I am stubborn. I keep kicking the dead horse. It's just part of my obsessive tendencies we all love so much! I hope it blows over soon. We don't deserve this.
* I know, blasphemy! I'm out of the church, I should be on Cloud-Fucking-Nine. But remember, just as those who are in the church are not by default always happy, those who leave are not always happy. Life, it's crazy that way.
Also, just to clarify: These days I'm mostly happy, but I'm overwhelmed by this one thing right now. So I'm talking about it.
lisa, the life you live is your own. the journey you take is yours, not anyone else's and not to be compared. it's just your story.
ReplyDeletetwo days ago i was freaking out about our state tests, and then i got barfy sick. and i just couldn't be there, pass or fail. today a woman i don't really know but through friends passed away at 27 from sarcoma, and all of her wedding pictures are with a scarf on her head. no kids.
we shouldn't compare, shouldn't regret. it is what it is. that "good for you" is about your future, not your past--even if that isn't how some people intend for it to mean, that's what it *should* mean to you. because really--GOOD for YOU for being the hot bitch in charge, for making it work! i couldn't do what you're doing. if those kids comment on your age, screw them. you have a story that they'll never know.
i'm willing to bet i'm as bad, if not worse, than you at regret and second-guessing and comparing. it's a good reminder for both of us that our sadnesses and our triumphs are our own.
I can relate to this. I've gone back and forth and back and forth on the school thing. Is this the career I want? Is it worth the money? Worth draining our savings or going in more debt for? Will there be any jobs if and when I finish? It drives me crazy. I loved school for a while there but now I'm out again and in limbo. I hate living in this little town where there aren't as many job opportunities, even with a degree. Haha, I'm ten years older than you. My school is an extension campus though so most of the students are at least thirty anyway. But I hate the competition. I've always hated that. There is this feeling of desperation in the night classes. They all know that everyone is trying to go back to work after raising little kids or trying to change careers. I hope I figure it all out someday.
ReplyDeleteIt's okay to second guess your life and your past. Everyone does to a degree I think. Just keep moving forward. Twenty-nine isn't that old. Really.
I totally feel you girl! I'm also almost 30 (in 3 months!) and back in school. I finally know what I want to do with my life and I love where I'm headed...
ReplyDeleteBUT
I can't stop from thinking every now and again that if I hadn't grown up in the church and been SO. FUCKING. DEVOTED. I would have taken my scholarshipped ass to an intellectually *expanding* university (NOT BYU, what a tragic waste!), I would have planned on a rewarding career from the start (not "what will make me the best mom"), and by now I would be published and pursuing tenure and still have plenty of time to make babies...
Holy hell, Lisa, I totally get where you are coming from here. I have no words of advice. We've got the added shitload of looking back and realizing DH wouldn't have even dated me if we weren't church members because he's homosexual. How's that missing out on lost time and relationships?
ReplyDeleteAnd I will second, third, fourth, whatever the idea that 29 is NOT OLD. But I think its less about the age and more about being past a "phase" of life. It wouldn't matter if I was 33 or 23, I can't be THAT undergrad again - I can't relive that part of my life, audition for acapella groups, change my major, or dance at Sisters nightclub. I'm a mom now, regardless of age, and I've made decisions that affect my current perspective and actions.
God, yes. It is more a matter of losing a phase of life. That is a much MUCH better way to put it.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny, too, because when I read my old journals I'm so glad all that is over. So much unnecessary drama and bullshit. But I can't go out and do fun things anymore just to do it. My social life is, well, gone. I'd like to feel that way again. Alive, you know?
I'm glad that's over. But we all idealize things. I know when I think about it that my life could've gone to the shitter had it turned out differently. I know the church was good for me socially for those first few years.
So yes, that's perfect. Thank you.
No problem. DH and I were just discussing this very topic while we were alone in a hotel room for Valentine's Day. DH was trying to insist that he would be supportive of any change I would like to make now, to make up for the lost 10 years that I sunk into the church. I had a hard time explaining to him that that phase of my life is dead and gone. To some extent, yeah, I want to hop a plane and backpack through Europe tomorrow. But I can't, because no matter what "support" DH gives me, I am still a mom now. The choices I have made have changed me inside, such that I can't go back and be carefree the same way.
ReplyDeleteThere are definitely major changes I would make if I could do it again, but nothing I do now is going to put me back into that place where I can make them. Its depressing when I dwell on it too much.
Damn Mormonism.