This time last year I had just lost a job I loved and started a job I would very quickly come to hate. And my cat ran away. I was a ball of anxiety, I burst into tears at the slightest provocation, I was totally miserable. It sucked.

Right now I have two jobs I like and am making plans to start a small business that I'm pretty sure I'm going to love. I still miss my cat, but I can think of her without waterworks, because I am appropriately medicated and the therapy took. I'm writing on a regular basis. I socialize without anyone having to drag me bodily out of the house. I'm thinking about dating again.

It's pretty awesome how stuff can turn around.

Stuff can turn around, but you have to turn it around.

I hate depression. It's so...depressing. And it never goes away! No matter how hard you work at it, if you slip, it's right there (bad black dog) to bite you on the ass and drag you down again.

OK, I'm going to watch Once More With Feeling right now.

It's my obligatory "start digging self out of the grave" watch. I don't know why it works, but it does. Once I can get it on the player, it's like a kick-start.

One of the (many) problems with depression is that it keeps me from doing the things I need to do, which makes my life that much more of a mess, which makes me more depressed, which....

Wow. I've barely done a lick of work today; reading this thread was much better. Now I have a gigantic rambly meara-type post (although meara herself is tiny); please bear with me. (It is a panda bear, FYI.)

I fully support both Allyson's love of the Camaro and the FPC.

I wonder if tied shoelaces will go the way of vinyl records, and soon young folks won't even know what a shoelace is. Or an aglet. Personally, I hate using Velcro to fasten shoes or clothing, because it invariably starts to turn up at the free edge and it looks stupid and catches on everything.

Which is not to say that you should feel one way or the other about it, it's a very personal decision, but there's some useless anecdata for you.

I know a woman who's given birth to two very healthy babies both after she was 50. Older women have healthy babies all the time.

I'm 48, and I still don't have a plan or goals for the rest of my life. I wanted to own my own home (done!), find a good boyfriend, and finish writing a novel. I don't even care if it never gets published, I'd just like to finish one of them. I wrote out sort of a bucket list while I was in the hospital after the PE, but it was all stuff like "wear red more often". I remember thinking, I don't need to do anything special; I don't have grand ambitions. Even if I spend the rest of my life sitting on the couch watching Buffy reruns, I want every moment of it I can get.

Why? Relationships are pretty much all compromise. (Not necessarily of principle, but...)

Can't speak for bonny, but personally, my relationships of "compromise" with men always seem to turn into "give him what he wants so he'll stop angsting; I don't need anything much". Sure, the problem is probably me and the men I've chosen (and one woman, let's not forget the beautiful blue-eyed buxom blonde crazy-ass control freak), but still. It leaves me rather unwilling to make any more "compromises". I've got a good life right now. It's hard to imagine fitting a man into it without losing something I don't want to give up.

Of course, I should probably leave the house more often and meet people.

That would have to be part of any plan to find a good boyfriend, right? Damn. Why can't they just have a delivery service?

I love going to Idaho because in Idaho Falls, I'm comparatively healthy and attractive, but also comparatively thin.

Heh. I've said it before, I'm a lot prettier in Virginia than I am in New Jersey/NYC.

I feel like there's something DEEPLY, severely wrong with me that I don't want kids. I really want to WANT them; I feel like I should be wanting them so I have the large brood to gather around my deathbed, etc., etc., but -- I have zero urge to have a kid. None. It makes me feel like a failure as a woman and a human.

Aw, Steph, I want to throw my arms around you and give you a supportive hug, but you don't like that, so I offer this instead: Fuck that. You are not a failure in any sense, as anything. I look at it like this: having sex is a normal human thing for a human to want to do, right? Don't many humans who find they DON'T want to have sex often think there's something deeply severely wrong with them? (Or is that just me?) What would you say to them? Maybe "be yourself, there's nothing wrong with you"? Not wanting kids is the same sort of thing. You don't have to do it, and you don't have to want to do it. (Besides, having kids is no guarantee that there'll be someone taking care of you when you're old and gathered around your deathbed to mourn -- just ask my sister's former MiL, whose four children have basically abandoned her because she's too much trouble, being all old and infirm and such.)

Me, I knew (not decided, knew) when I was 14 that I would never marry and never have kids. It wasn't *me* to do so. I had no regrets, and I still feel the same way. (Well, I might marry, now, having escaped the Church and realized that marriage does not necessarily equal slavery for a woman, which is what I felt it essentially was. But still, for me to ever marry would be a big (continued...)

( continues...) fucking deal.) I sometimes feel sad and afraid, when I contemplate being old all alone, in a nursing home with no one to visit or care about me. But that happens to lots of people, even people who did have kids and families and lots of friends. As Mal Reynolds said, "Everybody dies alone." I can't make all the decisions of my life based on a fear of what my dying might be.

Though I probably *do* eat more fresh fruit... Hmmm. That might be it! Although fiber is actually very helpful with IBS, so you'd think the increased fiber would make the innards chill out.

Eating lots of fruit and/or fiber makes me sick at my stomach and gives me bloat and gas and a gross feeling of something fermenting in my guts. You know, FWIW.

NYC is a wonderful place. I don't want to live there, because god I hate crowds and noise and noxious air, but I wish I could *teleport* there to spend the day.

I can never speak up and point to myself as living proof of the axiom that if you just get involved with things you're interested in, you'll Find That Special Someone.

Yeah, you know, I've tried this. I joined an astronomy club, and ISTG everyone was either ancient or a married couple. I joined a movie-watching club (yes, I know) and have been absolutely bored with everyone I met there. I joined a Skeptics club, and have not found anyone especially interesting except one guy who only showed up once and never came back and was out of my league anyway. I'm really good at being personable and friendly in a group, but really bad at finding anyone I really want to be friends with. I met all of my long-term SOs, directly or indirectly, through my BFF Gretchen (who I met at my first SF convention; it was love at first sight for both of us; if I'd been a guy we'd have been married the day she turned 18) and one of them through work.

Honestly, I just want Gretchen back. If we hadn't let ourselves get pulled apart by a succession of assholes we "compromised" our lives with, if I hadn't floundered my way to NJ to avoid killing myself in despair and she hadn't had two kids and gotten stuck taking care of her ailing alcoholic mother in Nowhere, TN, we'd be together now. She's the yang to my yin. I let life happen, and she makes life happen.

Maria, I'm so sorry life is such a blast of shit right now. You are not ordinary, at all.

But you have to think of the poor twins. Not only do they have two psychologists for parents (even one is too much of a burden for any kid), they are identical twins with two parents who study identical twins for a living. Only time will tell if they can overcome this hardship.

This probably shouldn't have made me laugh so much. What amazing people those babies will become! Anther entry on my bucket list: living long enough to see the current crop of Buffista kids grow up.

A Sassafras Close Encounter of the Fourth Kind! This is excellent, really - she's alive, she's well, and she's seeking out people! And Ragu. Maybe you should wander about with a hot dish of Ragu?

Erin, having myself a Black Dog similar to yours (there have been weeks I didn't shower and didn't do much but sleep, eat, watch tv, and hope no one came to my door), I sympathize and congratulate you on your accomplishments today! (Invoking the FPC. Yes, they are too accomplishments.) Lie down, Black Dog. Roll over. Stay.

Okay, I'm done. Wonder if this will break into two posts? I've never done that before!

Can't speak for bonny, but personally, my relationships of "compromise" with men always seem to turn into "give him what he wants so he'll stop angsting; I don't need anything much". Sure, the problem is probably me and the men I've chosen (and one woman, let's not forget the beautiful blue-eyed buxom blonde crazy-ass control freak), but still. It leaves me rather unwilling to make any more "compromises".

I wouldn't call that compromise. Compromise necessarily requires that both sides give up something they prefer to maintain the relationship in the middle. It's not about one person conceding all their territory to make somebody else happy.

But I wish you had Gretchen back, too.

having sex is a normal human thing for a human to want to do, right? Don't many humans who find they DON'T want to have sex often think there's something deeply severely wrong with them?

Uh, yeah, they do. Or, at least, *I* do. Believe me, there are many ways in which I feel broken, and being really indifferent to sexytimes and not wanting progeny are the 2 biggest ones. (Though at least they are complementary atypical life choices. So I've got that going for me.)

Not wanting kids is the same sort of thing. You don't have to do it, and you don't have to want to do it.

Yeah, I do know intellectually that it's okay, that it's my life and my choice and a fine choice for me. But existing in a society where the vast majority has kids (and in general wants them) can still be very very hard.

A tumblr you people might like:

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Compromise is one part of sharing your life with someone but it can also be balanced out by the things you gain. Sure, I now give up controlling the remote and having more than a sliver of the bed and having no one around to challenge my habits. On the other hand, without J I never would have owned a dog, watched "Buffy," gone on motorcycle vacations, had my checkbook balanced down the the penny every month, or started wearing jeans. Without me, he never would have seen "Diva," had his walls painted cool colors, visited the Netherlands or become a freelance writer.

Hell, I am actively trying to have kids, and still sometimes I don't know why people want them. Depending on the day, the idea of having kids is either tremendously exciting or completely terrifying. I really like my life with M now, and I'm scared that having kids is going to pretty much torpedo our peace and comfort together.

Yeah, I do know intellectually that it's okay, that it's my life and my choice and a fine choice for me. But existing in a society where the vast majority has kids (and in general wants them) can still be very very hard.

I can understand that. Does it help at all to know that there are lots of really spectacular people who feel the same way and have made the same decision?

Two of my good friends, a couple, recently told me that they just aren't interested in having kids. It surprised me a bit, because they both really love being around their friends' kids and are totally great with them. But it's just not what they want in their lives. They're happy to be Aunt C and Uncle T to everyone else's kids, and then go home to their cats and their dog and their happy life together. And I have to say I really respect them for knowing how they feel and making that choice. Like Jesse said last night, I am 100% in favor of people who don't want kids not having them.