I've been reading through many topics that appear under "Aging Well,” noting how often people express suffering, sometimes because of particular illness but often without certainty about the cause of the unhappiness...maybe "life is just too much."
I have certainly felt unhappiness, sometimes brief and sometimes lingering into a deeper gloom. It is a terrible burden when it won’t let go.

Psychologist Paul Eckman wrote that passing feelings are all healthy responses to life situations - happiness, sadness, anger, fear, distrust, curiosity.
Healthy feelings are flexible. They arise and subside, giving room for the next feeling.
It becomes unhealthy when a feeling becomes “locked in” and can’t pass away.

With age and the loss of energies and resources, painful feelings may be more likely to “lock in.” We need to explore and support our ways to move on from heavy feelings. And I can testify this isn’t always easy.

I find it’s very important for me to have projects that express my positive values in the world. These don’t need to be big projects, but it helps if they are somewhat independent of each other. If I decide to clean up my shop or the community barn, it’s just me, the broom and the sawdust. The clean shop will usually invite me to take on something more.
My neighbor, who has significant dementia, works her garden plot every morning. In the afternoon she does amazingly complex jigsaw puzzles, dementia over-ruled by her interest!

Quietly, in my heart I embrace her, because I know we are each finding refuge, and often joy in our work, grateful to move into feelings that affirm our lives. We can do something.