Is this my mid-life crisis?

Or is this something more?

I feel myself spiraling down, down, down into a depression. Maybe I'm not spiraling down anymore, but I'm spiraling 'round and 'round my life-drain like the vortex that forms when water drains out of a bathtub. The good me-ness is draining, and what's left is the angry, suppressed, bored me-ness. This is the me-ness I hide from others.

I'm still running, but it's only due to inertia. Instead of running because of a conscious choice, it's more that I can't NOT run. It's what I do and what I am. I run when I don't feel like it, which is all of the time lately. I must force myself to grab my workout bag and trudge down the stairs to our basement gym (at work) on my lunch break. I force myself to change into my running clothes. I force myself to step onto the dreaded treadmill. And then I force myself to run for 3-4 miles. By mile 2 I am only thinking about being done with it.

And why? Because I'd rather be dead than be fat. And that's the goddamned truth. I never did really like running. Never have, and probably never will.

So what else?

I still hate my job, but honestly I need it. Without it I couldn't continue sending my kids to their wonderfulbutridiculouslyexpensive school.

I love, love, love photography and have actually blossomed into "professional" status this year. That should make me happy, and it does. It really does. But I need and want more. 3 gigs won't cut it. I need constant photography work. I have to make as much with photography as I make doing what I do now in order to leave this.

Is there more? There is always more.

Maybe all of this is just a mid-life crisis as I near my 40th birthday. I thought I was experiencing that last year, but maybe not. Maybe THIS is my mid-life crisis. Or maybe I'm clinically depressed. No, I wouldn't consider suicide, but I do consider running away...I don't want to die - I want to LIVE..........