post-menopausal dumps

Sheridan is 54, a married working mom with a 15 year old daughter, and she has literally been there and done that. Over the last year -- without any apparent reason -- she has completely run out of steam and direction. The intense passion that fuelled her many accomplishments has seemingly deserted her and she is merely existing, no longer living a full and exciting life.

"It's not menopause - I sailed through that at 49 - and my health is very good," explains Sheridan, "and while there could be some underlying medical condition responsible for my total lack of passion and zest for life I very much doubt it."

"And it's nothing psychological either," laughs Sheridan. "I've been through no traumas - other than the global terrorist traumas that everyone's been through since 2001 - and I am happy and positive and going about my daily life as usual."

"For the first time in my life, though, I just don't have something or someone firing me up, giving me a direction, and inspiring an intense passion. Do you understand what I mean? Is this a post-menopausal thing?"

"My husband says I should be thankful for a bit of peace and quiet," laughs Sheridan, "but after living a full and exciting life with one passion after another bringing me alive, I am finding this day-to-day existence to be as dull as dishwater."

"Usually, when one passion comes to a natural end, another one quickly supplants it," explains Sheridan, "but this time around absolutely nothing has materialized to inspire me and I'm beginning to wonder whether that's it - whether I've run out of my allocated number of passions!"

"I make up lists of everything I can think of to inspire me - and read widely about the accomplishments of others - but nothing gels. Absolutely nothing interests me."
"You name it, I've done it," laughs Sheridan. "If I haven't done it, then I have never wanted to do it. Let's face it, I have no talent whatsoever for piano playing so I just can't get fired up about taking piano lessons and adding 'pianist' to my list of accomplishments. We have a piano at home, but it's a remnant of one of my daughter's passions, not mine!"

"Family and friends try to be helpful by suggesting things I could do," says Sheridan, "and I seriously consider all suggestions - but nothing lights that old spark."

"I keep myself positive by telling myself about all the greats who found the greatest passion in their life in their 60s or 70s and even in their 80s," says Sheridan, "but I am languishing - I am wasting precious time doing absolutely nothing and I feel like screaming for having nothing exciting to do with my life."

"I've been like this for a year now," sighs Sheridan, "and I'm seriously worried because I've never taken as long as a year to find a new passion."

"The longest I've ever languished was for six months," says Sheridan, "and that was more a waiting period - waiting for the results of something I was already involved in - sort of like a pregnancy."

"What I'm going through now is something I've never exactly experienced before."

"Even before a passion came to a natural end I had ideas about what I was going to get involved in next," explains Sheridan, "and sometimes I had the next passion all lined up ready to get stuck into."

"For instance, three years ago I was passionately running a small landscaping business," explains Sheridan. "I enjoyed the experience immensely but I had to give it up when I got swept up in an exciting job offer that took me into the world of high finance."

"I'm still in that job," laughs Sheridan, "but I have long lost my passion for it and while I don't want to lose the job - it pays well and is otherwise very good for me socially - I do want to become passionate about something again."

"I need a hobby - a sport - an activity - an extra curricular interest that I can get involved in outside of work," explains Sheridan, "but what?"

"Once a passion is supplanted by something else I can never go back to it," says Sheridan. "That something else supplanted the passion means that it was already dying out. I am no more interested in reviving my passion for landscaping than I am interested in reviving any of my previous passions. They're dead, they're gone, they're over."

"My list of possible new passions is already eleven pages long," laughs Sheridan. "Everything is on it from train spotting to learning Swahili."

"I know that the meta-physicists say that all things come in the fullness of time - that when I'm ready for something it will present itself to me," sighs Sheridan, "but I am beginning to get terribly anxious about living while I am essentially dead."

"I know also that plenty of people live their whole lives in a state of essential deadness," says Sheridan, "but that's not how I was designed. I'm designed for non-stop action and fantastic ideas. If I could get fired up about anything - no matter how small or stupid - I would be living. But nothing fires me. Nothing."

"I envy the protestors who are marching up and down about whatever inflames them," sighs Sheridan. "I even envy the train spotters. They've got a passion, they're fired up and living a life that's worth living."

"I'm not saying that my life isn't worth living," adds Sheridan. "I love my husband and my kids and my friends, and I am happy at work. I want for nothing in life other than a passion - a new direction."

"Don't tell me that I should be thankful for what I have," says Sheridan. "Life is more than survival or being comfortable. It's lofty - it's challenging - it's plumbing the depths of one's being - it's being everything you can be."

"I refuse to believe that at 54 I am everything I can be, that I've accomplished everything I can accomplish and that the spark has gone forever. But perhaps it has....."

"Maybe it's at this stage that people start taking drugs," muses Sheridan. "If you can't get the buzz from life that you usually get, I can understand how drugs can become attractive."

"No," laughs Sheridan, "I'm not going down that road. I think I need a total medical check-up - there must be some underlying reason for my plight."

"Maybe finding a reason for my plight will become my new passion!"

(Sheridan's story first appeared as been there, done that and is reprinted with permission.)