Someone give me a shake please

Life has not turned out how I thought it would, does anyone else feel like this?

Coming up to a year ago my boyfriend of four years dumped me completely out of the blue, landing me back in my old room at my mum's house. I was totally lost and gutted but I did make the effort not to mope by trying to get myself out and about at night classes and so on.

Then after a few weeks he said he'd made a huge mistake and it looked as though we would get back together for a while, although he was depressed and working through some issues, we were in contact and it seemed promising. But a few months ago that all came crashing down, seems he was right about his feelings the first time and doesn't want me after all. That was about three months ago and since then I've been feeling just awful, can't sleep, on the verge of tears all the time, heart going like the clappers... I didn't tell anyone that we were trying to work things out, and so because during that time I was feeling quite positive, everyone must think I'm over him by now but actually I feel worse than I think I did at first.

The worst part is that I'm 30 and all around me it feels like my friends lives are falling into place. Every other week at the moment there's news of another wedding, engagement, pregnancy, scan or birth, house purchase or promotion ... I feel like I've been left behind in life! I'm finding it harder and harder to be happy for other people when it just never seems to happen for me (it's not just this issue, my whole life it's been me with the cloud of bad luck over my head ... someone's parents are getting divorced, that'll be mine. Somone's Dad's died, that'll be mine... I was on my own a long time before I met my boyfriend and I thought he was my happy ending to it all)

I hate the way that sounds, it's so self pitying and self indulgent and the last thing I want is to turn into a bitter old spinster, so I plaster a smile on and get out and about a join in with things, but I'm getting no enjoyment from them because I know I'm only doing them to make myself feel as though I am actually doing something with my time!

I hate that I'm constantly having to try and put real effort into being happy, whereas it just seems to come so easily to other people with their perfect lives. It's not fair, why me?- this is what I'm wailing to myself in my head a lot at the moment. And I know "Life's not fair" but that doesn't make me feel any better. I try to think of the phrase "I was upset because I had no shoes but then I met a man with no feet" - I know there are people much worse off than I am, but unfortunately the people I'm actually surrounded by are much better off than me and I feel such a failure in life.

Sorry for the long rant, I have no-one really to talk to so it's spilled out here. I'd be interested to hear from anyone else who feels like this, or who has in the past and managed to deal with it...