Hello everyone! I am sorry I haven’t had time to write much lately. I have been working a lot and spending my spare time working on crafts for Christmas gifts. It is that time of year, when we all get so busy and stretched so thin. It is also the hardest time for me because I really miss my family and friends that are so far away. I was looking forward to co-hosting Thanksgiving today for my husband’s family and then I was suddenly out in the cold when plans were changed. I am not even baking a single pie or making my here-to-fore requested candied sweet potatoes or stuffing.

To top that off, I just found out I don’t even get Friday off work so I can’t even cook and bake tomorrow for my own Thanksgiving festivity with my husband. All these things together have left me a little depressed and lonely in spite of the happiness I have with my husband now. But this isn’t a day to whine or feel low. It is a day to be grateful and give thanks. I am thankful for my husband, his family, and our home. I am thankful I was able to visit both of my sons this year even if I can’t be cooking for them today. I am thankful for having a job even if it is only 35% of my prior income and with no benefits. I am thankful for regaining my health. I am grateful I have more years to live.

I do wonder though, what is my purpose now? What is the point of my life? I am not a mother anymore. My boys are all grown up and don’t need me anymore. I am not a driven ambitious business woman anymore, I just don’t have the hope or drive left after the downturn in the economy and the loss of my career. I have no hopes of owning that home I have always dreamed about. I have even less hope of becoming the writer I always imagined I would become. There is not a glimmer of a career ahead for me even though I give myself to my work.

It is a very personal thing to me regardless of the title or role I am performing. I am a creative soul and thereby try to be just as creative with my work. Creativity comes from deep inside and puts a piece of me into the work I do. I am disappointed that though I give my soul to my work, my employers always remind me that I am only a second or third class person as a clerk or accountant. I am not as important as the sales people who “make us the money”. Funny thing is, that two sales people left in the past two months and it wasn’t even a blip on the radar, but if I or either of the other two operations staff members were to leave the entire company would be in a tail spin and scrambling and it would take weeks or even months to recover and train a replacement. So why are we lowly underpaid support staff the ones that are treated as second or third class citizens unworthy of time off to be with family in spite of being the lowest paid employees? It is so unfair and yet we have no recourse. Almost all American companies treat us the same way. So I give up my time with family and give a piece of my soul away for a pittance because I lost my edge and forward mobility when I gave up my job, my home, and my family for my husband five years ago.

Yes, I am grateful for my husband, his family and our home; but, I have a certainty in my heart that we should have stayed in California five years ago. If we had we would not be buried under a mountain of debt without any hope of ever paying it off. I would have my career still and be earning at least three times what I am now. We would have been able to buy ourselves a home on a short sale with this housing burst. And we would be able to invite family and friends to our home and host a warm Thanksgiving celebration like I used to do.

Now, I feel like my life as I knew it is over. And the life I am left with is merely existing and aging toward death. No goals remain, no dreams remain, no hopes remain. It just is a day to day grind. Is this all there is? We live the first half of our life full of hopes and dreams and ambitions followed by years of realizing our ship never came in, we never did find our bliss or achieve those goals and now it is too late. What do I do now? Where do I go from here?

I don’t know the answer to what my tomorrows will bring. I do know that today, I will stay home and meditate and bake. I just don’t have it in me to be a guest at someone else’s Thanksgiving Dinner. I will cook and bake for a special dinner for two for tomorrow after work, while my husband visits his family today. I will have my own Thanksgiving Day creating yummy goodies as though my family and friends were here. I am grateful for the option to choose the way I want to spend my day.