Midlife

Therapist: So how are you feeling?

Me: Fine.

Therapist: Are you happy?

Me: Happy? What do you mean?

Therapist: Happy. Are you happy?

Me: I don't know. I'm not unhappy.  I don't know if I have ever been happy though.

Therapist: Would you say that you are depressed?

Me: No. I'm not depressed. I know depressed, this isn't depressed.

Therapist: Have you considered the mood stabilizers?

Me: Yes...And No. I read up on them and the side effects are unacceptable. The Pristiq is doing fine at controlling the depression. I'm not adding a mood stabilizer that might make things far worse. Maybe I am just not meant to be happy in the way other people think of happy.

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What is happy, my internet friends? Where does satisfaction with some of your life become enough? When does one stop looking for or expecting something that is not meant for you, by virtue of brain chemistry? When does the desire for that something spill over into the unobtainable which keeps you chasing the elusive desire that it might be just over there...just beyond that house, around the corner?

I'm not talking about giving up, but acceptance of how it is?

Is this the midlife crisis? Trying to figure out how to reach some kind equilibrium?

Wistful

I've mentioned that I really like my job, haven't I? I do. I like teaching and I like the students. I like poking at their brains and hopefully making them think beyond what they know now or what they might assume.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The students are kind and respectful. If I have failed them - as I surely have on some days - they seem to forgive me. Emily visited one class and told me that I am goofy even as a Professor. Utterly NOT shocking, that news.

We are heading for Thanksgiving break and I am glad. I need the break, even the two day break. There is reading to do and lessons to plan. While I am teaching the same three course next term, there are tweaks to make and readings to change. I scan, I make lists, I try to respond to emails promptly.

I tell them that I scaffold.

Inside of me, the mist still remains. In the few quiet times, my tendency towards melancholy returns. I struggle with this part of my being.

I understand with pinpoint precision why I allow work to overtake my life. In work I am engaged. A busy brain means no room for the other parts, the doubts and the sadness.

I wait for that part of me to fade, to return to some hibernation so I can live inside the pleasure of my work, my vocation. 

Sigh of relief

We voted in our new home, Wisconsin.

I like to think we helped to tip the balance.

Emily asked me to wake her when the election was called. I just shook her gently and whispered that President Obama had been re-elected. She sighed, "Oh good" , and rolled over and went back to sleep.

Yes, my love. We can both sleep easier tonight.