Am confused.

Probably to do with recovery from health issues?

Have you been away this summer at all?

Or/and would it make you in a better place to stay home fro a while doing crafts and seeing family?

Looking forward to meeting you next Sunday!

As am I Jane!

Meeting you I mean, not me.....

I am also in a strange place at the moment. I recently lost my father whom I had cared for 10 yrs, and have got health problems imc unable to get a decent nights sleep, so that has something to do with I expect. Like you I'm very busy , but feel just going through the motions of life. I' seem to be waiting for something catastrophic to happen! Every so often there are cross roads in peoples lives could it be that you have reached one? Perhaps your restlessness means that you need to reassess your life at present. You mention your DH is working from home. Do you feel your bit of space has been invaded? Or that his life has changed but yours hasn't You might be out of recovery mode and be ready for something new. A little adventure may be! But I don't think you will find what it is by battening down the hatches and staying at home. I am also dreading winter and the dark nights which affect my moods (SAD) could this also be part of it? Hope you find your inner calm soon.

Had quick 2 day visit to my brother Soon but don't go away until end of the month. I would be in a better place left to my own devices I think, but pressure is on for village Xmas activities-lights, Xmas fair and panto.

Katek I've been feeling like that for months. I have no real solutions though. For me its probably some nagging wories and discontent. I really have to strive to stop feeling sorry for myself.
I had/have been trying to some calming meditation stuff like just switching off all worries etc and trying to calm myself down from feeling anxious.
I am afraid I cannot offer much advice. other that don't feel guilty about feeling disatisfied.

My friend who I was very close to emigrated about three years ago. She and I picked each other up though many crises over the years.

I am hoping the return to the choir season and a U3A group will give me a kick up the backside.

Cherrytree, I wonder if you've hit the nail on the head? Have I come to one of life's crossroads? Lots of the things I'm doing have been my responsibility for many years-in some cases almost 30 years-and I think I'm just doing them out of duty now. Trouble is there isn't anyone to take over these roles. I do feel a little invaded by dh, it's the mess!! Little heaps of paperwork/random things in various places. We have set the summerhouse up as a home office but he still manages to create havoc in the house. We moved 2 years ago but there's a bit of me would like to move nearer dgs's but you can't live your life around family and nothing else.

I think the DH invasion is more impacting than you may gave realised. Plus holding positions that now feel onerous but which perhaps are hard to find replacements for. So maybe you feel a bit trapped and could do with freeing things up a bit ? The DH presence I can sympathise with. It's the things they change such as, as you say, bits of paperwork not being tidied up. Small things, but irritating. My DH is a keen philatelist and yesterday I found one of my good saucepans filled with water with stamps floating in it, on the dining room table. When I picked it up angrily to remove it I spilled water over the table. Needless to say I blamed him. Try to release yourself from some of your duties and don't feel guilty about it.
Possibly a rather depressing cold and wet end of summer doesn't help either.
All the best !

Yes, I agree, it's DH issue. It certainly is for me, he has been off work with depression (which is stressful enough as it is) since early June and for heaven only knows how much longer, and I hadn't realised how much I need my own space, to find things where I put them, not to come down in the morning to find him sitting in my computer chair, disagree about what to eat that night - all sorts of things. It's an added layer of stress on top of what you normally have and it takes a long time to get used to it.

I did that survey for the student late last night, about how you feel, and it was a bit of an eye-opener.

feel exactly same ...OH has to have an opinion on everything....and argue...
DGD has to be everywhere,make a mess everywhere,argue everywhere,especially with OH and about money...that she dosent have,we are unable to give,am feeling very squashed,fed with all of them......could go on but just depress everyone and myself ....

It may be time to give up some of your responsibilites, or at least give notice on some of them.

You've got Christmasitis I get it at this time of year! Time for a chat with DH maybe over a meal + a glass of wine tell him how you feel. He will be completely oblivious, they always are, as long as their life is ticking over. Delegate with the xmas lights call a meeting explain that due to recent health problem help is required with lights. If nothing is forth coming Then they can do with out! You can bet your bottom dollar someone will organise them next year. Decorate your home for your friends and family to admire. Is it that you do all the work but you feel nobody appreciates your efforts? They soon will when your not doing it all by yourself. You must look after your health no one else will. I'm sure something good will pop when you least expect it.

It does really sound as if it is space to rest and reassess you need, [Katek] You sound as if you have no 'me' time. Perhaps you are tired and a bit post viral. It does take a lot of time to get used to the DH at home scenario. I still get days of frustration when the place seems to be generating mess whatever I do. My DH is a lovely man but so untidy. He just doesn't see it.

How about doing something (or nothing!) just for yourself? A walk and a sit on my own from time to time helps me cope with the 'cabin fever' feeling. I live beside the sea and like to sit on a rock just looking at the waves. Do you have a favourite place?

I think we have "what is the point of it all" moments all through our lives but they often disappear very quickly under our busy life. "The point" for many, is often caring for others on top of working in order to maintain ourselves and them and that swamps any navel gazing we may be inclined to. I find I am doing a lot more of that (navel gazing) as I get older, have more time and, what seems to be, less reason for being.

Many people seem to find solutions by making themselves very busy with existing occupations - hence very neat pensioner gardens and some take on something new, the church, an allotment or volunteering perhaps. Some know they are needed, perhaps by an elderly relative but this may not be as fulfilling as bringing up children was. Add to this the real fact that we don't have the same energy as we did when we were younger and that the world is changing - just as it did in our heyday - to suit the younger generation rather more than ours and it is not surprising we feel a little stunned by it all.

I don't think you can change the world so, in the end you can only change your view of it. I find chatting to friends helps but it is not always easy to find someone, however much your friends care for you, who can understand your specific challenges, So chatting with a bigger group such as Gransnet really helps. I have always have the old Persian (?) Persian proverb in the back of my mind too - it works for good times and not so good "This too shall pass". It always does

What a thoughtful and helpful post Gracesgran Thank you.

katek I am glad you posted about this subject and also glad(well not glad but you know what I mean) that others have this "perculier" feeling that you can't really describe.
I have just come back from a long weekend with my mum & dad in their static caravan at the seaside, had a lovely chilled time, they are both 80 an in reasonable health for 80 although my dad has onset pf Parkinsons. But have woke up this morning thinking "whats it all about us being here"! why are we here? maybe it's coming back home and DH not being here and the very cold misty morning that indicates the onset of Autumn,m and maybe just maybe it is a very very slight bit of depression at the back of ones mind.
Hopefully as the days evolves and we get stuck into what ever wer'e doing, we will forget about it and sort of get on with the days events.Time for my Vit C and Cod liver oil.

I think it's just a getting old thing. (Sorry) You feel jaded because your energy is fading. No one can feel as sprightly at sixty or seventy as we did at forty. You have to learn to cut your coat to suit your present day cloth. And look after yourself.

And there are compensations to having the DH at home all the time. Nice to have someone about the place. You just have to face the fact that it is his turn to enjoy his share of the house. You soon get used to it.

Don't expect too much of yourself.

Are you sure you wouldn't be happier living closer to your GSs Kate? It would get you away from all the demands being made of you at the moment. Perhaps it's time to leave that stuff behind?

I think the "friend" thing can be a bit over-egged. When it comes down to it, no friend is ever going to be as close to you as your family members.

If you are post viral, I am sure gransnetters can come up with ideas for that.

Being self-critical is a marker for depression, and you have been quite poorly recently and it would not be surprising if you had a bit of post-viral blues.

I can identify with the idea that all the things you have been supporting over the years have drifted onto auto-pilot a bit. And also with the idea that we do slow down and have less energy as we age, and we just have to bite the bullet on that one and keep active but not overdo it.

I run a community choir, sing in a choral society, run a village library, sit on the school governors (a mammoth task!), organise a local arts festival, organise musical opportunities in the local primary schools, help run a book club and a poetry group.............you are getting the picture! So I do know where you are coming from! I enjoy them all, but as you rightly say, it results in piles of paper lying about the house, lots of phone calls and emails, and always something I should be doing! Sometimes I think I should drop some things, but then think of the long winters and how much these things get me through.

As to being with OH all day - I don't find it a problem but then it is a longstanding situation and we have both adapted. He does his own things and I do mine and then we share bits - visits to family, child care, music-making etc. I do not think we often sit down and plan with OH how our lives should be when we are both at home, and a pattern sort of drifts along and we go with the flow.

Talking of OH's - mine has just sent me a Jacqui Lawson birthday card on the wrong day and with the wrong age (older!) on it! - I will smile and say thank you!!

it's just a getting old thing. (Sorry) You feel jaded because your energy is fading. No one can feel as sprightly at sixty or seventy as we did at forty. You have to learn to cut your coat to suit your present day cloth. And look after yourself
I am glad you said that jingl because I often feel likewise. Although I have this image (ha ha) of myself as just as I was in my fifties and certainly more energetic/livelier/intellectually flexible/blah blah than my mother was at my age, I have to admit that my stamina is no longer what it was, my tolerance of bull*****ing lower than it was, and my optimism for the future frequently thin on the ground.
Main thing is not to waste energy on fretting unnecessarily about what I can't do but take joy in what I still can. Our society can be very unforgiving as it is very youth centred, we are surrounded by images of glamorous and energetic grannies/granny-age "role models", like Helen Mirren in a bikini, HM apparently indefatigable at 89, septuagenarians trekking in the Himalayas or whatever and we can feel failures if we can't still do all the things in that wonderful song "Because I'm a woman, w-o-m-a-n"
PS katek, are you sure you are not Lynda Snell?

re the Linda Snell thing.

Just caught up with this thread. Thank you Katek for beginning it and my good wishes to you. All the posts resonate to a degree but Gracesgran has neatly summed up my current sense of myself. Two years into a new area my contacts are, understandably, acquaintances rather than close friends. Not helpful to be sad, its just how it is, but sometimes I am very sad and also lonely. Good friends are geographically scattered, replicating the geographic changes of my life. I can sometime think of it as a wonderful map of my history, but sometimes wish for them all to be here. There is more time to think. Jingl is so right about energy, the image in the head and the reality of the body seem to move further apart as each month progresses. Perhaps it would help if those of us who feel similarly unsettled could be a little kinder to ourselves? I'm off for a walk in the sun - far better for me than thinking too much.