Reader worries that adulthood is disappointment

Dear Carolyn: I’m in my 30s and awakening to the fact that nothing in the life I have spent a decade building is fulfilling to me at all. Is that normal? Do people walk away and start over or is there another option?

I am in a committed relationship with a mortgage and pets. I just wish I could start again as a new person.

It’s possible you chose the wrong partner-careerhobbies, sure, or you could have grown or changed a lot since you made your choices, or you could have an unrelated health issue that’s blurring the lens through which you view everything in your life. To sort this out, it’s going to take some hard work and patience and challenges to your status quo. You can get a screening for depression, to start. And, you can schedule some time out of your routine to help you gain some perspective. Just changing what your eyes rest on, what you eat, whom you talk to, what you listen to, can jog things loose. Spending time with people who knew you before the partner/career/mortgage specifically can reset your thinking in surprising ways.

And you can identify changes you’re able to make, starting with the smallest of tweaks — to your diet, to your exercise habits, to your sleep habits, to your hobbies. You can also research changes right up to the line of actually making them.

Every life is missing something. What are you missing that matters? What did you think mattered but now doesn’t matter at all? What preoccupies you that you don’t think you can do?

And you can talk to your partner about how you feel. Full-on.