Brain Fertilizer

Is there anything more pathetic than someone airing their dirty laundry in a public forum, including hundreds of complete strangers?

Well, if you feel this way, don't read the extended entry.

I am about as unhappy in my life as I can possibly imagine. I am encountering significant problems at both work and at home. I have little time to relax or escape.

The problem at work is just that I don't really like working in a bureaucracy. When used correctly, I'm the ultimate team player. But you don't have officers to just do their job and not extend themselves. I can do that, and do, but I'm not happy with it. I would prefer to be in a job in which I can just show up and do my assigned tasks, or solve problems, or put out a concrete product, and not have to worry about promoting myself or worrying about backstabbing rivals or anything. But there's little or nothing I could do outside the military at this point that would be any better.

At home, I'm weary of taking care of the kids and the house and everything alone, on top of working 45-50 hours each week. I'm frustrated with my daughter's regression in potty training and the extra work that makes for me. I'm not looking forward to going through a divorce, and moving and starting a new assignment at about the same time will just make things more difficult.

I'm not depressed at all, I'm just unhappy. I really didn't expect life to be like this. I feel emotionally and physically tired all the time.

If I thought that this is how the rest of my life would be, I don't think I could take it.

However, I have hope. I have lots of hope.

I only have 9 more years until I can retire. At that point, I can live off of my retirement pay quite easily. I can choose to work, and probably will, but can choose ways to earn money that are more in line with my desires, i.e., no paperwork or competition for promotion. At that point, I can really focus on achieving a career as a professional writer (although I am by no means abandoning the attempt to achieve that now...I will finish my novel within the next few months and return to an earlier one, as well. I may not finish anything publishable any time soon, but each attempt increases my skill and understanding).

My kids are getting older. My daughter will eventually be potty trained. I'm really making progress in instilling in them the responsibility to help me out with keeping the house neat. My son will be in school next fall. I will be getting a significant pay raise this coming June. I may be able to hire people to do some of the minor tasks that I don't like much, like yard work. I may even be able to hire a maid at some point.

My son is taking to strategy games like a duck to water. He's learning ethical behavior quite well, too. My daughter has always showed caring and concern for others. These things form a good foundation for the things I want to teach them in the future, and I don't think I'll have as many problems with pre-adolescents and adolescents as some parents have. The ground rules for discipline and responsibility are being laid now.

I have blogging as a release for some of my anger and frustration, as well.

But I gotta admit, right now I'm not very happy. And I'm sharing it with you. You should feel honored! [grin]

Thanks for letting me vent.

UPDATE:
Unhappiness is a spur and motivation for change. I am in the process of making changes. Depression is a refusal to change, in many ways.

In the whole candle/darkness scenario, "depression" is "cursing the darkness" whereas "unhappiness" is fumbling for an hour through various drawers and shelves, and barking your shin a good three times on low furniture that you'd swear wasn't there when the lights were on, giving yourself a nasty cut on the exacto knife left uncapped in the one drawer, and generally amusing the cats with your ineptness until finally finding a flashlight with batteries not entirely dead whose feeble glow allows you to locate the matches and light the candle, by which your curtains catch fire and the house burns down.

But hey, as long it's burning, at least it isn't dark.