I was listening to the Freakonomics podcast recently and was introduced to the idea of a happiness bell curve.

According to the research, we hit the peak of our unhappiness (or the trough of our happiness) in our late 40’s. Which means if I’m not already in it, I’m cruising towards the pit of despair.

I’ll be 40 this fall. Most of the time, that doesn’t bother me. It DOES bother me a little when I look in the mirror and see the increasingly permanent double lines between my eyebrows.

It definitely bothered me when a handsome young man brightened up immediately as he walked toward me recently… and then I realized he was looking at my 13 year old daughter who was walking next to me. He was too old for her, and I am certainly too old for his notice, but it stung.

I’m facing that part of my life where my confidence is going to grow, while my looks will continue to evolve away from our society’s standards of beauty (at least, that’s how I imagine it).

I’m dealing with a great deal of stress in my house. Of course there is COVID and the rollercoaster of racial reckoning that is taking place, but also I live with two teenagers, a tween, several school-aged kids with different energy levels and emotional needs, and a preschooler.

It resonates with me that I’m at my unhappiest right now. I look forward, and see a decade and more of shepherding children through their teens, while continuing to meet the needs of my younger kids.

As the kids have gotten older, the stability I used to have in sometimes being able to leave the house with the big kids in charge is now in jeopardy. Alone time, time to pursue my own interests, has been swallowed up in the juggling of responsibilities.

Intellectually, I think, I don’t have to be unhappy. But more often than not, I have been unhappy. I don’t know if it’s a source of hope or despair that if I’m average, I have less than a decade before the worst is over.

It helped a little to look at the actual bell curve. Instead of a smooth curve, the chart shows a jagged line that dips in the center. I probably find myself at the bottom of one of the jagged parts near the central dip. And hopefully sometime soon I’ll be able to sail back up to the top of the next jagged peak.

I make it a point not to post a lot of depressing content on my blog, but this is a reality check. I am tired. I need a place for my kids to be safe while I’m recharging. In the absence of that, there is a continued absence of alone time and rest. My creativity is in a deep sag.

I have moments of optimism. This week, the kids and I dug big holes in our back yard and moved dirt around in the hopes of changing where the water puddles when it rains. I don’t know if it’s going to work (early indications are that we have a wee bit more digging to do), but manual labor is a great discharger of negative energy.

I miss sewing and making things, while simultaneously having little energy or inspiration to do anything about it.

We are tired, and there is no end in sight. It feels like as a world, we are ALL at the bottom of the happiness bell curve, no matter what age we are.

I don’t write this as a downer, but as another writer put it, as a way of waving to you in the dark. We may feel alone, but we are together in spirit, even if we are weary and the world is looking grey.