Defeated

As a friend reminded me last week, it has been close to a year that I have not blogged on this blog. My excuse so far has been that I wanted to finish the last days of my travel blog first and never seem to get around doing so. But that is really just an excuse, though not far fetched, as I am a skilled master of the art of standing in my own way.

But I think the reason I have not written lies much deeper and it struck me this week that the truth is, I feel defeated and I feel so down on me and my life that I feel like there is nothing to write. No, actually, there is a lot to write, but it is all negative and who wants to read that anyway. I advise you to stop reading any further and if you do so, you do at your own risk. But I don’t want to talk things up anymore and hide my feelings and pretend everything is marginally okay. I am being candid.

I have been reading a lot lately, the best diversion there is, escaping into the worlds painted by other people, some very skilled ones and some not so much. But I have not been able to even write a short review of anything I read. I have a graduate degree in literature for crying out loud and I cannot write a few sentences about a book? Quite baffling. I could write a brilliant thesis, but not some f...ing little review? Doubts are creeping in that maybe, possibly I might not be capable of any original thoughts at all? All my life I really just wanted to be a writer and yet I do not write. I am too afraid to fail, too afraid that the assessments of my teachers and professors regarding my talent in writing were somehow misguided.

So here I am not doing anything with my life. I gave up my chosen career of writing for the radio for my own misguided reasons and moved to this country and since then had nothing but great ideas and feeble attempts. I find myself having reached a midlife full of self loathing. I cannot stand living in this seemingly shallow and meaningless suburbia, where we pretend everything is fine when the world is really a catastrophe. Or maybe I really hate even more that my own life is devoid of meaning.

When my children were both denied services at school last spring - after all smart children with handicaps are not worthy of help, they can muddle through well enough and school is only accountable for getting the bottom kids up - it felt like a huge blow. I had to put all my books and papers and research away and just forget about it as much as possible. But somewhere inside me it festered and my anger and resentment cannot be forgotten. The moment of failure to get help for my children has strangely been a pivotal moment for me.

Since having children, my life has mostly consisted of keeping them healthy and functioning as much as possible. Most of my energy have been spent on this. I have read so many books and articles and posts, I have been to workshops and acquired quite some knowledge regarding anything in the direction of Asperger, ADD, Sensory Processing Dysfunction, mood disorders in kids, difficult children, spirited children, fussy children, negative children... you get the drift. I know special education law, I know how to survive a baby that does not stop screaming, a child that can go into respiratory distress any moment... I know I could have done a worse job, I am not sure if I could not have done a better one. For a decade I was a pretty good advocate for my children and the hope to get help and to make things better were enough motivation. Supporting my children and working so hard to make them function well enough brought us to the point that they were denied help. Oh the irony of fate. This little, tiny meeting was enough though to deflate hope and motivation. Since that day, I have not been the same, it is like something inside me broke. I cannot explain why this small detail brought down the whole house of cards. Maybe I was just tired of pushing and holding it up?

I think there is another dimension contributing to the feeling of defeat. My children get to do all the things I always wanted to do and never got to do. Should this not make me feel so happy? Should I not feel some kind of satisfaction? It does not, because my children are not me and when I watch them having these opportunities, it brings back the childhood desperation I felt when being denied exactly those opportunities. My children are not at fault, but their childhood is the catalyst in bringing back to mind mine. I had a lousy childhood, extremely lonely and filled with anxiety. I was a brilliant child with many talents, but without guidance and opportunities, it got all wasted.

And now I feel like I have wasted my life, the light bulb reached the end of its life and burned out. Apparently too late to develop my talents, midlife hormonal upheaval has now also robbed me of my superior intellect. I am scatterbrained and forgetful, seriously, it feels like there is a bad batch of mashed potatoes sludging around where my brain should be. My emotions are on a roller coaster, I can go between laughing hysterically to non-stop crying faster than a raccoon gets to our cat food. Despite my busy social life, I feel incredible lonely and lost. I don’t know what to do, where to turn and how to keep going. I feel defeated. Because isn’t that what defeat is, being devoid of hope and motivation?

I have no reason for self pity and I don't feel any, do not misread my lines, I am rather cross with myself actually. I know there are many people out there who have reason to bitch and moan and complain. Anyway: here it is, this is why I am not writing, because I am living a gray cloud of defeat and despair, trying every single day to pull myself out of the mud like Munchhausen and failing more with each attempt. So here I sit, on a cloudy February afternoon, staring at the button 'PUBLISH POST' I need to click to publish this and I am not sure whether I really want to invite people to share my view into the abyss of my dysfunctional self.

But what the heck, at least I wrote something.