Horrible Funk

I hate to write a post like this but I have to write something or I feel as though I will never come out of this funk. In November, like many other Americans, I was laid off from work and it stunk! I was finally doing a job I was proud and eager to share with others and doing it well. I was challenged mentally, physically, and creatively and in one short year had grown so much that I look back now and wonder how I was, how I was before my last job and then the lay-off, which was only to be a short time and has now become ridiculously long. I have never in my life since age 13 spent more time not having a job. The problem is that where before I could just do anything to bring home some money, just some money is not enough to justify my being employed and paying for childcare so I need a certain amount and that certain amount seems like an impossible dream right now. It seems that the middle manager type guy, that I was, has become extinct and now companies have made it up by making lower paid guys and gals take on more responsibility without pay and making higher paid people do more lower work more often.
When the eminent return to work seemed less eminent, I started to apply to jobs that never responded or when they did asked for more than they would return. It seems that todays employment requires 150% and pays 65% with no benefits. I happen to be blessed with being married to a woman who has always carried more of the burden from her hard work and higher education and for our burgeoning family (we were just blessed with our fourth child and a fine strapping lad he is!) her salary, along with my government pittance has kept us above water so far but I am not sure how much longer we can stay afloat.
As for my year in the East, what started out as an incredible success with increased education, incredible camaraderie and lodge growth came to a sputtering stall as we went into our summer break of dimness. I assembled an officer line that I thought would drive us into the next two an a half centuries sidelining some very good friends and brothers who I had though had underperformed during my junior officer roles and promoting a group of my hand picked guys and it mostly back-fired. The guys I sidelined became stellar brothers and a few of my hand picked have stuttered at best.
I tried to lead my old lodge to a new beginning with a carefully thought out plan of buying a new building to call home that mostly fractured all of the fellowship I had worked so hard to flourish. Don't get me wrong, we are much better than we have been but now there are camps of passionate differing opinions vying against each other and mostly me. Some of my most trusted brothers left me in the lurch carrying a torch that I thought I shared with everyone.
So for a while I had a hard time believing in anything, and really still do.
I question my dedication to a quixotic cause of a once powerful lodge, I question my ability as a man to contribute to my family and I question mostly myself.
I have not been able to write because even with the amazing birth of my son I have not felt happy in a long time.
I have just existed.
Existence is not what I was put here to do.
Sorry for the bummer of a post.
I need the sun to rise in the East again.