Giving Up? or I Think This is MORE than just Early Fall Blues

Bear with me, please, I'm really unhappy and need some blog therapy. I don't know what else to do with my life right now. The boys need to be fed, there are dishes to wash, but I need this now.

I just ate a chocolate bar, this one that I found in the kitchen (my parents bought it? I don't know), but it didn't help. But then, again, I don't much like American candy (and find really odd calling chocolate "candy" anyway, for me chocolate is chocolate, not just "candy"). I like chocolate, and doce de leite (Portuguese for the Spanish dulce de leche, which is NOT, BTW really caramel, it's something much more delicious than what you call caramel here).

I know, I'm grumpy and depressed and it's easy to become my most aggressive and annoying expatriate self. I've dreamed of starting a website for expatriates for these kinds of petty complaints. I won't share the name 'cause I really wanted to do it someday. Yeah, someday... everything in my life in my life right now is relegated to "someday." From big things to little ones.

Someday we'll have real, stable jobs and settle down somewhere...
Someday we'll afford a new tv, new couches (we have an empty family room now that we returned the borrowed ones).
Someday perhaps we'll pay our renovation debts and save enough to renovate the remaining two bathrooms.
Someday... if one of us get the aforementioned job (it doesn't need to be plural, even!) we'll put this house on the market and it will sell.
Someday... no, I don't think we can really be happy in church here.

I was just walking outside looking at my flowers, after dropping a bag in the trash and I felt really bitter. I really don't know the reason, I mean, I kind of do, but there's no one single reason I can pinpoint, but for the first time in years, many many years, and I'm crying as I write this, sobbing really, I'm NOT looking forward to the future.

That, to me, is utterly devastating. I can hardly write it, the sobs shake me so much.

I've always looked forward to the future, all my life. And, without fail, every single year has always been better than the one before. Really, you can say that it's cheesy, sappy, whatever, but my life has been consistently great, and improving. I went through school, got into college, met my husband, got married, moved to another country, started grad school, bought first house, had babies (that, was wonderful!), finished grad school... and then... last year struck (it started two years ago, to be more precise, on that fateful Halloween). Hard.

(phew, the crying has subsided, I feel a tiny bit better) -- ok, gotta go feed those two adorable boys. Hopefully I'll be able to finish later without a hitch (2:09 pm, we had a late breakfast, ok? :-) All right, 2:48, we're done eating).

I think it's just my brain's way to try to cope with the previous "unfortunate events," not only the house situation, but the latest things that shook me to my core and are partly unbloggable.

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And then there's the weather, the seasons...

All of a sudden, from last week to this one, it seems, mornings and evenings became chilly. Today is a perfect "fall day" with the sun shining brightly and the sky a perfect blue. And these things... this very same gorgeous day, terrify me! And I feel the tears welling up all over again as I continue writing.

I was already planning ahead a bit last night with K since we'll be home this fall, through Spring. "We should turn on the space heater in the office," I said to K. But I'm dreading with all my might feeling chilly every single day for over six months (being skinny is really a problem in winter, I'm always cold, particularly my feet and hands, which makes me feel miserable). I'm not even going to say I wish we could afford to keep the thermostat higher (it's usually around 60-63, 59 or lower when we're not home) because that would mean polluting the environment way more! And then I have to feel guilty for taking long hot showers and using up lots of oil as well as polluting more, so I do it every other day. It's infuriating! I'm tired of having to endure cold weather and bare trees for six months. That's not what my life was like for nearly 25 years, only for the last 13 and I don't think I'll ever get used to it. Particularly not with a constantly chilly house. :-(

And that (coupled with the troubling church problems) is when it hits me. Hard, again.

What in the world are we doing here in this country again? What? Why are we here?

My mom asked those questions over and over as she saw how devastated I was with the church/school thing (she was actually angry. And I didn't have a good, convincing answer to give her. I felt -- as I've been feeling all along -- that in spite of the few problems and setbacks, that I'm happy with my life in this country, that I enjoy living here, that that's where I'm/we're meant to be right now. I'm no longer convinced of this, though. My despondent attitude about the future -- something so unlike me! -- is a strong indicator that perhaps we should seriously consider giving up our expatriate life. I'm nearly giving up. I keep saying I want to wait "four more years" for the citizenship, but... is it worth it?

Perhaps the days will pass and I will somehow recapture my joy of living, my positive attitude towards the future. Perhaps this will really be a mild winter as some forecasters indicate (K told me that they're saying it'll be another "El Niño" Winter) and that our 40 day trip to Brazil will help, but, right now, I'm not looking forward to anything. Frankly.

I can also blame it on the upcoming cyberschooling and the pressure that K is putting on me to "have a real schedule and real school days" or it'll all go down the drain. I'm confident that the boys and I can handle it, that the content of 2nd grade (perhaps some 3rd grade materials if it all becomes to easy for Kelvin) and, most of all, kindergarten are manageable and won't take that many hours a day (in school last year the kids would be done in less than 3 hours -- we did have less subjects, but still...). If you know me (I don't know how much I've written about this on the blog, probably quite a bit), you'll know that I DREAD routine, schedules, systematic daily planning and K has been making me feel awful by emphasizing these very things.

So, yeah, all these things combined... the fact that we just had the hardest problem of our lives (the whole house situation and all the fall out from K having decided to quit his job last year) then all these church troubles this summer have taken their toll on us. Poor K is going to have three jobs this Fall (his regular postdoc gig, adjunct teaching at a local university, and consulting to another researcher) so we can try to climb out of the hole we find ourselves in (some debt) and the pressure on me to deliver on the house/ home/cyber school front is almost unbearable. I frankly don't know if I can handle it the way K expects me to. And that is killing me too. It's just too much and I can't shake the depression, the negative feelings and the dread about the future. I can't even feel any anticipatory joy about the trip to Brazil! I can only think of how we can manage to pay the airfare (even though it's not that bad, with the two award travel tickets and all).

Sigh. I'm sorry for the terribly long and negative post. I can't even say it helped to write it. I'll have K read it, poor guy, since I can't talk about some of these things without going almost berserk (oh, boy! I could swear it was "beserk" not berserk -- oh, how I hate these little mistakes I make in any language, not just English, Portuguese too... I generally pride myself in my almost flawless spelling -- ha ha ha, just to show I don't know anything).

All right, let me hit publish before I change my mind (just kidding).