I feel like I have been asleep for ten years...ten very critical years. I don't know how or where to begin to get my life on track.

I had a lovely few years attending a community college where I made incredible friends, found tremendous strength and love and support. I took a theatre class in my second year--looking for something fun and lighthearted. I was looking to begin anew--to create a new social opportunity for me and my child after we were abandoned by my long-time boyfriend two years earlier. Looking back, I think, "Who was that bold, brave girl who was willing to put herself out there and take a chance??" I didn't expect people would be interested in hanging out with me because I was a single mother, and all these people were young and footloose and fancy free. But I was incredibly surprised to find that, not only were they interested in me, but loved my child as well. They reached out to embrace us in ways I could never have imagined. I became deeply and meaningfully involved in the program and with the people, both in and out of school.

But I had to move on from there in 1996 so I could pursue my B.A. degree. My child entered school at the same time. There were significant shifts in my day to day world, and there were subtle social changes within my community college crowd that made me feel less a part of things. I felt so isolated, so separated. It magnified the depression I was already prone to. I was going to school, but had no passion or dream about what I would do with what I was pursuing. I threw myself into full time motherhood--which was really lovely. But I let go of my support system. In my confusion, I grew ashamed of myself--lost my bearings. I gained a lot of weight and used that as a reason to avoid seeing people.

I finished my degree, but didn't find a career track. I had traversed a path to satisfy other people's ideas of what I ought to do, and nothing was ringing true for me. I started working just to make ends meet, but had no defined purpose. The one highlight was my child and participating in her schooling. We had no home of our own (and still don't) . I was living with my parents, working a dead-end job, and living and breathing for my child. I had created a terrible debt load for myself by taking student loans to pay for college. My child struggled in some aspects of school, and I tried to be the learning specialist that I couldn't afford to give her.

...Then came the private school years. I thought it wasn't a great idea. I knew the pressures would be tremendous. But my parents pushed and pushed. My child got excited. I saw the possibilities of something good too. My mother was working at a very prestigious private school. The people there knew my child, and loved my child. They all wanted her to attend. She applied and got in. We were offered financial aid to pay the cost. And what costs!

I can't tell you how discomforting it is to be exceptionally low income, be single, be living with your parents in your mid thirties, and try to find a way to fit in with a crowd of people who are in stable marriages, exceptionally wealthy, and living very different lifestyles. It is difficult to find ways to socialize and become a part of the community. The kids with whom my child attended school were involved in wonderful extra curricular pursuits I couldn't hope to provide. If they had learning troubles, tutors pored from the woodwork to support their needs. I couldn't give my child those opportunities either.

I couldn't invite anyone over, and neither could my daughter. My parents fight, and my mother is apt to scream obscenities--doors and windows wide open--no matter who is in the house. (When I was a child, my best friend was not allowed to come over after a while because of the unhealthy emotional atmosphere. I was welcome to visit them down the street) Our home is always filthy--my parents doing, not mine. I am obsessed with tidiness in the common areas of the home, I am sure, because it is one thing I can control about my environment. I beg and plead for them to be neat, to think of their grandchild, but they just get angry at me for nagging.

Keeping this house tidy is like fighting a category 5 hurricane by wearing a windbreaker. Not only is the home filthy, it is falling apart. My folks have rarely ever, in the 35 years they have owned it, done anything to maintain the integrity of the home. There are holes in the walls, holes in the floor where it is rotting away, the smell of mold and mildew permeates the air. The foliage has grown up around the house to obscure the views. And it is weird because the home sits in what has become, in the years since they purchased it, a very expensive place to live.

The private school years were paralyzing and further increased my feelings of depression. Feeling inadequate was already a specialty of mine. This made it worse, and it inevitably began affecting my child. We had to avoid social interludes, make excuses why people didn't need to come by our home. I was still working my dead end job, and was not doing anything to shift gears. We were just surviving by the skin of our teeth.

Then, suddenly, I wake up and realize, ten years have passed since I had friends, since my child and I were able to interact as a family unit with other people...Ten years that are supposed to be the most productive--the time when we are supposed to be the most physically and mentally able to lay down the roots for our futures...and I have done nothing...The ten years we are most viable as mates, the most attractive, the most fertile...I lost them. I think I spaced out, slept to the drone of 500 cable channels, completely lost track of how to live. I feel like the mold and mildew that creeps up the walls of this house has grown over me. While the people with whom I used to socialize have mapped out their lives, bought homes, found spouses, made babies--I have been in a daze.

How do I begin my life at 39?