Avoiding depression

I realized today just how much I owe to blogging and all the friends I have here.  I happened to talk to two of my closest friends today.  I heard the exact thing from both of them.  They are both suffering from depression.  They are dealing with jobs they don’t like, husbands that they no longer feel close to and children who have left home.  This was exactly, exactly where I was headed.

Now that I’m firmly middle aged (assuming I’ll live to be 110, that is) I realize what a depressing time this can be, especially for women.  I remember being around the age of 3 when I realized I wanted to be a mom someday.  I spent most 31 years wishing for a child.  Then LJ and Mollie came along.  Motherhood was the only thing in life that exceeded my expectations.  I love being their mother.  But LJ is grown and living far away.  Mollie is finishing her first year of college and will probably never live here full time again.  What had been my main focus in life is accomplished.  I know I could easily have a ‘what now’ feeling.

Nick and I weren’t really very close BB (before blogging).  We were friendly and pleasant but he concentrated on work and I focused on the kids.  Our sex life was sporadic and not particularly satisfying for either of us.  That’s because the switch to my sexuality was wrapped up with the ideas of spanking, dominance, submission and all that goes with it.  And I sure as hell wasn’t sharing that information with anyone!  I knew I was sick in the head and NO one else had such strange thoughts and longing.  I knew Nick would be disgusted to find out his wife harbored such perverted thoughts. So I kept everything hidden.

But then (and at the perfect time in my life), I went online and typed ‘spanking’ into Google.  That day, nearly that instant, my life changed.  I found Bonnie’s, My Bottom Smarts.  I was like a person who had been shut away in darkness seeing the first ray of light.  What I found amazed and thrilled me.  I was not alone.  Others, many others, felt the same way I did.  They not only admitted to these feelings they reveled in them, they were proud of who they were, they embraced this unique difference and discussed it at length with one another and they were welcoming and encouraging to newcomers.

Without my ‘new beginning’ right now I could be in a marriage with no closeness, in a job situation that makes me unhappy, my life’s goal – the kids, nearly totally on their own and needing me very little, nothing to look forward to.  I guess I’d be pretty depressed too.

Instead, because of blogging, I got the courage to come out to Nick.  Our marriage, our closeness, our sex life couldn’t be much better.  I am still not thrilled with work, but I only have another 4 1/2 years to go, and I have happier things to think about.  My kids are away, but they are happy and productive, in small part, because their mom is happy.  I have no desire to live through them so they share with me their joys, disappointments, and secrets knowing I have no desire to run their lives – I’m too busy enjoying my own.

As for something to look forward to – the blogs have given me that also.  Blogging tapped a creative side of me I never knew existed.  I love writing!  It doesn’t look like the person I was working with is going to have the time to help me get the Cassie book ready to publish at this time.  But that’s okay, I will publish them, but until I retire I’m not going to sweat it.  I can continue to work on the books – the first is the only one put together, and when I’m done teaching I’ll be ready to get them published.  Coming out with a few sexy/spanko books might not be the best thing for an elementary teacher in a small southern town while I’m still teaching anyway.  I’d never be able to push them in my real life if I published now.  If I wait I can give it my all.  Who knows, maybe Cassie and Tom can be the next 50 shades of gray– of course for them it will mean hair color!

Blogging has given me closeness in my marriage when I feared it was too late and many good friends who understand me more that most people I know in real life.  Blogging has given me the courage to write and a dream for the future, doing something I truly enjoy. Will the books ever be published?  I don’t know, but I love the excitement of writing them.  I have hope that with hard work it will happen.  I think it’s that hope, that excitement for the future, that wards off the depressions that can so easily grab women my age. So for everyone who has a blog here, thank you!  For everyone who reads here or at Cassie’sSpace and has commented or even mentally wished me well, thank you! I guess you can see why I continue to urge others to blog!