How to cope tristesse: Here I am, all alone. REALLY all alone. I've tried getting involved in activities, and met some people - but no one I connect with, really. I'm not sure there's a single soul right now who would care whether I live or die. Really. I don't have family to speak of, and no friends in town, either.
I dated a little bit, got preyed on by a guy who said he totally understood what I was going through because he'd been separated himself - and he understood I was like glass right now...turns out all he understood was that I needed to hear that I was attractive - he told me all the things I wanted to hear so he could get me into bed. Then when I asked him where "we" were headed with this, he disappeared on me. I felt really alive while we were dating. Now I just feel like crap. Again.
Hate my job, living in an apartment alone after being in a house. Took time to reassess my life, and figure out what was not working, which was basically everything.
I've had jobs in cubicles since 1990 and everyone always said I'd adjust to the 8-5 prison. Everyone was wrong. My cubicle always has felt like a jail cell. I have a bachelor's in English and one year of law school (student loan debt out my butt). I'm not really qualified to do anything that's not in your traditional office environment - been working in marketing for the past five years. Not sales, marketing - graphic design, editing, marketing communications kind of stuff. I'm no salesperson or PR person - I just don't have the personality for it.
So I decided I might go to massage therapy school. My STBX said it's not a bad idea - they make decent money, but when he learned I'd have to take out $8K in loans to go to school, he said I probably shouldn't go. But that's just the thing - I'm never going to be able to pay the loans off. Never. I'm screwed. It's over 60K as it is (pushing 68, I think). Short of winning the lottery, or robbing a bank, what the hell am I supposed to do? At this point, to me, another 8K is like a drop in the bucket. It's untenable either way, whether I remain floundering in my current state or I go back to school. It's a desperate situation, as I'm not good at a damn thing that actually makes money. I've never understood how all these people - a lot of whom who have so much less going for them than I do - create actual careers for themselves. I feel like I'm either defective or like everyone else was taught some secret that I never learned. I think I used to have some messed-up fantasy that some guy would come along at some point and take care of me - and the loans. What a joke. I'm all on my own, and probably always will be.
At most, I'm paying interest on the loans, spinning my wheels.
Is massage therapy a lifestyle more suited to my temperament? Definitely. All my clock-watching, cubicle-inhabiting jobs have felt like jail - and I'm not qualified for any other kind of job. I think it's something I could be passionate about - but I haven't done it, so of course I don't know for sure. Will it solve all my problems? Of course not. Right now, though, I can't see any other feasible answers.
I don't know more than that, though. I don't know a damn thing. I don't know what to do - or where to go. I know being locked in an office all day every day is killing my soul. I know I'm lonely and depressed. I spent a long time today researching teaching english overseas. Don't ask why, I guess just to see what my options are. I think I'd be seriously unhappy if I did that, though. Sounds good, though, in a way - to run away from everything. Except, of course, you never can really run away from yourself and your problems.
Today I had this vision of myself, ten years from now, still in this same crappy apartment (that was supposed to be temporary), working at some crappy office job, still in the same amount of debt, and the only thing that was different is that I wouldn't have the cats because they would have been dead. And I wasn't even sad, as much as I was resigned.
Re:How to cope JDorn: Tristesse, welcome to our community.
All i can offer is this piece of advice, don't let worries about money rule your life, its a very easy game to get caught up in and it will never leave you happy. There will always be bills to pay or hard decisions in life to make, but if going back to school and picking up a new career path is what you need to be happy then by all means DO IT.
I've had the worst 8 months of my entire life up to this point, and the one thing I've learned from all of it came from my best friend in the entire world, who herself has been through 1 divorce, and almost a 2nd one too. That lesson is this: You are responsible for your own happiness, do not wait for someone else to come into your life and do it for you. That's the quickest way to find yourself dissapointed, because other people are outside of your sphere of control. In the long run if you are always looking outside yourself for completion you'll never be complete.
Its hard not to look at the future and wonder "what if" or "what next", i find myself doing it all the time. And each time I do i step back and look at myself again and ask this question "am I the man I want to be 5 years from now". If the answer is No then I need to do something about it, take control of my life and MAKE it what i want it to be.
a happy life is never served on a silver platter to you, you have to fight for it.
Re:How to cope birdyx: i just needed to say that i relate to the way you feel. im not good with advice since im a wreck myself. though, i appear to be normal. im alone.
just know that there are many that feel the same way you do. you could be passing them in the halls at work or on the street but somehow fail to make the connection. don't rule out meeting someone on the internet. just keep yourself open. you'll find friendship in the most unlikely people.
