I think what I find most wonderful about this community is that when I'm in a funk or feeling self-pitying, I can post here or read others and just that act helps to bring me up again. There really is something about finding strength in just sharing.
Your comment, JustD, about being more fun when younger got me thinking. I know I prefer who I am now -- I have so many life experiences good and bad that I wouldn't want to either go through again or not have. I also know that the actions I'm working on now to "undo" - as I try to lose co-dependent and anxiety controlling habits -- were created in the innocent blindness of life when I was 17. BUT, I was also more care-free in that blind acceptance of co-dependency and control.
The funny thing is that as I try to GAL and be more fun, it is the younger people I know who hold back. I have been trying to get my own co-workers to go dancing with me, but I've found some resistance. I work with about 8 other women, but all but one are younger than I am and have young families. When I suggested we go dancing, they worried that the bars -- one of the only options for dancing here -- are "too young." I told them I was 10y older than they were and I wasn't worried.
I'll keep working on them, but I can see that most of those around me are in the midst of having their worlds defined by family - and I'm trying to be a single in a couple world. (Ironically, the only group of people I currently know that is single oriented is the group that has "adopted" my H.) Ah well, somehow I'll find someone to go dancing.
