The Meaning of Life?

Lately all I can do is ponder the meaning of life.

Oh, I know you’re probably saying “whoa, now that’s a very broad thing to ponder” but I’m seriously asking this question to myself daily.

I think this comes up in my head every time I have a string of bad things happening to me in a row. I ask why we exist on this planet (no too small) in this universe (I don’t know what is bigger than the universe or I’d have named that as well!).

I can’t figure out why we were created as human beings. Once you are born you are in motion for the rest of your life. You HAVE TO GO TO SCHOOL because otherwise you can get a job and YOU HAVE TO GO TO WORK because otherwise you won’t have money to pay for YOUR HOME and if you didn’t have that you’d be out on the street. If I felt like doing NOTHING, right now, my life would come crumbling down around me. You are stuck in perpetual motion. I can choose to stop “doing” but life would be WORSE off and I’d really be questioning the meaning of life as I struggled.

I don’t feel like I’m getting a lot of joy out of life right now and I’m sure it’s just a phase, hence the life “pondering” I’m doing right now. I’m 32 years old…I should be carefree living my life with a JOY in my heart. But the joy isn’t there at the moment. I need to find where I left it…has anyone seen it?? Maybe I should hang a few “MISSING: HAVE YOU SEEN xxx’S JOY?” posters to see if anyone will turn in my JOY.

I keep wondering why we have to work so hard to be happy. Happiness shouldn’t be so difficult. I know we have to make our own happiness but for now I can’t help but think that I’ve been trying so hard lately but it’s NOT WORKING! Life keeps throwing so many LEMONS at me lately that I will be able to bottle my own lemonade soon!

I’ve really been trying so hard to do things to make a new life for myself. Spending a lot of time with my friends, making new friends, reconnecting with old friends (who I didn’t get to see or talk to very much when I was married), and working on my side business (which happens to be my hobby). I’m trying new things that I never tried before and putting myself out there.

I’m trying to “GET A LIFE” (as they say) and find things to make me happy with myself and my situation. I’ve spent 10 years trying to make someone else happy – now it’s my turn!

I know I will keep going to the same job everyday (that doesn’t *spark* my passion but pays so well)…I will keep paying my bills…I will keep cleaning my house (so that it will sell)…I will find a new place to live (even though I don’t want to)…I will be divorced officially (even though I didn’t choose to)…one day I’ll start dating….and I will keep waking up everyday (because that’s just what we have to do). We keep on trucking because we HAVE NO OTHER CHOICE but to keep on moving (until we run out of gas of course).

Sometimes when I let myself think about the topic of why we exist I just get so overwhelmed that I need to stop and table the whole thing because it’s just too much to grasp my arms around…too big of a topic. So much to try to understand.

I think I might have gone off the deep end here and hope I didn’t lose some of you along the way…

I’m sure NO ONE knows the true meaning of life but I keep questioning it anyway hoping to the find the answers. I believe it’s something we all have to figure out ourselves…

I’ve Never Been Alone

While I was brushing my teeth today and I suddenly realized something….

I’ve NEVER been alone.

I’m not talking about being alone in my house, alone in my car, shopping alone…but ALONE without a relationship.

I’m sure there were where many periods throughout high school where I wasn’t dating someone or had a boyfriend and there was a couple months before college, one month into college, and a few months after college where I didn’t have a boyfriend —-but since the 8th grade I’ve always had SOMEONE…I’ve always been “attached.”

I never pondered this before today. It never came into my mind. I guess I never really worried about it until now. Now it’s in my head and I need to sort it out.

When you’re in school, if you didn’t have a boyfriend, it didn’t really matter so much. For me, it might have been better to not have had a serious boyfriend (almost) the whole time I was in college. It was easy back in high school or college. Your days were filled with friends and lots of things to do. There was always a new guy that you never noticed before that you could strike up a love interest with or date.

Now in my 30’s I’m desperately wondering where are the crowds of men are to choose from? Ummmm…I think they exist very sparingly. It seems they are married, engaged, or have a girlfriend that they are serious with.

And then for those guys who are still single…sometimes I find my single self wondering why they are still single?? I know…it seems too-faced to think that when I’m 32 and single but I’m single for a specific reason: my husband decided he didn’t want to be married anymore. I didn’t choose it – he did. So when I see a guy in his 30s who was NEVER married I keep asking Why is he still single? What’s wrong with him? I can’t help it. That’s what I think.

My worry is I feel like I have to scrutinize everyone now. I spent 10 years with someone that I thought I would spend my entire life with and look how that ended up. I feel like I have to be very careful about my decisions in the future and how I will handle meeting someone new.

I’m not going to scrutinize everyone I’m not that crazy…I know it’s okay to date all kinds of people just to get out there and see what it’s like. But I think I will be hard on guys that seem like they have really good potential for the longer term. The reason why I feel this way is that I am petrified to enter into something for the long term that will end up where I am now.

I never thought I would be divorced. I never thought I would be single at 32. I thought I’d be married with a family by now. I never want this to happen to me again, ever. But we’re not fortune tellers so how do we know we’re making the right decisions on who we let into our lives for the long term?

These are all the questions I have as a girl who never worried about being single and dating before. I don’t know how to find the answers to these questions and I’m not sure I’ll ever find away to figure it all out. Sometimes I guess the answers have to come to us…we can’t seek them out.

I’m not into online dating so I just wonder where I’m going to stumble upon eligible bachelors…I guess it will just happen when it’s meant to. I have to believe in that. I know that connecting with an old friend who I’ve know for years didn’t work either so scratch that one off the list for now.

Please don’t get me wrong…I know it’s OK to be single. The idea of me never being single for a long period in my life is very foreign to me. I’m still trying to figure out how to handle the whole thing. The positive thing that I have going is that I’m not the only single person amongst my friends. Having that support system to ponder these things with and bounce these things off of is a life saver for me.