I feel like I’ve had an epiphany. Maybe. Half an epiphany? Maybe.

I have my ups and downs. At certain times of the day or times of the week, I suspect the ‘downs‘ are coming. Yet I haven’t been able to figure out how to avoid them… at least not entirely.

But this is a post about feeling better. Feeling good.

One of my ‘weak spots‘ has been Sunday nights. This used to be a downer for me when I was still at my horrible job before the layoff. Knowing I had to go back to the hellhole Monday morning ruined Sunday for me.

But…

Today is Monday. [Okay, it’s Tuesday because it’s after 2:30 am, but I haven’t been to bed yet, so I’m still on Monday.] Yesterday [meaning Sunday] just sort of floated by without me paying much attention to what day it was. It wasn’t a huge downer this week. And I can only attribute that to one thing.

No, not the joys of Christmas. Seriously, I’m still me… 

The one thing is something that was missing this week.

Every Sunday night, I have ‘the moment‘ when I get the same overwhelmingly upsetting, even guilt-ridden, thought — everyone has somewhere to be tomorrow morning except me. Every single Sunday. This week, I didn’t have it. It was missing. And I know why.

The kids have school for three days this week — Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday — so they are not home until mid-afternoon. But John is on vacation. Neither of us had anywhere to be Monday morning [other than taking the kids to school, of course]. While I was home with nowhere to be, John would be, too.

In my day-to-day life, I want alone time. I need it. I enjoy it. But I want it on my terms. I don’t want it to come with feelings of uselessness and irrelevance and pointlessness. I think those are the things at the root of my weekly Sunday distress.

Does this mean some part of me actually wants a job? God, I don’t know. I still have the enormous, all-consuming fear that I’ll end up in a job I loathe and it’ll rot my soul. But I need a purpose. I’d love that purpose to be writing fiction or blog posts or something like that. But without any form of pay for those things, I’m left feeling valueless… worthless… pointless. And guilty.

I had none of those feelings this week because John is home with me. It’s like the uselessness and pointlessness and worthlessness and guilt are magically negated by not being alone… by not being the only one with nowhere to be. I’m not useless or pointless or worthless or guilt-ridden when I’m making breakfast for someone else or running errands with someone else. When I am with someone, taking care of someone, I have a purpose.

I’m still not sure where this leaves me. It does feel like a light turned on in the darkness of my brain. What I should do with that light, I don’t yet know… I guess I am ‘to-be-continued‘.