When I write these entries I usually put them here having written them all in one sitting, or saved and returned to for some minor adjustments. This is on about the sixth edit. It's been the hardest week and the stuff has been the hardest to write.
I have been almost catatonically depressed this past week, not only have there been almost no jobs to even bother applying for it was my birthday the other day. I suddenly realised that were I to drop dead at this precise moment then I would be described in the media as "an unemployed 45 year old", which is far from edifying. The thing is that our work, our career, defines us and plays an important part in the perception other people end up having about us. Like it or not, we are the work we do, or don't, do. It's probably why we look down upon people who are not working as if they are lesser people because of it. If someone confounds the type we tend to view them with some kind of saddened sympathy which is actually rather patronising when I think about it. The current situation means that we have entered a time when the prospect of secure long term employment looks like a relic of a different time. We are trying to see where the future will lead us but it doesn't hold out much hope. We will have to change our thinking about the people who don't have jobs and that is going to be difficult - even for some of those in that situation themselves.
My friends are starting to sound worried when they send me messages and on phone calls. All I can say is that I'm not doing well. It's like being hit by waves, you are thrown under by one and then you manage to drag yourself out, only to be hit back under by the seventh wave. After a while you become seduced by the strange otherworldly sounds of being underwater. There is a wonderful sense of security and solitude here. Nothing can hurt you, cold numb and suspended in a kind of stasis away from hope. You know you should not be here, it's dangerous, but after a while you are so immobile you just don't care.
Perhaps it's the ordeal of the birthday. Why celebrate, there is nothing to celebrate and even less to see in the future. There are times when I look at my life and find it's like waking up in the middle of a busy motorway, with things whizzing past you, scary and confusing. All the more so because I've no idea how I got here. "You're 45", the voice said, and I look around and see a desolate remote place, far from home, far from anywhere. There is just a mirror, I look and see the face staring back at me isn't young any more and I no longer recognise it. I'm stranded somewhere and I don't know how to get back.
The other downside is the thought of what I should have done. I think I want a lot from life but I'm not very good at getting it. I've dealt with a lot of difficult things in my life and they do have an impact on you. If you get battered by events in life often enough then it definitely affects your ability to look at yourself in a positive light. I do find that hard. Yet people have been crawling out of the woodwork to offer me words of support and encouragement over the past few weeks, and that has increased a lot in the past week. This makes me feel both grateful and guilty at the same time.
I was reading a posting on a website by someone who was feeling very negative about themselves, and the difficult thing was that he described his problems as not that important in the grand scale of things. Like his, mine aren't either. Yet, like his, they are my problems and it's my world. At the moment that world very seriously out of balance and there are aspects of it I'm finding very hard to survive. This isn't actually the most difficult thing I've ever had to deal with, not by a long way. I've dealt with things that would have destroyed some of the people I've met in my life. Yet this is the one I'm finding hardest to deal with. Maybe living alone gives me time to reflect and remove the mask I would wear around others to cope with it, or perhaps it's more about the age I am and the fact that there are different rules, the older you get. There is less chance to manoeuvre and re-inventing your life takes time, and there is less of it left in which to do this.
I've been selfish and I'm finding it hard not push everyone away. I've lashed out at someone for pushing me hard. I am, in some aspects, quite a selfish person, I can be very stubborn about what I want and I know I've made a lot of people very concerned about my well being. For that I'm sorry in some aspects. I've always been a little too private with my feelings, and perhaps that's a good thing in some ways. I want to live my life on my own terms, my own way, that is difficult sometimes both for me, and the people around me.
I'm glad I waited and touched this up over a number of days. I hope it really is darkest just before the light.
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