u/Empress-Ghostheart

My family moved onto a mountain top next door to my MIL. our town has a grocery store, a post office, and a cemetery. My kids go to school the next town over about 20 minutes down the mountain. I have never lived so rurally and miss my old city a lot.

My husband works exactly the same as our kids' school hours (M-F/8-2) so he drops them off in the morning and picks them up after school. They are usually home by 2:30 (or 3 if they do something extra after school.)

I get my girls ready in the morning and then from 7:30-2:30.... it's just me. No car, nowhere to go even if I had one, just alone on a mountain top....

I have been very lost and sad in this transition. My husband worked evening shift in the city so we had all day together when the kids were at school and then I would clean the house and tend to the kids at night. I loved that set up and wish I knew how lucky I was to have it.

I find myself now with so much time alone.

my only hope in finding some kind of joy right now is to fall in love with homemaking. That is really the only thing on my horizon for the time being and I am tired of crying about it.

Oh yeah, did I mention that I don't really cook? Yeah, it makes me extremely anxious but that has to change with this new way of life too.

I want to fall in love with my routine and the comfort and stability and safety and warmth I bring to our family and home through that routine, I want to be a happy homemaker, I truly do.

I would so gratefully take any book suggestions, YouTube channels to watch, beginner cooking tips, or even just a breakdown of your daily routine.

At this point, I'd truly appreciated being told that I'm not the only person who had a hard time adjusting to this lifestyle. I feel like I should just be grateful to not have to work somewhere I hate, so then I feel guilty for being sad, and that just makes me feel even worse.

Thank you for reading.

EDIT___ There are so many amazing suggestions and words of encouragement in your comments! I am actually feeling hopeful, even just a glimmer. I am so grateful to you all for taking the time, thank you!I

I am riding the hope wave and doing something new: I am going to go with my MIL to the next town over tomorrow to help at her graphic design shop for the day. as much as I'm not thrilled for a full day with her (she's nice and funny, just can talk and talk and talk and mostly gossip about people I do not know, it gets old fast haha), I am glad to get out of the house and kind of digest your suggestions and perspectives I hadn't considered before while I help my family and learn a new skill or two. I would have told her no if I wasn't feeling so encouraged to branch out, so again, THANK YOU SO MUCH.

"I feel my feelings so fully now!" Absolutely not. Next-

"I'm forced to sit with anything that comes up inside instead of masking it with weed." That sounds terrible. No thank you. Next-

"My dreams are so vivid now! I didn't realize how much weed was keeping me from dreaming!" I do realize, and that's the idea. My nightmares do NOT need to be more vivid. Next-

"Smells are stronger, food is richer..." Just more triggers to avoid.

Nope nope nope nope. It cannot be me.

I can cut back some, but I'm just going to have to accept the side effects of the meds (weed) that work for me and move forward.

I'm happy for people who can get through this world completely raw, but I am not one of them.

Born in '90 so Bobby's pop culture references from the original puts him around my age, if not a bit older, but with him being into KPop as a 16 year old he would now be younger than me. I don't know why, but it just kind of made me a little bit sad.

I was telling my husband that the reboot is swell for what it is, but whatever feeling of safety and home the original gave me, the feeling of having a family on the screen even though I didn't have one in reality, these new seasons would not have done the same thing for me at all. I cannot explain it beyond that

Everything evolves, and that's supposed to be a good thing. Don't mind me, I'm just another millennial victim of nostalgia complaining into the abyss.

"Any of those days after 2 works! I would like to clean up and husband (they are friends and I met her through him) wants to hang too so when he gets off work is best for us"

Really the truth is that most of the system besides maybe 2 of 13 are VERY socially anxious and it helps immensely to have a buffer there to keep the system calm, I NEED my husband there. I don't have to explain all that (my friend is very "everyone has that in some ways" about mental illness so I'm not telling her about DID stuff because that attitude pisses me off) so I sent the text above. Clear and polite, right?

her response: "I'll text you when I'm headed over in the morning. Girls time!"

I'm sorry, what? We didn't even decide on a day, I said after 2, and I said I wanted my husband there.

I try telling her I need to clean up and I'd feel much better to see her in the afternoon...like I ALREADY SAID, and she responds with text after text of "don't worry, I don't care about clean or if your husband is there, I'm coming anyway."

I CARE! WE CARE! This is what I need to be the part she knows when she arrives and not switched out from stress, and she just will not take the fucking hint and accept the boundaries.

So many of us are furious inside right now. This is why we hate to socialize. We are the type to be "adopted" by extroverts because they think our introversion is just so cuuuute, but the extrovert + normie combo is just too much for us to hang with anymore.

Please wish us calm. I just want to get this over with.

All the "check your local [fill in the blank]!" posts are bumming me out. I live on top of a mountain, I don't have a local... anything 🥺

There are much much bigger problems in the world and I'm a dang adult, so why is it stressing me out and pulling on my heart so much waiting and hoping I can still get my hand on these potential new friends?

The city is over an hour away and I cannot make the journey for dolls alone, but they sold out online almost instantly. Big sigh...I just have to be patient.