I'm having a really miserable night, so this is likely to be a barely coherent post. Please excuse any typos or "nuttiness".
I didn't really learn to live until I spent a lot of time at death's door. I spent a long time (about 3 1/2 years) in constant excruciating pain. At some point in there, my goal was to hurt less. I began taking hot baths daily because it helped get the pain under control and began doing other things that helped get the pain under control because pain killers hardly took the edge off. At some point, I realized that the hot baths and other stuff I was doing was actually killing the infection the doctors didn't know how to treat and I would live. I really wasn't a happy camper at that point because I realized it would be a long, torturous recovery.
Not long thereafter, I decided to get divorced under very difficult circumstances. Everyone told me I couldn't "afford" to get divorced because of my health problems. I felt clear that I couldn't afford not to get divorced because my marriage was literally part of what was killing me.
I have two ASD (autism spectrum disorder) kids who just don't get a lot of social and emotional stuff and just don't understand my philosophical/spiritual point of view much of the time. I did manage to make sense to my oldest when I told him that I think "karma" and life-threatening things in life are kind of like dying in a video game: it's a way of telling me that what I'm doing isn't working and I better figure out what will work or Game Over. I began using a lot of alternative stuff without really knowing what I was doing because I had two options: The safe, secure path of certain slow death or the risky path of possible death. Given how much constant pain I was in and how hopeless the situation was, I felt like an, oops!, quicker death because I screwed up would be the better deal. So whether I died faster or got healthier, I felt like either way would be an improvement over what I was facing. So I took risks, even though I am an inherently conservative person.
I fret a LOT about my current financial problems. When I look back on things, I cannot think of a single thing I could have done differently or would have done differently. My son wcf is well and I am getting well. Unlike during my marriage, I believe these financial problems will eventually get resolved. I have gradually grown healthier and stronger. I am well enough to work a full time job for the first time in my life. I have learned to relate to people differently and to surround myself more with people whose company I enjoy and not bother so much with social "obligations" to people I can't stand who were sucking the life out of me. I have hopes and dreams concerning eventually making a living at something that means more to me than my current job. I sometimes listen to the song "Live like you were dying" and feel like announcing "that was written about me!!" (so to speak).
I don't believe it has to only be 10 years. I believe that if you have "no future" you should live for today and enjoy your life as much as possible, not caring so much about "shoulds" and what other people think (least of all me, so don't worry what I think of you -- I'm just spouting off because I am having a miserable "please kill me NOW" type evening of endless pain). I believe whatever challenges I was born with have been an opportunity for my soul to grow and to help me resolve personal bs that I wouldn't fix any other way. That what I have suffered has been a gift. I would not have divorced if I hadn't spent so much time at death's door because I tend to be hopelessly loyal. It took a lot for me to learn to say "enough". Learning to say "enough" was worth the price I paid to learn it.
I hope you find your bliss, whatever it is, and that you get what you most need, even if it isn't always exactly what you wanted.
Good luck with this question and with your decision.
