Not quite late-night ungrammatical, poorly-spelled rambling

 Whether I like it or not, I am approaching forty. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll have a midlife crisis, if I’m having one, or if I’ve had one and have already come through it.  Some might argue that my midlife crisis started during the summer of last year.  Many people who followed the epic saga of the last year may make a convincing argument that it has already occurred. (Yes, I know my saga isn’t epic. It just felt that way to me.)  I might not be able to make a convincing argument because of the feeling of something being not-quite-right in the stomach all day.  It’s hard to describe because it’s a mixture of feeling full, nauseous and a little bit of pain.  However, I have adjusted, and I have survived. I am learning slowly to give up the life I expected for the experiences life  has in store for me.  No one said this would be easy.

I’ve never felt like life has piled up on me over the years. Things have seemed overwhelming at times, but somehow, I’ve managed to pull through it.  It would be wrong to say I came through these experience unscathed or unchanged. Even though I wish many things in my life had not occurred, every single experience has contributed to the person I have become.  As I look back, I can see things that did not quite happen. I never became a programmer, wrote a best-selling novel or even worked for the small town newspaper that was my goal a few years ago.  These things are slowly slipping away from me. They are not impossible, but they are more difficult to achieve now. My nephew, in one of his vengeful fits, told me I had never quite made it as a reporter.  His statement stung.

I do not know if I’ll manage to be a writer again. I can accept that I do not have the talent and the people skills to make it into print.  Regardless of what my nephew says, I still see myself that way.  As I contemplate the current direction of my life, I’ve realized I don’t actually have definable goals about what I want out of it.   All I had was some vague, indefinable goal of wanting to help people. (Although I do not like people asking me for help if my experiences in MMORPGs are an indication.)  Even though I liked my job at Sam’s Club, it did not actually give me a purpose. It was simply a means to an end.

I know I’m rambling, but if I had been born in a different religion and possessed more social skills, I might have decided to become a member of the clergy or join a religious order.  As much as I would have liked my job to have meaning, it was not to be. The most meaningful things I have done, I have done with little or no compensation. Sometimes there was not even an expectation of compensation.

The past year has not been the tragedy I initially feared it would be, for which I am grateful.  There are things that would make my life easier right now, including getting disability.  All of this may have been the result of the random roll of genetic dice. (It seems that more than my mother’s appearance genes were passed onto me.) Yet, I still believe that there is some purpose to what has occurred. Was it to teach me empathy for a condition I might not have experienced otherwise? It’s just as likely that I needed to learn how certain political policies affected people in a personal manner before I would change my mind.  (God is not a politician as far as I know, and I do not want to suggest that he is.) Do I need to learn not to base my worth on my ability to work?  Or is it a combination of all these things? I don’t have a good answer right now.  Continuing this confusing post would probably depress the reader.  These are things I need to mull over as I go to sleep tonight.   My mind will probably think about how to sneak rats in past the housemate instead, however.