Conference turris::womannotes-v1

    How appropriate this note is for me on this day!
    
    Here I am at this half-way point, this limbo.  All of the uphill
    struggling I have been doing up to now does not assure me that the
    next 45 will not be more of the same.
    
    Since my husband died of cancer when my son was just three years
    old, it has been just he and I for 14 years.  Two days ago my son
    turned 17 and he is making plans for himself that do not include
    me.
    
    The house that I so bravely had built eight years ago now needs
    repairs that are costly and mortgage and car loan all on pay from
    a secretarial job!
    
    Yes, sometimes the palette of my life contains an awful lot of grey
    and very little of the colorful promises of the hard fought goals.
    
    What now?   What do I REALLY want to do?  An island in the sun?
    A book?  Certainly something far greater than a secretary!
    
    "Cherish YOUR life and hear the notes of each song.  Up the scale
    or down, the music is always there."
    		(from the book Windows by Jennifer James, Ph.D)
    

    Hi. I felt as you do, and still do sometimes. I think it's called
    depression, and depression as I understand it contains a lot of 
    repressed anger. Repressed anything turns around and bites you.
    
    The answer about what to do lies in yourself. Get counselling --
    right away -- to help you find out what you have to know to continue
    living an enjoyable life. I've been in therapy for five years and
    am finding out new things about me every day. Counselling isn't
    for nuts -- it's for you and me and everybody else trying to make
    it in our crazy world.
    
    Good luck; you're not alone.
    
    Estelle
    
    

    I think our generation (I am 50) has a hard time discarding things,
    things like goals, values and committment store up with the old
    photographs and souvenirs.
    
    When I got married it was forever, when I joined Digital I envisioned
    it as the company that I would retire from.  But nothing is forever
    and I am beginning to think that even five year goals are to
    restrictive for the mobile, exciting world we live in.
    
    It isn't easy to accept the freedom we have as we mature.  I think
    we sometimes make the responsibilities that remain bonds that tie
    us into our past.
    
    As enthusiastic as I am about the future I am sad about the things
    I have left undone in the first half of my life.  I think of this
    as a crisis often but I try to replace crisis with opportunity and
    it helps.
             
    What I have done is to change my goal orientation.  Instead of looking
    forward to a better position in Digital I am looking forward to retirement.
    That perspective is a lot more realistic.  It is not that I want
    to vegetate, I want to do something different.  I began work as
    a nurse's aide in a convent infirmary a few weeks ago and I love
    it.  And if that doesn't work out then I will explore something
    else.  
    
    I have just begun...I look forward to reading other's feelings about
    this subject.
                     

    My reply is in the same vein as .2 - first, from the Western medicine
    angle, (if you haven't had a checkup recently) you might want to
    check in with the doc to see if maybe you don't have a chemical
    imbalance of some kind. They *can* cause depressions.
    
    IT *does* sound as if you have a mild depression. Seeing a counselor
    is definitely something to consider.
    
    Going the more holistic route, try to get some exercise (if you
    don't already) and eat right. A Swedish massage or a Shiatsu treatment
    (well, more than one if you like it) might be very helpful - to
    reduce your stress and give you "time out" for yourself if nothing
    else.
    
    
    I agree with Joyce, too. Maybe it's time to change your goals. *I*
    thought I'd be a schoolteacher til retirement. Well, I'm an engineer
    now, and working on another part-time "career" at the same time.
    Evolving as time goes on...that's the ticket! 
    
    Remember, you can't grab hold of something new until you let go
    of the old stuff you're hanging on to.
    
    Good luck.
    
    Dawn
    

    Though you asked for replies from women, but, because what you
    describe sounds very familiar, I'll hazard a flame or two and
    reply.
    
    I'd basically echo the sentiments to get some outside (expert)
    advice/counselling.  Though they differ somewhat in quality
    from location to location, EAP might be one place to start.
    One thing I'm pretty sure you'd learn is that yours is a very
    common reaction - I'm tempted to say "universal" - to the changes
    that aging brings upon us.
    
    Another thing I suspect you'd find is that what you're feeling
    (assuming it's not out-and-out suicidal), has been variously
    described as "normal", "o.k.", or even "right".  The line of
    thinking is that as we grow older it is natural (thus, "right")
    to gain a different perspective on the world and what worked
    for us in the past doesn't work today.
    
      BTW - one can hardly resist the tangental analogy to DEC
      as a whole; indeed, not a few have characterised the company
      as being in a kind of mid-life crisis. . .
    
    So, given a major change in perspective, why shouldn't the "old"
    ways of being seem flat and unappealing?  Could it be that this
    period of uncomfort and dissatisfaction is a part of your ongoing
    process for making a major shift in your life; while it feels
    "bad", if it's your way of progressing on, it may be "good" in
    the long run.  
    
    If there is a serious danger, I'd suspect that it lies in the 
    possibility of getting stuck in the doldrums.  Given your description 
    of yourself (generally an achiever, strong internal motivations), I'd
    tend to give that *real* low odds.  Experience has taught me that
    when I've been through such periods, I was in motion, even though
    I *felt* "stuck", "at a dead end", etc.  I've come to learn that
    this was my (fairly common) process for initiating major change
    in my life.  
    
    I also learned that a) I *will* get through, despite how I feel
    in the here and now and b) "allowing" myself to feel "bad" (for
    a while) is o.k.  Beating up on myself for feeling that way was
    actually counterproductive - all the energy was focused on trying
    not to feel bad; to "give up" and allow myself to just feel bad
    was what I needed.  In a surprisingly short time (retrospectively)
    new ideas and directions began to appear to me, as if by magic.
    
    And I found out that the things I was going through were just
    about dead center in the bell curve (really infuriating; I mean,
    doncha just *hate* being "average"  :-D ).
    
    Steve ("credentials" = forty-something and in the HR/Career planning
    biz)
    

    I recommend getting together at lunch time or whatever with other
    women at DEC in your age group. I too work with mostly younger
    people and I enjoy talking to others in their 40's as our concerns
    and interests are different.
    
    I also changed jobs within DEC 1 1/2 years ago and I'm doing 
    something very different from what I was doing before and I'm
    finding it challenging. I needed the change of surroundings
    and colleagues.  GOOD LUCK
    

The times that I have felt like that, I have found helpfull to try something
*really* different from my normal life.  I don't really mean wild and crazy, but
something that is really different then how I usually allow myself to be. I take
a look beyond the boundaries that I usually set on my life, and try something
out there.  

An example of this might be playing an instrument or painting if you are a real
"technical" person.  It doesn't matter if I am not 'good' at it, I look on it as
a real learning experience for me. It might be going to a ballet instead of a
disco.  As long as it is something I would not ordinarily do.  I try to enjoy
it, rather then keeping myself in my boundaries and telling myself that I don't
enjoy this sort of thing.  Try being a different person, just for a little bit.
I find that I learn then how much more of the world there is then I have allowed
myself to experience. 

JMB