I'm not sure what it is about the changing of the seasons that seems to trigger things in me. It's not like a seasonal depression thing, really, but just a sense of restlessness and typically an impending dread of dealing with upcoming holidays and the drama they bring. Plus, as much as I love fall, life changes a lot when school starts again. My oldest daughter and husband are back in college classes, and my husband goes back to work, so his job coupled with his college classes often mean he brings a lot of work home, or spends evenings and weekends doing homework. It means I have to find ways to occupy my time without him participating. Where we might usually spend a weekend going shopping, or taking our daughter to the zoo, I now have hours and hours to fill without a partner. I can take my daughter to the zoo alone, if I want, but it loses something when we don't share the experience as a family. So, we run errands, and we spend time at the library, and we go to the park, but she's not much for conversation and sometimes I just miss having someone to chat with. I've channeled my energy in the evening into creating some gifts for people who are having babies or have recently had babies, and that takes up my time and keeps me occupied, but it doesn't solve for my lack of conversation. Sometimes I wish I had someone I could just meet up with for lunch or coffee, who didn't mind that I'd have a toddler in tow, so I could just....talk. I don't even have anything important that I want to talk about, I just want to chat with people. So, maybe that's what fall triggers for me. A sense of loneliness. It allows me to be too much in my own head, and that's hard. It's particularly hard at the moment, since the only person I really get to socialize with is my husband, and he's absent. It just highlights the fact that my support system has crumbled.
I think it just makes me think about other people who are absent, and how sad it makes me, and....often....how terrible it makes me feel. Probably because this sort of thing happens over and over and over, so it feels like I'm the problem. And maybe I am the problem. But I try not to be the problem. And I try to understand what it is about me that does this to people, so I can attempt to change it. But, I don't always understand, and there will always been lingering "What did I do that was so terrible?" questions in my head that are hard to manage because there aren't always answers to that question, because people just disappear. And maybe that's another thing that all of this loneliness is triggering, it makes me notice more quickly when people start to pull away. Then I get more sad.
But, I'm still there when people need it, even if they are holding me at a distance. I haven't closed doors, I'm just not expecting people to walk back through them. It's an ongoing battle I have with my self esteem, and my sense of self worth, but I'm still there. If people want me to be. That's about all I can do anymore.
So, it drives me to be here, writing this. I know some people might think this format isn't the best way to deal with my feelings, but I think it's the best format for me. It's sometimes just something I have to get out of my head so I have space for other things. So, I get it out of my head and I move on. I read something a friend posted a few days ago about why she writes, and she said "I am a (somewhat) well-adjusted member of society because I write. Writing saves me from myself". I think that's what I do here. I'm saving me from myself by writing it all out and in some ways it keeps me balanced. It keeps me from dwelling on the darkness that can creep into my head when I'm left to my own devices for too long. And I need that.
I think it just makes me think about other people who are absent, and how sad it makes me, and....often....how terrible it makes me feel. Probably because this sort of thing happens over and over and over, so it feels like I'm the problem. And maybe I am the problem. But I try not to be the problem. And I try to understand what it is about me that does this to people, so I can attempt to change it. But, I don't always understand, and there will always been lingering "What did I do that was so terrible?" questions in my head that are hard to manage because there aren't always answers to that question, because people just disappear. And maybe that's another thing that all of this loneliness is triggering, it makes me notice more quickly when people start to pull away. Then I get more sad.
But, I'm still there when people need it, even if they are holding me at a distance. I haven't closed doors, I'm just not expecting people to walk back through them. It's an ongoing battle I have with my self esteem, and my sense of self worth, but I'm still there. If people want me to be. That's about all I can do anymore.
So, it drives me to be here, writing this. I know some people might think this format isn't the best way to deal with my feelings, but I think it's the best format for me. It's sometimes just something I have to get out of my head so I have space for other things. So, I get it out of my head and I move on. I read something a friend posted a few days ago about why she writes, and she said "I am a (somewhat) well-adjusted member of society because I write. Writing saves me from myself". I think that's what I do here. I'm saving me from myself by writing it all out and in some ways it keeps me balanced. It keeps me from dwelling on the darkness that can creep into my head when I'm left to my own devices for too long. And I need that.