We are going through another reorganization at work. My manager got displaced, so the team I’m on is being disbanded. I will find out Friday where I go from here. My job is safe, but my job duties will most probably change and my teammates and I are expecting to be split apart. Maybe it’s because of all the changes at work, but lately I have been dreaming of teaching ballet again. Unfortunately my feet are in terrible shape (arthritis in my big toe, plantar fasciitis, and Achilles tendinitis) and I’m 40 pounds overweight thanks to fibromyalgia and depression.

I just can’t seem to reconcile the longing of my heart with the reality of life as I must live it. I owe it to my children to stay in this well paying job with corporate America so they can live in the nice townhome I had built and have wonderful health insurance. At least in my current job I can be with them in the evenings and the weekends when my husband doesn’t have them. If I were teaching ballet, I’d be teaching after school and into the evenings. It might work if I taught only one evening a week, but even that seems impossible in my present physical condition, and it would mean I’d still be working with corporate America. I’m just not that in love with my job. But my therapist tells me I have to face reality and do what will pay the bills.

Now that my marriage is over I dream about having the life I had back in Kentucky, before he moved all of us out to North Carolina to be near his family. But that life is over, the children are older, and I’m single and in chronic pain…not to mention overweight. I was teaching at several schools, namely one where I was the ballet director, and I had a dancewear store that I ran with my husband and my parents. Life seemed very sweet back then. We were poor, but we were happy.

I realize, too, that I’m more depressed lately. My husband (what do you call the person you are separated from and soon-to-be divorced from?) wants to speed up the divorce proceedings, whereas I was thinking we had until January to deal with it. So I’m facing grief over the loss of my marriage. Even though I don’t want him back, it’s sad to think I’ll have to start new memories with someone else one day; someone who won’t share the memories of my children being born and growing up; someone who hasn’t invested years into loving them.

I’ve contacted my daughter’s psychiatrist to see about getting an appointment with him for myself. I just don’t think the 30 mg of Cymbalta and 150 of Wellbutrin is cutting it for me now. My pain is not too terrible, but my depression is very bad and I’m walking in a daze wishing to crawl in bed most of the time. My therapist is going to begin HeartMath with me tomorrow. I’ve never experienced that before, so it should be interesting. It is supposed to bring about clarity of thought, so I’m eager to try it. Will keep you posted.