MID-LIFE GIRL

 

Have you ever thought of women going through a mid-life crisis?

I've heard that men do, usually beginning in or around the age of 45 - 50 but not sure if women experience the same kind of thing.  Women normally await "the change" around the same time but, does it go beyond that? Well, I am certainly going through one.

Last November, I started to feel a little off.  It was right before my 40th birthday to be exact.  I was not at all "OK" with turning 40 in any stretch of the imagination.  It was a very strange feeling that began to take over.  I've never been "that woman" who was in denial about her age or afraid to "voice the number" aloud.  I owned my age - always!  But, 40 was a whole other game.  A very different ball of wax.  I began to think about my life in ways I hadn't in a very long time.  Suddenly, things became real, more painfully true with each passing day.  I was turning 40 in a month and I had nothing to show for my life.

I didn't have my career in check.  I didn't have the home of my dreams yet.  I wasn't financially stable. I hadn't been on any amazing vacations in a long time.  I haven't made any life-changing contributions to the world.  My health was at an all time low.  I didn't like who I was.  I didn't have any children to speak of .  I never found my "forever guy".

Then the voices became more dark:  I was getting older.  People around me are too.  As I and those around me get older, we are that much closer to death.  How much time did I have left?  How much time did any of us have?  I was scared.  I got this pain in my chest that didn't go away for days, and the panic attacks that followed were some of my worst episodes-ever!

If I died today, what would I have to show for my life?  What real contributions have I made?  The answer to both was a sad and unanimous "NOT MUCH!"  I'd be remembered as the girl who always loved singing but gave it up because she was afraid of the stage.  A girl who loved to write more than life, but never wrote a book because she was too afraid of failing at it.  A girl who allowed guilt and abuse to devastate her silently into a world of an eating disorder.   Is this the legacy I had to leave?  It was maddening .

The feeling hasn't left me and it's been almost a year now.  Four months to my next birthday and I don't know if 41 will be any better than 40 was.

I'm surrounded by people who truly believe that thinking positively is the only way to change your life but I admit that I resent the words sometimes.  I mean I love them and their passion for the belief in it all, but it just gets so exhausting to think this way, all of the time.  But, I choose to be around positive light because the alternative scares me. 

It's been a tough year in ALL respects.  I just want a break for a bit.  I don't want much, never have.  But is it too much to ask to see a bit of sunshine, every now and again, without working for it? 

Anyway, that's my rant for the day.  Thanks for listening!