I just got home from an evening in the company of a bunch of people our D knows through her school and feel like a complete and total failure as a human being. I have no skills, no training, no hobbies ... I haven't traveled. I haven't been on an airplane in 23 years.
My H travels for business, and has been all over this country and Canada and Italy, Japan, Mexico and the Caribbean...He has friends, plays golf, guitar, can fix cars ... knows all kinds of things and can talk to anyone about anything.
Our D who still lives with us is graduating college with straight A's and has also worked at the school the whole time. She traveled on an airplane this summer to see (Catholic) friends across the country. She is in line to get a full time job at her school. She plays piano and guitar and can speak Spanish nearly fluently after only 2 years of instruction. She's done other things just as impressive...but that makes the point.
Our S is working two jobs. He's worked an average of 3 jobs and up to 5 jobs at a time over the last few years. He has friends and goes places and does things. He also plays guitar and has also had training in the public service sphere and knows a lot about that and other jobs connected to that. He lives on his own.
I realize I can ask people about what they've done and where they've gone .... but I can't even talk about homeschooling the kids because it's a big mish mash of things: using different curriculums over the years, nothing overly structured ... and I can never explain things without sounding .... dumb, somehow.
I read. I'm interested in art. I've always exercised and am now doing ballet exercises at home. But I don't have friends. I don't have hobbies I can discuss. I haven't even had regular use of my car these last few years because I let my D use it for school / work. So I haven't even gone to daily mass or joined anything (not that I want to .. novus ordo parish)
I cook, but am only adequate. I clean and do laundry and shop and pay bills. That's my life.
I have no other family, they're all dead or separated by long distance. I haven't even been further than an hour from my home in the last 5 years.
When you wake up one day as a middle aged person and realize that you feel as awkward as a high school freshman in the social scene ... what do you do?