Existential Crisis?
I'm writing for the sake of writing. I don't know what it is I want to say yet, I just feel the need to write something, to say something. Recently I've been spending time with my new friend from the gym... He makes me feel good about myself, but, my husband isn't keen on me spending time with him. He finds it creepy that he's so much older (he's 50, I'm 27). Harley makes me feel young, he makes me want to be spontaneous and adventurous, he makes me feel free. I don't understand why, or how. I just know I like how I feel when I'm around him, and I return home happier and more energized after spending time with him. The title of this journal is stated as such because I feel I may be in an existential crisis. I feel I am in a state where I need to live life more fully, I feel like the past year has been an absolute waste, and I have zero recollection of the previous year (aside from my mother getting ill and dying). It's been an awful two years, and now that I'm faced with all this death, and I keep aging, and we're struggling to get pregnant, I just want to live. I just want to experience life a bit longer. I just want to stop being stressed, and upset. It's the season, I hate this season. It's dark, and rainy, and all I can think of is my mom getting sick, and telling me she had cancer, and giving me her ring... I keep replaying the doctor telling me that my mother would die any time now, any minute, any hour, any day... I don't remember her voice, I just remember the sinking feeling, the words she spoke, her apologies. There was nothing she could do, and she had to break that news on Christmas day. My mother died new years day, 2018. I miss her. I hate this season, because it makes me think of her.
Replies
I remember my dad once told me, "death is a part of life, and we must learn to accept it. Then died a few weeks later... Knowing him, I know that he wouldn't want me to mourn his death because he knew he was going and he was ready. Being spiritual, I know I will see him again when my time comes. ... I never think about the way he died....I think about the way he lived! He would want that! I have many fond memories which give me comfort when I think of him.
With the guy at the gym, I don't see anything wrong with having friends of the opposite sex but that's my humble opinion because I have many female friends and many are married. As long as you have boundaries, then I wouldn't worry.
I've always had friends of the opposite sex, and my husband has never cared much, so it's just annoying and weird that he's uncomfortable with this friendship. I intentionally had them meet so my husband could see that Harley and I have built a friendship based on injury recovery and mutual grief. We met while we were both fighting depression due to workplace injuries which resulted in significant limitations, and we're both grieving the loss of family as the holidays fast approach. I think my husband is feeling a bit more comfortable with my gym-friendship, he's just uncomfortable with us spending time together outside of physio. I'm trying to be respectful of his discomfort, but it's irrational, and I don't do irrational. It'll be a constant work in progress.
Thank you for sharing about your dad, I sometimes feel sad that I couldn't make more memories with my mom before she passed. We didn't have a great relationship for most of my life; it recovered in my early twenties when I started taking anti-depressants, and became even better after I moved out. It just makes me sad to think of the relationship we didn't get to have. I missed having her at my graduation (she lived long enough for me to graduate, just not to be at my convocation), and I missed having her at my wedding, though I memorialized her in my own small ways. I just miss the relationship we didn't have. The relationship we could have had.