For the last four weeks, I have been the type of sick that people dread.  The kind that makes your whole life slow to a crawl. There is nothing you can do but rest, drink lots and lots of fluids and hope that people don’t get tired of you asking for help. Help getting groceries, driving and  doing laundry.   My body didn’t have the energy to stand or sit long enough to fold my own laundry.  I had to ask for a lot of help.  Bronchitis turned into pnenomina.  My body forced me to rest.  It is still forcing me to rest.  While drafting this post, I took an hour nap.

I am on the mend.  I am off the antibodies and codiene laced cough syrup and back to my morning coffee.  I’m  back writing in my office under the watchful eye of my Ghostbuster figures.  All good things.

If I take things slowly, I can get back to a normal pace of life.

The problem is I am not sure I want to go back to the way things were.  To be blunt, my life is comfortable and there are a lot of awesome things in it,but it isn’t working.  I am not happy.   I am lost.  I’ve been this way for a while.

It is the combination of a lot of things.  Things I am willing to talk about and things that I am not sure how to talk about.

Twleve years into teaching and I am not inspired to be creative anymore.  What is the point when I am never going to be really recognized for the work I do or paid fairly for it? It isn’t about being Teacher of the Year or anything life that.  It is about not having to worry constantly about money or what deeming thing is going to said to myself or collegues next.

I tried unsuccessfully to exit teaching this year. I figured that it was time.  My resume was met with an understandable silence.  I didn’t have on paper what they were looking for.  I would have loved the job, been good at the job but I have no one but myself to blame for not landing an interview.  I didn’t do everything I needed with my resume to show them.

I have tried and failed to develop a consistent writing routine.  I have also failed to complete any of the projects that I have going.   The list of unfinished work gets longers and longer.

The sequel to Blood Child remains unfinished as does my first novel.  Everything in my life is in the works.

I have craft and art projects that are collecting dust.

I am lost. Lost in my work life, in my personal life and pretty much everywhere.  I feel like if I really let someone know what is going on then I am going to break down the cry. And the tears won’t stop.

Because not only am I a mess, I am also deemed to be broken one.  Broken because I am over weight and depressed.  Lossing weight isn’t going to cure my mental health issues.  And curing my curing my mental health issues isn’t going to fix my weight.

I am lost because I want to move and at the same time I am terrified of it.

Leaving teaching means leaving job security and my health insurance.  It means abandonning the known.

My folks are fine with me moving if it is for a better position and place in life, but I don’t know that it will be.   I can’t guarantee that I will be making a move that is going to make everything better.

If I roll the dice and pack up my life, I fear that went the dice land they are going to come up snake eyes.

There is more.

I have a serious case of imposter syndrome. I feel like I am a huge fraud.

I am a poet who can’t snap her fingers.

I am lost.

Here is the point in writing that I would normally write something hopeful and inspiring. It is tempting to end that way once again.  We all like stories of redemption.  Stories where the underdog makes it to the end, finds their ray of sunshine and lives their dream.  I think in always trying to be the protagonist in that kind of story, by forcing life into that mold, I have lost myself.  I have lost the ability to admit mistakes, short comings and given into the notion that I must always put a positive face forward.

I crave being seen yet, I have been trained to hide myself and not be trouble.  Not to worry others.

When I talk about depression some well meaning friends are always concerned that I have gone to that dark place again.  The one where sucide is the only exit to freedrom.  I am not there, trust me.  I was never really there.  I saw the other exits can clawed my way to them, sometimes figuratively some times literally.

I am in a different place, where there are a thousand doors and the reality of happily ever after has forever been shattered.