The years ahead of me

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I'm 46. Before I knew I have AS, I always used to think that I'd been unlucky and that next time I'd succeed (relationships, friendship, work). Nowadays I know I have a limit and can't have friends, relationships or a job for long. I used to be someone who always had projects, plans. Nowadays I have none. I work many hours because there's no choice for me, I run my errands and take care of my sick parents. No projects, no future. I never lived like this before and it feels awful.

It says you like travelling and writing on your profile. If you could make a plan that involves one of those 2 things, something you could really look forward to and work towards. Even 2 different things that invole travelling and writing. Try and think of something, make some goals. I find new years resolutions are good, and they see me through the dark times of the new year. Good luck in your quest. I'm not sure if you celebrate christmas or not, even if you don't have a great day.

I'm sorry that you feel like that. My problem is that there are many people I've met who I could be friends with, but they're not real friends because I don't know them very well.

yes, writing and traveling are my passions. But what I'm lacking is a sense of purpose, a goal in life...

Me too. I just try and do things that invole my interests. I probably haven't got any good advice on life goal's, as you are older and wiser than I am.

It sounds to me like you're so worn-out all the time, that you don't have the time and energy left to be You.

If I were 46 and in your shoes I think my goal would probably be:

Find a decent job that I can retire from where I can work a stable schedule and don't have to deal much with the public.

Barring that:

Find ways to simplify my life (though probably not to the extremes of Ted Kaczynski) so that I can survive working less hours, and therefore have more time in which to pursue my interests and learn new things.

I think you are worn out too. How demanding is caring for your parents? Have you considered depression?

Feeling bleak, seeing no future and trapped in life are symptoms of depression.

Would a short term goal help eg a few days visiting a place you'd like to go; an afternoon pleasing only yourself.

My psychiatrist told me I should do one thing that I enjoyed every day. Enjoy? What's to enjoy? However when I feel blue I realise that I have not enjoyed myself for some time and plan bird watching etc. The planning is half the fun.

I hope you can find some project or plan soon.

Robyn

I didn't realise that I was posting in the Haven!

I'd love to take writing classes (benjimanbrigg just reminded me of this goal), and devote my life outside work to writing, researching for my writing and traveling. There's a goal in there, of maybe some day becoming a writer.

Sadly, there are no creative writing classes in my area, only writers' circles, old ladies that meet once a week to sip tea, smalltalk and read outloud their weekly page-and-a-half short story achievement. I tried 4 of those and was kicked out from all of them for not being "like everyone else". I went through hell in those groups.

Just keep searching for a class that suits you. I am certain you will find one soon. I'm not sure how far you have to travel. It takes me 25 minutes sometimes to get to my golf and tennis club, but its worth it. I hope you find somewhere very soon

There's no tech schools or universities? (well, former more than latter) I'm in the middle of nowhere, and I have some available. There's loads of writer's web sites out there, forums, etc. There's an outlet for it somewhere.

I suppose the difference is whether you're writing for fun or profit, or both. There's books that explain the process of selling to the market, etc.

You can't hold back art, it just seeps out of your pores. Plus, I wish I was 46 again...

We have distance ed that has writing courses - and othe mail order classes like journalism

You are a writer, just lazy.

I enjoyed "Conversations with my Therapist."

You have the most important thing, you pick good topics.

Now the grunt work, write it, re-write it, wait a month and go back, re-write again.

The art of writing is first take out the garbage. It is not hard, humans have small storage, and when that is gone, a large flow.

I know the page and a half writer, recycled garbage. Try thirty pages, flush out your head.

It takes mental exercise to think in chapters, book length. The first one is horrible.

Not to worry, it can be hidden. The next one starts with the larger format, and things fit better.

Mark Twain spent thirteen years on Huckelberry Finn, or Tom Sawyer. I know the feeling, I started my book when about your age, and am getting it right fifteen years later.

I have enjoyed it all, and kept growing. All of those hours of me overcoming being me.

Write about anything, the dust on the window sill, for an hour a day, and you will get the bad out, and learn what you do well. Others go to the health club, work their body, writers go to the keyboard, and work their mind.

It is an unlimited mental outlet. Nothing is more personal, something like turning yourself inside out.

Months later, when I read my stuff, I find it hard to believe I wrote it. Some of it is good.

When I write of other times, I go look them up, expression plus education. Your love of travel, knowing of other places, can fit in a story, where it becomes the site of the story, a background that also tells a story. Writing comes from within, and the more you write, the larger the inside space, and the more orderly.

It is like anything, we learn one step at a time, then use the same bow that ties our shoes in gift wrap.

A writer's tool kit is within, and in seeing what is without. The observer/reporter, who takes in the facts, then gives them form and meaning.

Write a story about three people, from the outside observer point of view, then write it over, from each characters point of view.

Writing is only a tool, Story Telling is an Art.

It does get to the point where I want to go to work to get away from my writing. It started the other way, but it grew. Now I rest, eat, exercise, for weeks, before a rewrite, for I know it is going to get intense. I will put out everything to total exhaustion, day after day, through hundreds of pages, impossible to map, but it can be done.

Then I will print it out, and leave it on the shelf for six months. Then I read it as a story. I let that sink in for a while, read it again, ponder, and in the next rewrite, my mind has a thousand small changes to make, and did not bother to inform me. Sometimes, I am just the ape with the fingers.

Writing brings out things we cannot even express to ourselves in words. I think the word part of the brain is very small. The slight changes in word usage bring big changes in the feelings evoked. I do not know how to be a non-verbal writer, I have no words for it, but I see it in action.

Writers explore the known, and behind everything known is something else. When we start working that border, it gets interesting.

Thank you everyone so much for the understanding, the warmth and the ideas.

I don't master the local language well, so I write in English (not my native tongue either) and there are no writing classes in English anywhere except in Jerusalem, at the times I work.

Thank you for reminding me of my true passion and goal and encouraging me to pursue it and not give up.

Somehow I'll try to find a way...

i like stream of conscious writing.... and linking all my jots together. ill have a right good book of jibberish to take with me one day