My UFO (unbelievably fabulous observations)

[hoosiermama]

I just need to vent for a moment; I think I had too much time to think today and too little to distract me from where my head went. Do you all still struggle with what I'm struggling with this evening--that sense of being discarded and unworthy? That is perhaps all that remains of the broken heart and all the rest of the past couple of years' emotional work. and it seems really hard to shake. I can't say I miss xH, really; I'm not even sure if I miss being married, because it wasn't at all what I expected or wanted it to be in spite of trying really, really hard to make it so--it was just as lonely and isolating as if I was not part of a marriage. I suppose I miss my dreams, then, of what I thought marriage and family would be...and I feel like a failure, finding myself as isolated at 54 as I was at 24. There's something about being told all the things we were told in the end that tends to make one feel fundamentally flawed, lacking some key element, and certainly lacking good judgment. I'm tired, I suppose, of defining myself this way after all this time, of giving so much time to someone who someone who gave so little back and still I'm doing it by remaining stuck. I was doing well, I think, and this is probably just another plateau, but I'm so ready not to see myself as someone who got dumped and is still struggling to get some kind of life back. Do you ever feel that way? when do we get to feel whole again?

Please, please don't tell me I need to date or sign up for online services or all those things; there's nothing wrong with that, but it works differently for women, I think, and it holds no interest for me (nor am I afraid of it, tho!) it's would be, for me, like slapping a bandaid on a partially healed sucking chest wound or something. there are other ways of excavating some self-esteem and wholeness that don't involve needing someone else's affirmation--and I think it's important for me to go about it that way, because I've always been too approval-oriented and willing to settle for too little. what ways, specifically? I don't have a clue. but I know they're out there.

ok, sorry for the little foray into self-pity and all. it just struck me the other day that it's been two years--two years!--of living one breath at a time most of the time, and I thought I'd be further along than this by now. thanks for listening.