I am and I'm not. I've always been emotionally volatile, my teens were hard because of the extremity of my emotional rollercoaster and now I'm late 30s it seems to be getting stronger again - I go from being blissfully joyful some moments to feeling a real trudging misery in others, and it's difficult to feel out solid ground. Something I try to do is really notice and appreciate the moments of happiness and pleasure, because I know they are temporary and that even if my situation changes not one iota I will eventually feel that creeping sadness. And likewise with the sadness - I've felt it sucking at my boots and then receding enough times that if I really try, I can remember this is a place I visit but don't live, and something inconsequential and unpredictable will eventually lift my spirits to the sky again, even if only for a moment.
Re the actual practicalities of my life:
I'm 40 next year, so it's safe to say that the life I'm living now is likely to be what it is for the forseeable - most of the 'big changes' have already happened and I don't see anything major changing now until I retire.
I have two young daughters who are the absolute lights of my life, their existence makes me so so happy - but the day to day business of getting them up, dressed, fed, to school/nursery, home, fed, washed, to bed can make me very exhausted and far more tetchy than I'd like to be. I feel simultaneously like I don't spend enough time with them, and like they are always there! what would be nice would be for ALL of us to have a 4 day week and a 3 day weekend - I feel for them because even more than me their waking hours are hectic because they're asleep by 8, and in the week it's all "get up! Get your clothes on! Eat your breakfast! Come on let's go to school! Right into the pram let's go pick up your sister! Come on let's get home, I have to get dinner on! Upstairs to the bath, come on! Stop mucking about and put on your pyjamas! OK just ONE more story, you need to get to bed!" I wish somehow I could give them more time, that we had more time to play together and just mosey around a bit, but without giving them less sleep than they need there's no way really. It's sad to think the most relaxing part of my eldest's day is probably when she's at after school club, not when she's at home with me :(
I have a partner who is in many ways wonderful, but very emotionally closed off and I feel the most horrible spiritual loneliness a lot of the time that I'm with him (which, being as we have kids and no outside help, is a lot of the time). I don't feel lonely when I'm alone; it's that feeling of living so intimately with someone who doesn't want to share their inner world with you, or want you to share yours with them. It's like a sort of permanent rejection and it pains me. Also he still wants a lot of sex, I am completely off it, and it causes a lot of stress between us unless we both compromise a lot, so I'd say it works out neither of us is really happy. Which is a real shame because it's nobody's fault, we're just very different people.
I have lovely friends and family but I struggle to feel at ease with anyone really, or deserving of their time and attention. It's harder to stay in touch as kids get bigger and decide who their own friends are instead of just playing with mum's friends' similar age kids! If anything would make me happier it would probably be working on closer, more confident relationships with my friends and doing more with them. I think the lemon most straight women have been sold isn't that they can 'have it all' after marriage and children, but that a man can fulfil their need for human connection - from what I see a lot of men in hetero partnerships still have themselves front and centre and lack emotional literacy and compassion, and most women get their real support and connection from other women.
I have a goodish job in a great sector working with lovely people, and it's only 4 days a week. My daughter starts pre-school in September and I'll need to decide whether to carry on having my day off, without her to look after, or to look for a full time role/try to persuade my current job to give me the other 0.2FTE. I feel like I probably ought to do the latter but don't really want to; and I've decided if I do go full time I'm going to try and climb the greasy pole and get into a management role as I don't want to be giving so much of myself to a job without making quite a bit more money.
The trouble is, deep deep down, I sometimes feel like all I want is to be left alone with my stories - I read, write, watch tv and films constantly and that's my happiest time and always has been from a child, taken out of my own world into another one. All the necessities of life and often even interacting with other people, even people I love, sometimes just feels like a series of tasks taking me away from that happy place. I imagine being older and retired, small pension, living alone in a tiny flat with a lot of books and a lot of subscription packages, happy as a little clam :P but the reality would probably be very different!