Still Alive
Hi y'all.
I'm still alive. I have one foot in hell and the other in purgatory, which counts as progress.
Still fighting anxiety and depression and loneliness and hurt feelings. I think i'm winning though some days it's hard to tell.
Not divorced yet, but proceeding along that line. So sad. So, so sad.
Keeping very busy, that's my method for dealing with the feelings. My therapist says i need to do more grieving and crying. Perhaps. Perhaps.
What do i really have to tell you? There's a long period of slowly moving onwards, slowly getting on with accepting the new normal. My problem is that i just don't see how my loneliness will ever end. Will anyone ever love me again? Will i ever have another life partner? I hope i do because i don't like being alone. The feeling that no one has my back makes me feel intensely vulnerable. But what are the chances that a 54 year old woman will find true love? Not high.
I really want to be able to look back over this time in my life and have it come out okay in the end. I secretly want this story to have an uplifting ending.
20 comments:
It is kind of scary knowing that nobody has your back, except you have a daughter and friends who love you. I feel the same way sometimes but in truth there are people who love me and care about me.
As for finding love again, I hate to break it to you but you're not that old. I think there's a very good chance you will find someone to love again, whom will love you.
Take care woman.
oh, dear sweet Meno, sometimes life is a b-i-t-c-h. I, too, am 54 and 8 mos. separated. Though I initiated it, it still hurts like crazy and some days I simply don't know how I can make it.
Some things I do: play that great song "I Will Survive!" It lifts my spirits. Take a walk, even a slow short one. Fresh air revives me. Watch a funny movie or t.v. show (30 Rock does it to me every time). Call a friend, talk a bit about the abyss and then move on to other topics. Journal, journal, journal.
Only time will tell if we 54 year old gals will find love again. I think we will, if we stay open to the possibility. But I'm not looking right now. I'm taking care of myself, because I'm the only one who can and who will. If not me, who?
I thank you so much for your honest post -- you have a lot of 'sisters' out here in the world who are going through what you are. Let's say it together, "We WILL survive!"
xxoo
I'm just happy to see your name in my reader. I got up this morning with you on my mind.
I think you have excellent chances of finding love again. As much as she grieved over her divorce, my sister's second marriage is so much better a match. (sure, he's got a fatal disease, but apparently the universe has a pretty twisted sense of humor).
I hope you keep in winning more & more if those battles - and prepare ahead for managing the holidays.
I know you will have a happy ending, we just can't quite see it yet, but it is there. xo
Your happy ending is not in doubt, Sweet.
Your feelings are completely and utterly normal. I hope you are not down on yourself for feeling this way.
That said, I could fill your comment section with stories of folks I know that had new beginning later in life. Please don't give up! I believe you will have a happy ending. You have too much to give, too much share. Someone like you will not be alone.
In the meantime, allow yourself to properly grieve and to let it all go. So that when you do meet the right person, you will be ready emotionally for it. I'm sorry if this sounds preachy - I hope I am making sense.
Hugs!
I was thinking about you yesterday. I was thrilled to see "Meno" on the reader, but I knew it wouldn't be roses and daisies. I'm just glad to know you're pushing through.
My aunt told me something just the other day about grieving. She said she had a friend who called it 'sneaker attacks'. You can't see it coming, then something happens that triggers a memory and you find yourself standing somewhere odd, like the bank and crying. Sometimes I wonder if we're supposed to just surrender, if that's the secret to it all.
However it works or doesn't work, it's good to hear from you.
Do what you must, one breath at a time.
I really and truly believe that your story will have a happy ending. Mine did. After two miserable marriages which, however, produced three wonderful children, I was alone for many years, raising them alone.
I was sure that marriage simply wasn't in the cards for me until I met Flip when I was 53 and he was 40. We married within a couple of months and I have always considered him my reward for all the earlier suffering.
Since your beautiful child is already grown and you have the ability to travel, take classes, whatever you want to do, I am absolutely certain that you will find someone else to love who will finally be worthy of you. Don't ever settle for someone to ease your loneliness, though. Wait until you meet someone you really can't live without, and he will be the one.
I think the therapist is right, you need to do more grieving and crying, and get all the emotional shit out of your system. Then you can start to feel something more positive and forward-looking.
Like Heart, I suspect you will find another life partner, someone compatible and devoted. I'm sure your age is no obstacle whatever. In the meantime, do something adventurous, something you've never done before. Spread your wings a little.
You have followed my story so know that I found another mate and I was nine years older than you. Right now I don't think you are ready to be looking for that person but when the time comes, be open to the possibility. As the old saying goes, there are a lot of fish in the ocean. I am sure that you will find yours when the time is right.
I know every day is tough, but I'm rooting for you.
If you equate happy ending solely with true love you might limit yourself, and you are definitely a woman without limitations and beyond expectations.
Alone sucks, but it offers an opportunity to learn things about ourselves, and when we do find someone it makes that breathless falling in love feeling even better.
Just be thankful (if you are looking for love) you don't live in Selma Oregon...
Meno, of course you're going to have a happy ending. yOu just don't see it now. Uncertainty sucks, but it's what you do with it that will make all the difference. You are where you are supposed to be right now. And we are rooting for ya!
It seems counter to resent research about the damage of rumination and the limited healing power of demonstrative emoting. Then again, I'm not a doctor and I don't play one on TV.
I think we end up dealing with our grief in the only way we can...which is exactly the way we do it.
You are a beautiful intellegent woman, highly desirable to men of a certain age. Be open minded and let yourself explore the options for meeting new people. I would have sworn off finding companions online, but I must say that I wouldn't have gotten out of my house if I hadn't ventured.
I'm happy to hear you are staying busy. It is so very sad, but there will be happiness, and sadness, and discomfort, and happiness and more of all of the mix of human stuff.
If you pursue your genuine interests, your time will come. There will surely be someone again. My mother was a widow for 15 years, concentrating on raising my little brother without the complications dating can bring to that situation. After he was grown, out of the blue she became acquainted at church with the widower who became her second husband. My husband's 88 year old aunt, widowed a year, has a 90 year old gentleman friend.
Go places and do things that really interest you. Don't go to "pick up" places. That way you will meet someone interested in the real you, not just a pick up.
And the universe really does have a wicked sense of humor. My husband and I have been happily married for 39 years, but his longed for retirement came early, in the form of an incurable disease, and we have no idea how it will play out.
Your story tugs at my heart and I wish you well.
Me too! I want you to have a happy ending. Truly. Really and truly. And that doesn't necessarily mean finding someone else. Perhaps it will mean realizing you are the only one who has or needs to have your back.
I have only ever seen you as strong and capable, amusing and sensible, smart and wise, honest and loyal, trustworthy and honorable, devoted and kind.....plus many more admirable qualities, which is why you became one of my favorite bloggers. And because a weak, stupid, dishonest, untrustworthy, mean, egocentric narcissist betrayed you, doesn't change that. Show the asshole what we already know about you. You are amazing. You are deserving. You are wonderful and I love you.
I think of you most every day and send good thoughts your way. (Quite often while I'm on the bus in the morning, so if you ever dream of riding on a bus in your dreams, now you know why...) xo
Wow. Amazing comments which are helpful to me, a new reader here!
Meno, it's been so long since I checked on all my blogging mates and to see what has been happening here saddens me that I wasn't around to help uplift your spirits previously.
I am here to say, that at 50 years old, my great grandmother had a stroke, her husband put her away. A friend got her out of the sanitorium, nursed her, and when she was well, the two of them connected and found life partners in each other. That stroke allowed her to get out of a terrible marriage, find love, and live to her late 80's with peace and love.
If that can happen in 1950, it can happen today, and hopefully with much less hardship! - Say it!
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