Paradise feels lost

Sometimes it's hard to pinpoint why one is feeling so depressed, though I do always look for logical explanations. Maybe it's the incessant rain we've had this winter; for days on end it rains. I bike everywhere because parking is a nightmare, so when it rains I don't go out. Or maybe it's that like last yr at almost exactly the same time, we have, again, had a rash of friends falling seriously ill. One good friend has discovered he has an AVM, (after a routine MRI before an ear op), a cerebral arteriovenous malformation (an abnormal mass of veins in the left side of his brain) which could cause a stroke at any time, or could continue having no effect as it has done for the last 46 yrs. Surgery is too risky, radiation treatment takes 5 yrs & is also risky. But now he lives with the Leontes syndrome ("I have drunk & seen the spider"- Winter's Tale) He knows it's there.

Another friend's father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer & a month later he was dead.

The 31 yr old Albanian who tries faithfully to improve my tennis, has got thyroid cancer & is awaiting further tests & prognosis.

All this has the knock on effect of making me once again (though I hardly ever seem to forget it) mindful of the fragility of life; it also makes me feel that here I am alive yet doing so little with my life. I constantly feel I should be 'doing more' I want to be doing more, but what? Especially with the children at school all day now, particularly living amongst so many needs, being more useful would probbaly make me feel better. People alway say, but look at what you're doing, where you live, your life etc, but actually what they mean is my husband. look at what he's doing. I'm just tagging alone behind, being the (not very) supportive wife.

I teach 2 mornings a week. The card project (Mangava), largely runs itself on a weekly basis. I'm more of a non-executive director; the women's group I organise hardly ever meets, because everyone (except me) is too busy. My Albanian teacher is at college this year & has home life complications, so we hardly ever meet either, & my tennis partner is out of action with her health.

Sudddenly it seems the few pegs that I hang the tapestry of my week on, are snapping off one by one (& let's face it there aren't many holding it up in the 1st place) - 2 weekly fixtures & 1 fortnightly fixture disappear & suddenly I have these yawning spaces in my week. And the community I know are all working or are much older than me & leading a 'ladies who lunch' life style which is just not me. Sure I can go running, to the gym, fiddle around sewing, like this I made for my niece, do the washing, shopping, I bake a lot; but all those things are on my own. God seems to have made me gregarious, a people person yet I spend 70% of my time alone I reckon. I STILL have days when I speak to no one till my children get home. And my husband gets home late & is too tired to talk much. Of course my closest friend here is away this wk, which doesn't help, but is a foretaste of what it will be like when she leaves in June.

This feeling of listlessness, & lack of direction or purpose, is exacerbated by the fact that my husband is SO busy & preoccupied & is doing such a worthwhile job, whilst I twiddle my thumbs. I love the job he does & so believe in what he is doing & what his organisation is about, but I stil find it hard, even 4 years on, being the trailing spouse, dealing with loneliness, lack of things to do, people to do them with etc. I want a role! Then there's the compounding effect that when I get really down, I lose motivation & just want to retreat into my shell & not go anywhere or make an effort. I am SO glad for an acquaintance who is a clinical pyschologist who tells me that I'm normal & that being told to 'snap out of it' & just 'get out there & join in' is a.) not that easy & b.) not helpful or necessarily a solution.

The other compounding effect is the sense that my children have really moved into a much more independent phase &, even when they come home from school, are quite happy doing their own thing, not being with me. So I don't even feel as needed by them & that's not my role in the same way anymore either.

Maybe I'm just having 'one of those "Bad Ex-pat Days", or maybe it's my "early menopause" hormones, which are wreaking havoc, or my thyroid. I wish there was a simple answer to why I burst into tears for absolutely no reason, why I feel so lacking in motivation & feel so useless most of the time.

Well, maybe the sun will come out tomorrow.