Thursday, June 23, 2016

Too Old For This, Not Old Enough to Escape

There is a set of thoughts that has been weighing on my mind with increasing heaviness over the past few years, a tangle of thoughts regarding money, happiness, purpose, value, worth, sacrifice, fulfillment, responsibility.

What do I really need to make me happy?
What makes life worth living besides happiness?
Do I have a right to be happy? Does anyone have a right to happiness? Do I have a right to try to make myself happy?
Should I feel guilty for taking what I want if I'm not actively harming people to get it?
How much sacrifice is enough?
How much contentment is enough? How much responsibility do I have for creating my own sense of contentment, fulfillment, and acceptance no matter what the circumstances?
How much do I owe to other people? How much responsibility do I have to the rest of the world?
Am I a good person? Am I a good enough person? How much do I care about becoming a better person?
How much responsibility do I have to change? To fight against myself when what I want is at odds with what I should be?
Would I be happier or at least more at peace with myself if I forced myself to do and be what I'm told is right?
What are the consequences of rejecting moral standards adhered to by my friends and family? Is maintaining social cohesion its own moral imperative? Will I be content with accepting the consequences for failing to adhere?
Would I be happier if I stopped caring so much about what other people think?

These questions have weighed upon my mind even more so in the last 6 months as I've become increasingly frustrated with being unable to find a solution to the one overriding problem that has emerged: I don't want to work full time anymore, but I can't accept the consequences of not doing so.

Money and time. It's all about money and time.

It's probably also about aging, being at least a partial introvert, dealing with the circumstances of my own particular life experience, and how my personality and brain are responding to the world at large as it changes.

I believe I was born to be a housewife, but I was also born to have some sort of career. I want to have some work to do and to be able to put my brain to good use. And I want a paycheck. But I am sick of not having the time or energy to connect with the things that fulfill me and give life some meaning. I am sick of trying to cram everything that isn't work into the two days between work weeks. And I'm sick of these things being robbed of their restorative value when they end up being forced efforts.

I am literally sick from these things. Over the last 6 months I have made myself sick from the stress and anxiety of not having the time to do the things that I need to do beyond work. I was sick from being up at night with a sick cat and but still having to get up at 4 in the morning to start my 12-hour work day routine. I was sick from trying to figure out how to squeeze vet appointments around my work schedule. I was sick from taking days off to take care of my dying cat and grieving her loss, and knowing that those "vacation" days were being traded off for actual relaxing days off later. I was even sick from trying to squeeze otherwise-relaxing social events into an already-too-tight schedule.

In the last couple of months, the stress of all work and no play has brought me as close to either some sort of clinical depression or some sort of anxiety disorder as I've been in years. It's brought me as close to being suicidal as I ever want to be again. (Not as close as I've been in the past, but that was far too close than anyone should have gone without getting help.) It gets better --much better-- after I have a work day off, and then starts to creep back over me until I have another work day off. Which makes it seem all the more obvious that having more days at home is definitely one answer.

I just don't know how to make it a viable answer. I can't quit work. I doubt I could get another job that was even remotely as flexible and fulfilling as the one I have. And that wouldn't really help because the problem isn't my job; it's working full time. But, I can't afford to switch to part-time, regardless of whether it was at my current job or a new job. The one hope I had --working from home one or two days a week-- seemed to be just over the horizon, but has stalled indefinitely.

I'm starting a four-day weekend thanks to having the rest of the windows installed today and tomorrow. And despite the fact that I'm writing this downer of an entry I already feel better for having these days off. Despite the fact that I have to deal with the phone guy tomorrow and yet another bill for having them try to fix a problem they can't seem to find. Despite the fact that I am expecting the vet to tell me that Gordon has cancer. Despite the fact that a cancer diagnosis will mean being forced to make extremely hard decisions. Despite the fact that choosing treatment would mean I could very well have to deplete my entire reserves of both emotional strength and vacation time to deal with vet visits and cat care. Despite the fact that it could mean that I might not have any time left to take off when Mom is here in September or that Mom might never get to meet Gordon. I don't see Life making anything any easier in the near future. But dealing with it all would be exponentially more difficult if I hadn't been able to take a couple of sick days in the last few weeks and to take these two days off.

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