Joy's right, I think.
Call it liminal, call it lonely, but what I'm really in is the calm after the storm. The cancer killed the husband, the grief is at an ebb, the kids are growing up, I'm back where I always wanted to be and I'm loving it with the job and the city and the family.
So is this it? Is this my life?
I don't want a new job. I'm thrilled to feel more like a human who is a mom rather than just a mom who is occasionally human. My family is here. I have a wonderful network of friends. I don't really want anything to change, and I haven't felt like this in years.
So perhaps this is what's unsettling to me, that this could be it. I mean, not that this is it; life is bound to change. That's the only constant in life, as the saying goes. But this is the first time in years when I'm not agitating for change, when I'm not actively seeking to make a drastic shift in my status. This is, in fact, the most settled I've been in my entire adult life, and it makes sense to me that this is all freaking me out a little.
Not only is being settled a concept that is, well, unsettling to me, but in being settled I have the relative luxury of noticing when I feel limnal, lonely, or liminally lonely. A year of settling in has made what's missing come to the surface, is forcing me to worry the rough bits that I could just ignore in the hubbub of change. It's all to the good, I'm sure, but it's also exhausting. Utterly, completely exhausting.
To bed with me. Good night.
Moi
- Snickollet
- I'm a mother and a widow, and a whole lot of other things. Here, though, I tend to write about parenting, grief, and their intersection.
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5 comments:
As my brother said to me once (think heavy Texas accent). "I wish there was a nuclear war." Me: "Why?" Him: "Because there's nothin to do."
Snick,
Perhaps this is the post-traumatic version of a mid-life crisis? Our lives have paralleled in so many ways, and my feelings mirror these last two posts.
I feel like I sprinted through young adulthood, college, get married, more school, first jobs, kids, then crisis....all the while wishing that I could just get "there", that fabulous place where I had a stable home, family, income, interests. And now I'm here (after some pretty traumatic stuff), and while I am happy, there is a sense of looking around thinking, "Huh. Is this where everyone's been trying to get?"
And really, it's a nice place, but it's a very different life strategy to plan on staying a while than all that running around.
Smak
Perhaps part of the problem is that you now lack a real challenge after you have been challenged (and challenged yourself) for many years? Perhaps a different job, a change in careers (i.e. teaching) would be more fulfilling?
Sorry, I'm a first-time-commenter, but I have been reading for years.
I can SO relate to this. When life gets quiet, I frequently feel restless and ready for whatever is 'next'. It seems like moving, starting a new job, or a crisis all mask that underlying restless craving for something 'more'.
It's intriguing for me that in the midst of all that, what I hear from God is to just root deeper in my relationship with Him. It drives me CRAZY cause I want the answer to feel like movement and instead it feels like I'm being asked to feel more stuck.
This pattern has been going on for YEARS (I think that Jrex's career has allowed me to move frequently enough to avoid dealing with any soul level stuff). I'm trying to learn whatever I'm supposed to learn so that I don't keep thrashing around when I feel restless.
Anyway, may not be exactly the same for you, but it sounded very familiar.
The problem is there is no problem?
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