I'M FEELING DONE

         

For those of you who read this, please don’t be alarmed. I have no intention of harming myself or doing anything drastic that would change my life. It’s simply how I’m feeling this morning and how I feel some of the time in my life.

          I’m ready to be done, finished, complete. I’m ready to move on to whatever comes next because what’s here is simply too sad and/or hard to bear some days or even hours. I wish there was someone I could talk to about how I feel, but I feel like anyone who would understand what I’m thinking/feeling has already gone beyond.

          I’ve come to believe that when you reach a certain point in your life, you’re done, or at least I am. I don’t feel as though there is a lot left for me to experience as the days/months/years move on. And let’s face it, I’m seriously lonely but don’t feel I have the option to actually change that.

          Looking back over my life, I’ve done pretty much everything I set out to do or thought I wanted to do. I married, had a good marriage to a good man for most of the 50+ years we shared. I had three children, the first I HAD to give up for adoption. This has always been difficult for me to admit and attempts to establish a relationship with her have come to naught. I’ve simply had to be content with the knowledge that she has had a good life with children and grandchildren of her own.

I’m exceedingly proud of my eldest son because he’s been a success at almost everything he’s attempted. I do wish, however, that he had a larger imagination that would allow him to go out into the world to seek and experience other places and cultures. Still, he’s lived in only two homes of his own and raised a daughter who is and has been a huge blessing to me for all her life.

The second son, while his birth was greatly anticipated and whose early years brought so much joy to my life grew into a disappointment. As I write this, I haven’t heard from him for almost two months. His history of borrowing money and/or abusing relationships with other family members or friends makes me very sad because I figure my mothering must have been faulty.

When it comes to my daughters-in-law, therein lies additional huge disappointments. I seriously hoped that when my sons married, I could have a great relationship with those women, but that hasn’t happened. I don’t understand why there’s such a disconnect, but there is and nothing I’ve tried to do to correct it has been welcomed or made a difference.

My granddaughter brought so much joy into my life and still does. Like her father, she’s been a success at almost everything she’s attempted. She’s funny, kind, loving, and would, I think, do almost anything I asked of her. The memories I have of our times together over her early years still bring me such happiness and I continue to add to them even now.

My only grandson was an absolute delight. I was there for his birth and got to spend many fun and memorable hours with him before he went to school. I expected but didn’t receive any invitations to share in any of his school accomplishments except for maybe one. Since then, my contact has become far less and for almost a year now, not at all. It’s not because of him, but because of his father, my son, that this disconnect has happened.

So, here I sit at this computer in the house I’ve lived in for the last fifty-seven years, alone and lonely and feeling as though the more time passes, the less able I’ll be to keep it all up. There are entire days, even weekends, where I don’t speak to another person. Invitations to various events or other people’s homes are few and far between. There is one standing commitment each week which I try to meet, but it’s not that uplifting. The classes I attend are great, but there’s no lasting relationships with most of the people I’ve met there. I’m sure there are few, if any, who would wonder where I was if I was done.

And yes, I guess you could say I’m feeling sorry for myself and having one hell of a pity-party just me, myself and I. But who better knows what I think or how I feel? Right now I also know that this feeling won’t last because I’ll get up and do something like trim the rhododendrons, talk to a neighbor, have someone come visit and once again feel that life is good. But for now, I just feel that the perfect answer to my life would be to go to bed and never have to wake up. I feel done!!!