You know that feeling? You know, the one when you think to yourself, ‘this is it, this might be that one I was looking for!”  Yes, that feeling. It doesn’t matter if it is a person, a job, or even some inanimate object; you get that high when you think, “This is the one!”

I am convinced that many of us are trying to recapture something that made us feel good in our past. The adrenaline high we got as children when we flew down a hill on our bikes without braking or climbed to the very top of a tree and then looked down. That holy shit feeling when we snuck out of the house to see our favorite band. Or even that time we stole away to our first teenage party at the beach, drank terrible wine around the bonfire and listened to music with our friends.

We are looking for that punch of Dopamine we got from first love. Maybe it was when we felt great about ourselves and how we moved through the world. Possibly, it was the feeling of buying our dream car with our own money. Or even when we purchased our first home, and they handed us the keys. It could be anything; each of us has our own idea of what that ‘it’ moment was when all just seemed like it was, well, perfect.

The days move at an uneven pace these days. As if there is no rhythm to them anymore. It use to be there was some dependability to my days; I knew where I should be, what I should be doing, and honestly, who I would be with most of the hours of the day. I didn’t always love all of it or the people I had to spend time with, but at least I understood the days. Now? Now, I feel as if there are simply broken people, broken promises, and broken dreams somewhere screaming, save me, in a bottomless chasm.

Honestly, I don’t have the energy. I spent most of my entire life trying to ‘save’ other people when I should have been trying to save myself.

You would think I would know better.

You would think after all this time, all these failures, I would not fall prey to the fairytale of happily ever after. But I do because I very much want to believe the following things are real in this world;

Kindness and compassion –

Real love –

Sustained devotion and commitment –

Truth-telling –

Joy, yes, I said it; joy. Prolonged and encompassing joy.

The world is upside down these days. The things we thought we knew about life have been upended, and many of us are left floundering for anything to hold onto. We beat ourselves up for our failures and shake our fists at God and the Devil in equal measure for the holes in our lives we once believed would be filled with love, laughter, companionship, pleasure, and that elusive thing we cannot quite identify, but know might be joy.

Something shifted in the world. Something fundamental in our spirit changed how we saw ourselves and the world around us. Was the shift in the world, or did we somehow lose that spark that made us dance in the rain, laugh at silly jokes, or want to cuddle with someone we loved. When did this happen to so many of us that now we live these terrible lives of isolation, fear, and ever-increasing aloneness?

I think it is both good and bad, uplifting and soul-crushing. I am at the bridge of the Baby Boomers, born in 1957; my mother is on the bridge between Boomers and the Silent Generation; it is strange in many ways; we had the same experiences and witnessed the same social disruptions no matter where within the generational range we fall. The one thing we have in common? We both find ourselves wondering what in the hell happened to that damned fairytale, that whole ‘cake and eat it too’ we were promised if we just did all the right things.

Okay, I know; I didn’t always do all the right things. But hell, who did? What I did do, was I busted my ass, all day, every day and provided when no one else could or would. I lost everything more than once and rebuilt my life from the ashes of heartbreak. I loved immensely and hard, even when I wasn’t loved in return. I got up, brushed myself off and laughed, even when I wanted to cry until there were no more tears, even when I didn’t wonder if it would be easier to lay down and never get back up.

Here we are; the world is changing, and being called a Boomer is now a slur. Strange. The generation that marched to end war, to move the nation towards more freedom, that invented many of the things that make life easier. The generation that freed women like me to have careers, own homes, and choose different lives from our mothers. The generation that changed this nation in very real ways, at least for a while, is now the same generation that is miserable because of those changes.

Did we look away? Did we grow apathetic? What happened to us? I ask myself this more days than not. It seems we lost some spark, some passion for the things that mattered. I am desolate that my generation forgot about justice, empathy, compassion, and yes, more than anything else, we seem to have forgotten joy.

Somewhere, I know that spark exists. Somewhere buried inside it is still in there just waiting for something to re-ignite the flame. But not today, not yesterday, and likely not tomorrow either. These days? These days, all I hear is to much, to smart, to fat, not enough, oh yeah and today, desperate… to mean, to honest, to much history.

All if it might be true, but like they say, “Want a perfect girl, buy a Barbie doll.”