worthless…

I feel worthless.

My counselor says I’m not worthless.  He says that I have intrinsic value just because I am.  I don’t have to do anything.  I don’t have to be anything.

But tonight I feel worthless.  I feel like I don’t matter.  That I really do not have any value.

Just a blob.

When I was raising my daughters, I felt like I mattered as their mommie.   I home schooled and we were together.  Now they’re in college and it’s not the same.  Yes, I’m still their mommie and I guess they still need me, but it’s not the same.  I don’t have that identity any more.

So I wonder who I am.

My daughters, though, would tell you that I do matter to them, that they love me very much. My younger one came in a few minutes ago to vent.  And after she did, she told me she would never leave me.  She told me that it would be okay.

I always wanted to be a wife, ever since I can remember.  Well, I’m certainly not that.  The crazy thing is, I still want to be.  I want to be with someone.  I want someone to talk with at the end of the day and sleep with at night.  I want someone to hang out with and do stuff with.  And I want to actually mean something to him, whoever “he” is.  I want to be cherished and adored.

And it’s not all one-sided.  I want to be able to give, too, and not have it rejected.

I think I’ve told you that my husband gives messages at his church sometimes.  That makes me feel so wretched.  I don’t even know how to explain it.  I feel like dirt, like trash, like scum.

At work, too often I feel like that only my mistakes are noticed.  Maybe that’s not fair.  I know people at work like me.  Maybe it’s just me only seeing my mistakes.  But I still end up feeling like a failure.

So often a failure.

Maybe all this is just hormonal.  Between “that time of the month” and “that time of life,” and the whole living with a passive aggressive person and my own codependency, I’m pretty much a basket case.  I feel like I always struggle all of the time with so much.  I feel like I am lost in a strange city where I don’t speak the language.

Maybe some of this is just mid-life stuff – a transition between who I was and who I will be.  I wish I knew what I wanted to be “when I grow up.”  I really did like staying at home with my daughters. But that is behind me.  What’s next?  I feel like I am in fog, just going through each day, but not really going anywhere.

And I don’t even know where to go.

Yes, I want to meet somebody.  I still want that “happily ever after.”  But I think maybe I’ve learned that that can’t be my sole identity.

I have stuff that I do, like my job and the gym and Toastmaster.  But I don’t know who I am.

Sometimes, rarely, I can look deep into my heart and see my dreams.  But I think I discount them and deny them.  And they’re also kind of nebulous.  More like random images and feelings than an actually list.  Maybe because I feel like I can’t have them.  Or maybe because I feel guilty about them.

So often I read about letting go.

Confession:  I don’t know how to do that.  I don’t know what that looks like.  I think it would make everything easier, but how?

Maybe I will feel a little more sane tomorrow.

I hope so.