How do I feel?

A couple posts ago, I wrote about not writing.  A friend commented that perhaps I should write about how it makes me feel when the damper is down on my writing.  As I thought about that, my first thought was that I write about my feelings all the time, but it then occurred to me (and I haven't re-read my posts to verify this, but I think it is mostly true) that I write a lot about what I think about things, and what is going through my mind, but I suspect there is very little direct comment on how it makes me feel.  I'm a thinker, not a feeler! 

So here's what comes to mind when I try to identify my feelings over the past week or so:

Frustrated.  I am currently stuck between a few different rocks and a few different hard places, and in the big picture, many of those rocks are things that I can't change, so it seems up to me to readjust myself to move the hard places instead and I am frustrated by my lack of creativity and drive to make those readjustments.

Angry.  I have been angry a lot over the last couple weeks and I have bottled it up and up and up.  And as happens once or twice a year when I find myself in this explosive place, I end up blowing my stack at the kids.  That was last Saturday.  I'd like to not ever do that again.  Add parent guilt to this particular arena.

Sad.  Loss of hopes and dreams is a hard one to process. 

Guilt.  So many things that I should do, that I could do, that I haven't done. 

Disassociation.  When my life gets too hard, I withdraw and I find myself playing the fantasy games I've used since I was a child to escape - telling myself made up stories that feature me in 'parallel universe' type story lines.  It's usually a really good sign that I have some work to do in my real life and that I'm desperately trying to avoid whatever it is that needs to be done.

No wonder I've been in a blog-funk.  I talk when I'm happy, I am quiet when I'm mad or blue.  I'm not seeing a lot of room for happiness or joyfulness up there.  Sure, I laughed and smiled along the way - at work, where I get to leave my real world behind.  I don't blog about work, so that really doesn't help the writing situation!  But despite all that, there is one small little positive feeling to note:

Hope.  I'm seeing a glimmer that the path is there for me.  I have a plan and have taken some baI'y steps along the way.  I just need to find the wherewithall to keep moving forward.  Believe it or not, I don't know where the path leads but I have faith that it is a positive place, so onward I go.