Wow. It hit me hard this time. I’d been up all night pretty much on the red eye flight, and came home to a messy house and a whole lot of exhaustion. I’m glad my mom is here, otherwise the loneliness would be overwhelming.
I remember my therapist of many years telling me to act “as if”. Meaning, act as if everything is fine. What would you do with your day? Would you get up at 8am and make coffee? Go for a walk or a swim? And then you do that. Basically, be an actor in your own life. It’s good advice, and it really works. Pretty soon you don’t feel like an actor, you feel it really IS your life.
I didn’t do that today. I slept until about 3:30pm. I dream about my grandma, and wake up crying. I’m overwhelmingly sad. I am longing for something… and I think it’s that feeling I had at Muir Beach, total freedom and lightness of being. I felt alive, brimming with life. Purpose didn’t matter… I was a part of the world, the earth, and needed no other purpose.
I don’t know what I’m doing here, in the middle of nowhere in the Midwest, with not a single friend. I feel guilt for adopting my daughter sometimes, because another family may have been able to give her lots of siblings, a community, people surrounding her. We are totally isolated. It was a selfish thing for me, to adopt, because I wanted to be a mom and I wanted her. But if she feels as lonely and unhappy as I do, then that’s on me.
So I’m trying to drag myself up and out of depression, clean the house, do things with my daughter. But I feel less than alive, and unsure of my place in the world in the life I currently live. My days feel so purposeless, stuck in a cycle of work to pay the bills, pay childcare and gas and car insurance so I can work. I’m tired and bored and would do anything to have a group of moms and kids, a large family, a community of people with which to interact every day, just to feel a part of something.
Mother of All Things 
Hugs from me. Don’t ever feel guilty about how you feel. You’re teaching your little girl how to cope with ups and downs. You are there for her when she needs you, even when you don’t feel your best. That’s important too.
Plus, I was a foster kid and grew up with a family who mistreated me and now, as an adult, I have no family, no siblings and no sense of what a family should be aside from the two people in my life who make me able to carry on each day. I think you’re doing just fine by your daughter. Just take it one day at a time, as you always do. xx