There is an impulse in me to head to my blog when I am down and feel there is nowhere else to go - the histrionic blogging equivalent of drunk dialing. I come here because I want someone to tell me that everything will work out for the best, to offer some brilliant advice which hadn't previously occurred to me. That is my modus operandi in situations like these; I seem to think the only way out will be via direction given by someone else. Rather than addressing the problem(s) myself, I always want to rely on other people to change my way of thinking. As if a snippet of wisdom doled out by you, or by my Mom, life will align and all will be well. Intellectually I know that I am basically fucked, and this is what it is, that no three line comment left here will stop me wondering if life will ever be truly, unreservedly good.
My brain is not currently in a position to devise a well-crafted post, so I will just get it all out there, hit "publish post", and regret it as soon as I do.
I don't like being back here. Every single day I wonder why we have made this move when we were comfortable in the UK in so many ways - we had job security, we owned our own property, P was enrolled in a great school in which she was flourishing. Ok, we didn't actually *like* our jobs, which was the initial impetus to come back to the US. Oh, we had grown out of our flat too and were looking to sell, acknowledging that even in moving to a bigger place we still wouldn't have the space we wanted for P. The US seemed the obvious choice to improve those areas, but guess what? The joke is on us. We can't sell our property in the UK, we spend more in rent per month than we would on a mortgage for a very nice house, The Dude can't find a job, I HATE my new job, and P goes to a sub-standard daycare/school which manages to drain even more money that we don't have. Bills keep coming in, as they are wont to do, and I'm in constant amazement that we pay so much for not having much of anything quantifiable.
My job might give me a stroke, and on a calmer day I might evaluate how I can't yet decide whether the US workplace is shit overall, or if it's just my place of employment. I was lucky back in the UK - I loved the people I worked with, so I guess it's my turn to be in a work environment that is largely unbearable. Under ordinary circumstances, I genuinely love the field I'm in, but I now dread going to work every day. I sometimes sneak into the bathroom and cry, thinking about how I just want to be home with my baby. Those who know me know that this is *not* Pru-like behaviour, so there is obviously a glitch or 50 in the system somewhere.
We tell ourselves that we need just that "one thing" - a job for him, an offer on our flat in the UK, and then it would all start to be ok. We say that to one another when we are both doom and gloom, but I don't believe it, and I very much doubt The Dude does either.
There are P-related (future) school issues that are also being thrown at us, and I'm just so sick of thinking about it that I'll just skip over it here. When I'm back to being sane, if only for a moment, I have parent-of-a-near-5-year-old crap to bring up on the blog but I can't be arsed right now. Suffice it to say, it's so, so hard to not feel as if I have completely screwed her over in all of this. We moved over here to give her more, and she's living a pale imitation of her former life right now. It tears me apart thinking that I have consciously done this to her.
I try to recall that revisionist personal history is powerful. It makes you think that you were much happier before, that had you stayed in that life, everything would have been fine - peace in the status quo. Truth is, I know I wasn't happy before. I needed change, and I got it. Now I don't want it. I'm always discontent, there, here, everywhere. It doesn't matter. I don't know what I need to do in order to be happy, or if I can be. The DRAMA, I know.
So there it is. I know, it's just one of a hundred times I write these posts. I'll get over it, until the next time when I do it all over again. Don't feel obligated to indulge me by dispensing sage advice, just please, no one say that it could be worse. Things could always be worse - that doesn't make it better.
