Empty Nest Syndrome

This is my son Marcus when he was one year old and now. I've been raising kids for 40 years. For ten years, Marcus was the only child left at home with me. Now he is leaving the nest. He has met a girl and is going to Connecticut to live with her and her parents. They say they have a job and a car waiting for him. He met her online while playing World of Warcraft and has been communicating with her by email, phone and webcam for the past year. He flew to Connecticut to stay with her and her parents for a week. Now he feels that he is in love, so off he is going to live there.

How do I feel about this? I must feel bad because I'm crying a lot. According to the experts, major stress factors include having a family member leave home, job change, moving, divorce, death in the family, etc. There is quite a bit on the list. My stress factors at this time? Having my baby move so far away as well as having to move myself. I have to move because I no longer need a two-bedroom apartment and I can't afford it by myself. November 1 I'll be moving to a one-bedroom apartment down the hall.

I feel sad and lonely. I suppose I'll get used to being all alone after 40 years of raising kids. It's also depressing to know that I'm not needed anymore. I'm beginning to feel so useless.

I ran out of my antidepressants. I better go renew my prescription, because I feel a large very dark cloud hovering around me. I'm not afraid of death. Yet ending it is cheating, and I never cheat. My ex-husband cheated all the time. That still bothers me and adds to the depression, along with the fact that he has lied to my daughter and thus she has refused to speak to me for the last 20 years. I don't even get to see my grandchildren.

God, what a life.

There are a few good things. Toastmasters and my writing. Any my kitty Amy, otherwise known as Kit E. Khat.

It will be interesting to see what the future holds besides death from liver failure. Oh well, ya gotta die from something. That's what my Uncle Gerald always used to say. Of course he lived to the ripe old age of 94.

Maybe I'll do more volunteering.

More later.