Emotional Chatter

For the first time in a very long time, I don’t know what to think.  I am undertaking one of the biggest changes I have ever made in my life and I don’t know what to think.    I have rationalized out all of the reasons to leave versus all of the reasons to stay and the move makes sense.  I hate it when the logic in my head does not agree with my heart.  My heart wants to stay.  I don’t really think my heart wants me to stay; it is all that internal emotional chatter going on.  I wonder if your emotions can be ADHD, too.  That’s what it feels like.  There is a lot going on inside of me.  It is difficult to control.  It is even more difficult to make any sense of.

I want to stay because this is all I know.  Not a good reason, but I think that is what it boils down to.  I want to stay because I know I’m safe here.  Arizona is over two thousand miles away, and anything could happen on the journey there!  My car is old and if it needed a repair, my budget does not allow for it.  I have no safety net.  I will have just enough money to make it there as is.  Fear is rising with each day.  The emotional turmoil in my body from menopausal symptoms is bad enough, but when you add this to it and I am not feeling really good about things right now.  And that has led me to something very interesting. 

Though I have been single for the better part of the last ten years, I have never felt more than a passing twinge of loneliness.  I was alone in a manner of speaking throughout my childhood, so being alone is something I am comfortable with.  Friends ask me all the time if I ever get lonely, and they don’t seem to believe me when I say I really don’t.  I am rarely bored, but being alone has never really been a problem.  Until now, that is; and it is very strange.  I feel more alone than I can ever remember feeling.  I have a number of people helping me with the mountain of details required to make this move, there has been an overwhelming show of support from almost everyone I know.  People have offered their assistance any way they can, and I am grateful.  I do not understand how I can be sitting here as I have for the past two days now and feel so alone.  I don’t know what to think about it!

I know this move is good for me in so many ways, but I hate this internal chaos going on right now.  I’ll get through it, like I get through everything…one step at a time.  Problems are arising, and they are being solved, but not always to what I would like to see happen.  I thought an open flatbed tow would be economical, after all, they can’t cost that much, but buy the time UHAUL adds hitching and everything, it will be nearly $800!  The fact is, it will cost more than my stuff is worth to tow it.  I really like my bedroom set and it was the first thing I bought and paid for all by myself when I started my life over for the second time.  I am not happy it will not be going with me.  It signifies another loss, and I have lost so much throughout my life.  I know it is just furniture, but this life I built for me was nice.  It wasn’t expensive or fabulous, but everything was purchased new by me and I paid for all of it by myself.  I was pleased and proud of the simple little life I made.  Although I am confident I am heading in the right direction, I am still dismantling my life.  Keeping the bedroom set was a way for me to ignore all the other furniture and other items I was selling.  The loss did not feel as sharp.  Somewhere inside, I always knew this day would come.  I never really thought of this apartment as home, though I went through the motions of making it one.  What I didn’t consider was the loss of everything I worked so hard to build while I was here. 

It is odd to feel lonely when I rarely felt it before, especially at time when I have never been more surrounded by my friends and family.   It is surreal to sell off everything I own to make this trip.  I feel the loss of the home I made.  When I lost everything I owned because of the divorces, those losses made me angry!  Those losses occurred as the result of a decision made by someone else, and my life was affected by it.  Losing everything this time is much different.  It is a loss I am making of choice, in the hopes my life will steer on a better path.  I am stagnating here, and I have known it for a long time.  I didn’t have the courage to do anything about it.  I don’t have much courage now, but I do have hope.  The price of losing all I have worked for over these last years I am meeting with a quiet resolution.  I think this new feeling of loneliness is somehow tied to the loss of my possessions.  They are linked because I don’t think one person has identified or indicated they understood how I feel.  This is the third time in my life I am losing everything I own, and yes, this time it is the sacrifice I am choosing for the hopes of a better life.  Three times I have built a life for myself, and for my children.  Three times I have seen what I built destroyed or dismantled.  It is hard to have faith in my future, when this is my past.

And yet, I do have faith in my future.  I don’t know why I do, but it is there, it is vital, and it is strong.  It is possible I am not meant to make my life in any one place, I am meant to meet new people, new friends wherever I am led.  It is not a life I would have chosen for myself, but it is the life I have.  Sometimes peace can be found in acceptance, instead of crying out for the injustice of it all.  I have accepted a lot of things in my life, so I have had plenty of practice.  I would like to know someone recognizes how I feel about losing the life I made for the third time.  I accept this is what I must do in order to pursue the next step in my life.  I accept this loss.  I don’t see anything in the rules about having to feel good about it.  I am lonely because everyone around me is excited for me, they are excited for all the possibilities my new future holds.  I share that excitement, I do.  But it seems I am all alone when it comes to recognizing the life I am leaving behind.  Three lives I have built, with the expectation that life would grow and blossom with the love and effort I put into it.  Three times my life as I knew it would end.  I don’t want to stay here, in this life, as it is.  I was not growing; my life was not moving forward.  Even so, I am sad to see it end. 

My friends have been incredible in their support of my new life.  I couldn’t ask for anything better.  They are working hard at keeping me looking forward, instead of staying behind.  If I uttered in the tiniest whisper I wanted to stay, some may want me to think about it some more, but if that was what I wanted, they would also support me staying in the life I have here.  Maybe what I’m feeling is best felt in solitude.  The facts about this new phase of my life are all positive; it is only my emotions that are out of line.  I know with a little time, my emotions will catch up to the excitement of this, the fourth life I build.  This loneliness I feel is transitory.  My life may not have been traditional, but I guess it wouldn't be my life if it were.