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February 12, 2021,
She keeps her youthful picture on the desk where she shelters in and works from home.
It is a photo from happier times in her life when success seemed to spring forward like an overflowing stream from an endless water source.
Dawn doesn’t feel that way now. Not even close.
She has suffered some marital, financial and health setbacks in the last decade and senses that some of those challenges are simply a by-product of being middle aged.
That thought helps her sleep better at night and not blame herself for her severe disappointments.
She assesses how many of her friends or associates, past and present, mostly no longer seen since the pandemic, are living in nicer neighborhoods and have stronger family ties then she now does.
Dawn can’t help but wonder where she went wrong? At middle aged, she thought she would have a much different life. A far better one.
And now the pandemic hit.
Underemployed with a Master’s Degree, she is relieved that she even still has a job.
Oddly enough it is looking at the struggles of others that provides her with a small sense of appreciation that her life isn’t completely decimated like some have experienced during the global pandemic.
Then there are the death tolls that keep mounting. People who once seemed to live normal lives are now dying, literally, of the coronavirus. It all seems so surreal. Can anyone really be happy and live to the full amid all of the pandemic restrictions?
For her, these are depressing times indeed.
The question she asks herself is how can she begin to feel better on a continual basis? She realizes it is within her control. Coming up with an internal plan is very challenging.
Asking herself what life she desires within the next five years is a starting place.
In the new normal times, things are so precarious it’s hard to make concrete plans. Dawn feels that she can be sketching out a plan and then there are so little stable points to circle within the chart.
An avid reader, Dawn finds so many of the books that speak to these turbulent times are very dystopian in nature.
Why read about a future even more depressing than the present?
For the moment. She can’t go to the beach which is closed. Her local park is closed to car traffic and parking. Nightlife is virtually out and her former work associates have their own life and since the office closed down, she rarely sees or hears from anyone.
Sometimes she feels she has chosen the completely wrong path.
At least she still has a job.
For now.
Thus in terms of literature, Dawn is more interested books about placing life into perspective. Sometimes it is so easy to focus in on what is not going right as opposed to the wonderful things you already have.
She found one.
At the always informative Time Magazine they share regarding the book titled Wave, “In 2004, economist Sonali Deraniyagala was vacationing with her family off the Sri Lankan shore when, in an instant, everything changed. The Indian Ocean tsunami blew through their beach resort and killed Deraniyagala’s husband, parents and two young sons. Full of rage and guilt over being her family’s lone survivor, Deraniyagala is forced to bear unimaginable grief, which she describes in gutting terms in one of TIME’s picks for the best nonfiction books of the decade. But in remembering her old life, she works to assemble a livable present and reminds us all how to move forward in the wake of devastation.”
Wow. Now that is devastation. It is so hard to imagine that happening to someone. To lose their entire family? It is almost so surreal that could actually happen.
Should others tragedies make us feel better about our own less tragic life?
The segment of the book she is most looking forward to is learning how to move forward from complete devastation or in Dawn’s case, long term life disappointment. A feeling of greatly underachieving. Looking for external excuses but finding few.
Will she ever get to the other side of the street?
What’s over there?
A life that she used to have when she was younger.
Can she build a new life where she feels like she can’t wait to wake up every day? Even if it for just two years. She would take it.
Dawn feels so many people resign themselves to having an older person’s life at middle age. She was married and tried to pursue a career but never had any children. Now, a decision she feels was another mistake.
“When people get married because they think it’s a long-time love affair, they’ll be divorced very soon, because all love affairs end in disappointment. But marriage is a recognition of a spiritual identity.”…Joseph Campbell
There must be a pathway to a better life to help her distance herself from her present and recent disappointments.
Trying to meet new friends is never the same as maintaining relationships with people you’ve known for years and when she was married she made the mistake of being so immersed in her husband’s sphere that she allowed some of those relationships to wane.
Okay, now she is depressing herself again.
Small steps.
Thankfully she is still working and makes more money than she spends, which is huge. Dawn made a decision to save more money than usual, not to spend upon anything but to distance herself from the past where she had money troubles after her divorce from a marriage where she made more money than her husband.
No alimony there.
Thus, after a few years of struggle, she wants to feel that she is financially safe again. Build an untouchable nest egg, not to invest, but make her feel free to spend within her means in the present.
Then there is the gym.
Time to work out. Not again, because she was never really in to that, but now she wants to invest there. Invest before she gets too old. She wants to look great, even if it’s for two years. Take pictures and make personal memories.
She’s not looking for a long-term relationship. In the present is just too draining.
Solitude is desirable. At least for the moment.
One step at a time. Very carefully navigating her way to the other side of the street.
Hoping to find temporary nirvana.
Two years would be great.
~ ~ ~
OPENING PHOTO Andrea-Piacquadio-pexels.com Femcompetitor.com, fciwomenswrestling.com, grapplingstars.com, fcielitecompetitor.com, fciwomenswrestling2.com
https://time.com/5807460/books-to-read-coronavirus/
https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/disappointment-quotes
https://fciwomenswrestling.com/
https://www.fcielitecompetitor.com/
