Alone in Your Crowd

I'll start with a disclaimer- I've had a bad night. So this post is not rainbows and puppies. And I have to be okay with that. It's okay to have dark moments, to not deny the lows.

It's stupid dark moments like this that I wonder if I'll ever be happy again.
Or I wonder if I've ever been happy.

It's stupid and melodramatic. Of course I've been happy.

This too shall pass.

And frankly, this is the only outlet I have for sadness.

But it may be time for me to do something radical to get me out of this slump. Perhaps take up mindful meditation.

Tonight I drove an hour in nasty rush hour traffic to join hubby and his fellow interns and director & her son. He was already on his second $8.50 margarita when I got there and the next two hours were torture- continuous inside jokes which amused them to no end, and made me feel so alone. I spent a lot of time looking as if I was really, really interested in the game of Angry Birds that my son was playing on hubby's phone. I tried to join in, to crack a joke... but it was just miserable.

Here's the thing- I've had my share of feeling like an outsider. Sometimes I even welcome it. But in the last ten years it has gotten a lot easier to get outside of myself and integrate into a crowd. With my fundraising jobs, I can usually turn "on" my extroverted self.

But tonight it just made me want to cry- the "partner" of mine that I've been with for so long often becomes a stranger to me. I know that I am at a low right now on my self confidence- I mean, I look like hell, I have no friends, and no job, and no sense of achievement in really anything at this point. That cup will be filled again- it's an ebb & flow. But in the meantime, it's hard to feel this way and then be around hubby and his much younger colleagues (who, by the way, wear size 1 jeans with stilettos heels and have pet names for him. Ugg.).

As I fight the sadness, soon anger comes to join in. I'm just so tired of giving up my life for this man. First it was Cincy, where I had an amazing job that I loved, a career that was really in a great place, and awesome friends that we hung out with. It was so hard to leave, and the landing in Florida was rough. I had to start all over and things were not promising at first. But after seven years of building a life there- and new friends, and family, and a flexible job- I had to say goodbye again. Each time, he has had a safety net- he has a built in community that he joins. Not so with me. And damn it, I have really, really tried here. I wanted to be happy, to have our family belong. Joining online groups. Mom groups. Volunteering. Going to church.

But I am more alone than ever.

And I think about going home.

Except, I don't really know where that is anymore. I miss friends and family in Cincy, but I don't want to live there again and my closest friends have mostly left that area anyway.

And I'm not sure Florida is home anymore either. I still have a house there. I still have contacts- heck, I got two unsolicited job offers while we were in the truck moving to Texas. And some family, and some friends. Of course, some scars too, but that's where that mindful meditation has to come in.

On a good day, I feel like home is wherever my husband and son are. On a day like today, it's just wherever I am with my son.

And hubby's looking at post-docs now, in the schooling that never seems to end. Looking all around the country. He makes a show like my opinion matters for something, but ultimately he applies to the places he likes and I have to go along for the ride. Of course, if I found something here that I liked & that paid well, he could find opportunities here. But the timeline is running thin- I am giving myself until February 1st to find a "real job." After that, I am simply going to find anything that pays me. In a way, I feel like it might be God's way of telling me not to settle here, to move'along little doggie.