On Turning 50 Alone

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

What do you need to have to show for it?

I turn 48 in a month. Pretty much where you are. Divorced, few friends, not much to show for anything. Complete my bankruptcy tomorrow, so I got nothing, not even good credit.

I do everything alone. But you know what? I short while ago I lost the ability to lament over that fact. I realized that if I really did want to socialize more, nothing was really stopping me. In the end, you do what you want to do. If you lament because you’re not doing other things, then you have to take a step back and realize that you are making the choice to do what you are doing now. You can either keep making that choice and learn to be happy with it, or you can decide to make different choices that will lead to different results. For me personally, I’ve realized that I’m happiest when I’m alone, that I choose this for a reason. That I do like to socialize, but only on a managed and rationed basis. Too much social contact stresses me out and overloads me.

There were times in the past where I went to parties only because I wasn’t invited to very many parties in the first place, because I was afraid that I might not be invited again if I didn’t go. Then, even though I was in a bad mood, or unhappy about something else, or in physical pain, I went, had a shitty time and made other people unhappy with me. So eventually (and I’m a slow learner at such things), I learned that no matter how infrequently such opportunities arose, I should absolutely NOT go when I was not in a position to enjoy it.

Beyond that small advice, I can tell you something, one searcher to another;

There’s a good chance that you’re looking for yourself, in others.
There’s an equally good chance that you’re only looking for approval.
Maybe those two are the same thing.

Take a look within, in all honesty, review your actions and motivations, and find out what you are really looking for. Then decide if you really want it or not.

22

Another thought - have you tried volunteering at all? It’s an old cliché, but it’s absolutely true - helping other people really does help you feel better.

23

Happy birthday!

Diabetes can make you feel run down, and achy - I can use 3 glazed sugar donuts as a sedative [high blood glucose levels can make you very dragged out and hungover feeling]

And I have a bit of odd advice - get a human room mate. Not a sex partner, just another human being living in the same place. They will give you someone away from work that you can talk with, and interact with. You may never end up BFF, but just having someone around to talk with can make it less lonely, but them not being a sex partner gives you private time as well. Internet buddies are ok, especially if for example they are like my game corporation companions, I spend hours chatting with them on teamspeak. However, as much as I like them, having a roomie to chat with [when my husband was out to see for long cruises] kept me from being depressed and fugueing out.

24

Maybe it is the sour grapes talking, but whenever I start to feel inferior I just think of and read about all the people who ‘have those things’ and are miserable anyway. I know tons of unhappy couples, and tons of people who have friends who still don’t feel like they fit in. You can find tons of people with great careers and who are married who still hate their lives. You can find tons of examples of people who are wealthy, well known, respected and make a living off of their artistic expressions who are addicted to drugs and alcohol to combat the inner turmoil and emptiness.

What I have learned in my own life is to a large degree how lonely you are is mostly under your control because it is based on how much self acceptance and self compassion you can muster. How lonely you are (for me at least) comes from that and not how many relationships you have, etc. For me that has done tons to ameliorate my loneliness for 2 reasons.

  1. You don’t ‘need’ other people to feel complete the way you would if you don’t like or accept yourself. You complete yourself and feel comfortable by yourself while still being able to enjoy other people.
  2. If you build those things, your personality changes for the better and people want to be around you more.
25

Nonsense! You both have extreme levels of awesomeness to show for it! Besides, I don’t think many people are where they want to be in life. My love life is good and my job is good but my housing situation sucks so badly that I literally got in a sobbing fight with my fiance about whether or not we should just give up the entirety of our savings to our scum sucking anal fissure of a slumlord so he will let us out of our lease (because at this point it would require us giving him every dime we have to pay out the length of our lease) and start over without a dime to our names just to get out of this crap hole. This is not where I expected to be when I turn 28 on Monday. But being in a bad place with my residence doesn’t erase all the other stuff I’ve got going on in my life.

Tonight when you go to bed and your ceiling is all in one piece and you don’t have to duct tape your closet closed to keep the mold from permeating the house and your bathroom isn’t pouring water through the light fixtures remind yourself that you have that going for you. If that isn’t enough I have a birthday present for you! For discounts on your diabetes meds you can check out www.sunrxdiscount.com and see if it helps at all. It is a free discount program for various medications that can be used by pretty much anyone and might help you bridge the gap between here and September.

26

PapSett - I’m sorry you feel so bad. Everyone feels that way sometimes, but wallowing is a bad thing. I know you’re prone to depression. But think how much better you are now, than you were this time last year. You have a job. All you have ot do is hang in there until September and your insurance kicks in. Hopefully you can get a little chemical assistance (that sounds wrong somehow).

And I know you’re disappointed that the barn you visited never called you back, but maybe you need to keep after then and try to set something up. I really think you’d feel better if you had some equine in your life.

Happy Birthday! You deserve it!

StG

27

Grow some hobbies. As people age it’s natural for friends to drift apart. All that means is that you need to keep restocking your friends. I have a variety of hobbies and each one comes with it’s own set of ever-replenishing friends.

Seems to me you could start with painting and poetry as 2 different hobbies to look into. Photography seems like a logical addition to painting down the line.

Happy birthday

28

I agree with the advice to try to find volunteer opportunities. It is a good way to feel useful, to meet other people, and often hearing about someone else’s problems helps to put your troubles in perspective.
Maybe look into volunteering to visit with elderly people at the local nursing home or a dementia care facility - then you could be helping out another lonely person out there. You don’t have to be an especially good conversationalist or anything. I’ve noticed from my job (in healthcare) that a lot of elderly people really crave just having someone around to listen to them talk. :slight_smile:

29

I will soon be lamenting that I am 30, which is significantly younger than your milestone, but there is something I want to share with you that I’ve learned over 29 years of existence-

Its never too late to change your life or your attitude. We hamstring ourselves by convincing ourselves “I’ve done X for so long there’s no way I’ll change.”.

Find someone in your life to hang out with or talk to. No man is an island. I’m sure there’s someone in your life that would enjoy your company. This might sound a bit creepy, but hear me out- something I noticed that was kind of touching on Craiglist was the number of people posting an ad asking if anyone wanted to do something. Of course many of them were sexual in nature, but quite a few were written by lonely people- Folks who found it depressing to go see the A Team in theaters by themselves, or simply wanted a conversation with someone over a couple of Swansons microwave dinners or something.

Another thing that cheered me up was reading Post Secret. any time I felt mediocre, unaccomplished, lonely, etc I read entries and realized that my lonely self lived in a world full of lonely insecure people who might equally feel like they are in a kind of ‘rut’.

30

I’d like to second a lot of what Incubus says above. I’m 29 too and just now learning that you can in fact change lifelong habits. Good luck with everything, Papsett.

31

You guys truly are the best! I had a very, very rough night at work- just an example of one call, a guy had been having cell service problem at his home (worked fine anywhere else) and I checked the mapping tool which showed 30 towers in his home area being worked on. I explained this to him and told him they were working on the problem and he screamed at me that he is an executive at Warner Brothers and he wanted his service *NOW *and didn’t care if I climbed that tower myself.

Um… OK. I’ll get right on that.

That was just 1 of maybe 40 calls… each one worse than the one before. If I learn nothing else from this job, I am learning how to treat people with respect.

Anyway, I digress.

I am saving this thread and am going to refer to it often. There are MANY great sugestions here, and I can honestly say I have never felt such an outpourin of friendship and acceptance.

Oh… favorite cake? German chocolate. :slight_smile:

32

Next time he calls complaining he can’t get a signal cut him off. It’s not like he’s going to know you hung up on him.

And next time you think work sucks you might want to think of the people (ahem) who have been laid off.

33

So glad you’re feeling a bit better!

34

PapSett,

At the risk of being one to proffer more unsolicited advice, I feel like I should say this:

I have struggled for much of my adult life with depression, whether strictly neurochemical, or partly as a result of life circumstance.

Of all the counseling, medication, advice, platitudes, self-help techniques, and well-meaning overtures from friends and family, know what one single piece of advice helped me the most, by far, through all my years of treatment?

“Look without, not within.”

Meaning, make your life more about helping and fulfilling others, and you will find that you can’t help but be fulfilled yourself. (Quite a few psychologists and therapists have picked up on this, in fact, and it now forms an important part of some kinds of behavioral therapy for depression.) While your options may be limited due to your health problems, there is an entire world of people out there who could benefit from your compassion, friendship, intellect, etc. The possibilities to help others are almost endless.

Perhaps you could tutor. Or help someone learn English. Get in touch with the Boys & Girls Club, the United Way, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, the Y, your local hospital, nursing home or shelter, and find out what you can do to help. Something, anything. I think you will find, like I did, that reaching out to help others is the best possible help you can give, yourself.

Best wishes.

And indeed, happy belated birthday!

35

I worked cell phone support for a couple years. There are a lot of angry ppl out there that can ruin your day. I hope to never work it again, even though I got “Employee of the month” once, and runner up a couple times. I was good at it, but never so good that ppl wouldn’t unload on me with both barrels. It sucks to be good at a job and still be yelled at.

Glad you’re doing better. FWIW, I think there are a lot of folks out there living a life they hadn’t anticipated, didn’t plan for, and didn’t want. I know I am. My favorite piece of bumper-sticker philosophy is, “Life is what happens while you’re making other plans.” Still, it would be nice if we didn’t have to weather it all by ourselves.

36

As I frequently say here: a lot of Anger is based on the feeling of powerlessness. People want the power to make their world be the way they want it to be and unfortunately, we don’t have that power. So in the customer service field, you get the displeasure of working with people in positions of power, who are powerless over this particular situation, don’t understand why, and become angry. They’re used to using their anger and power to bully people into changing things to suit them.

Next time you get someone like that, remember one thing: They’re angry because they’re afraid. They’re afraid because they don’t have the power to fix the situation. They’re throwing that anger at you because they want to try to force YOU to fix the problem. Don’t work from their anger, work from their fear. And, like in many situations, if you can’t fix it, then let the anger go by, because while it may on the surface appear that they’re angry with you, it really is all about them being powerless to have the world be the way they want it to be, right now. (Imagine them as tantrum throwing 5 year olds who aren’t getting their way. Sometimes it helps.)

37

PapSett,

Today is my birthday, and I am 53 years old. My life has been blessed with a wonderful, loving wife and many good friends. Yet, in spite of this, there are moments when I look at my lot in life and say “This is not where I wnated to be at this point in my life.” I think most people feel that way sometimes. Then I remind myself of what I call the “Gymnasium Syndrome.” Say you are exercising in a Gym, and you look to your right. You see some guy who’s really buff and think to yourself “Gee, I wish I was in that good of shape.” Then you look to your left, and some guy is looking at you and thinking the same thing. It always helps - especially as we get older - to focus on the positive, and be thankful for what you have.

Tonight I will celebrate my birthday with many of my friends. Most of them are people that I met through my church and through my Masonic lodge. I cherish these people and would do anything for them as they would for me.

Although there are several here who poo-poo religious beliefs, may I offer this: Go and find a church where you feel comfortable; both with the people and with the doctrine and sacrements. You may find that this becomes a very real source of support and encouragement. I know that I am never alone and that the Lord is always with me. You are also a child of God and He loves you, cares about you and wants to see you happy.

38

I read your post too and hope today has given you a brighter perspective.

39

Point 1- our calls are monitored and if you hang up on a customer, you are fired. Period. I might hate the job, but it pays decently and I need it.

Point 2- Believe me… I KNOW. I was laid off from American General, a job I LOVED in May '09. It took me 10 long months to find this job. I was almost out of unemployment. So I count my blessings that I have a job every day. But that doesn’t change the stress level, y’know?

40

Happy Birthday. I have seen the reverse side of 50 for a few years and often look back and wonder where it all went.

You are nor alone- there are heaps of us on the board.

I see your problem- one beer? Come and visit and we will cure that.