“You’re really not going to like it,” observed Deep Thought.
“Tell us!”
“All right,” said Deep Thought. “The Answer to the Great Question…”
“Yes..!”
“Of Life, the Universe and Everything…” said Deep Thought.
“Yes…!”
“Is…” said Deep Thought, and paused.
“Yes…!”
“Is…”
“Yes…!!!…?”
“Forty-two,” said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.”
– Douglas Adams
I’m going to be painfully honest here – sometimes life really sucks. Most of the time the things that suck about my life are entirely my fault. Life has a way of bending you down and twisting you into knots to fill a life that is increasingly informed by the series of choices that came before whatever present moment you find yourself in. It has a way of building inertia in a specific direction that may not lead us to where we ultimately dreamed we would end up. The inertia is fueled by habits informed by trauma avoidance and learned behaviors that are designed to secure safety at a young age. But those habits, that inertia, does not always translate into a well-lived and fulfilling adulthood. Those habits are based on choice. Our choices are ours alone to make. And sometimes we make bad choices in the middle of doing the best we can.
I have also found that the universe has a stunning sense of humor. Presenting opportunities for growth, for change, for synchronicity at every turn if we can just pause long enough to see them. Moving people into our paths without warning who have the power to shape how we experience whatever comes after meeting them. It has a way of ensuring that all your wrong decisions, cyclical longings, and subconscious sabotage are not in vain. Poets write about this, artists capture it, mystics attempt to define it, and average people are caught up in the whimsy of it on ordinary days. Those moving on instinct and avoidance never lift their heads long enough to see it.
I just turned 42 and have been doing some deep soul searching. This is the first year I have been single on my birthday in 22 years. That loneliness has given me space to expand my experience of the anniversary of the day I complete a full turn around the sun. It has given me some perspective into how I have been moving through the world, how much of my identity I give away to others. And I have been deep in the work of therapy, picking apart my past, my psyche, my pain, my failures, and why heartbreak sends me into a weight dropping mental spiral of anguish.
I woke up this morning, with the early morning sun hitting my face because my dog had nudged the curtains open at the perfect angle for the sun to shine through the window directly into my right eyeball. And I realized what a gift it is to wake up to the sunrise in my face, to my dogs nudging at my hands and whining to be let outside. To a gorgeous home I purchased entirely on my own, in a town I could choose to live in, with the most amazing son sleeping downstairs, happy to get to stay up late because it is summer break for him. And I thought about my family last night, my sisters, their kids, my mom and stepdad, gathered around my kitchen table for a shared meal. I thought about their faces as they sang to me. About the hugs they each gave me on their way out the door. About the laughter and memories we always share when we’re together. About the vacation we’re all planning together in a few weeks. About the messages from my friends. The texts from bosses and co-workers. And while the space across from me in the king sized bed was empty, my heart pounding in my chest was so full this morning.
Adulthood tends to progress in stages. The 20’s are the defining years – learning to live on your own and manage the business of life. Pay bills, establish a home, begin seriously dating, go to college or start a career. It is the time of expanding into who we are free from the constraints of the rules of our childhood homes. There is a lot of freedom, but so much uncertainty. Some of us go to college, some of us start working right away, some of us do both. Some of us marry young, some of us play the field. From 18 – 20, I went to college, dropped out, partied…a lot. And then at the tender age of 20 years and 9 months, my ex husband came home from the Navy, spent the night at my apartment, and never left. We married a year later. So I spent my 20’s becoming deeply enmeshed in what I would later learn was a deeply codependent relationship with an alcoholic. At 28 years old, I realized that somehow along the way we had never had so much as an “oops” moment where a period was skipped and a test turned up positive. So I went to an endocrinologist and found out I have PCOS (now PMOS), began treatment, lost 75 pounds.
I gave birth to my son at 31. I quickly realized, in the busyness of keeping an infant alive, dealing with postpartum hormonal and physical changes, and looking at life through the eyes of a baby who would one day become a man, that this was not the domestic bliss I had expected. I realized with horror that my marriage was so unhealthy that it was, in fact, irresponsible to have brought a child into the middle of it. The next 6 years in my 30s began a journey to figure out how to right this wrong. How to help my son out of this situation without harming anyone. The drinking escalated with every step I took away from the marriage. And by 36, a week prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and complete global lockdown, my divorce was finalized. I started my thirties a new mother and ended them a traumatized single mother working full time, going to school full time, whose father was diagnosed with and died from the complications of brain cancer.
I turned 39 three days before my dad graduated into the next life, sold my house, bought a new one in my hometown, packed up my entire life by myself and moved it North to be closer to family. I turned 40 on a beach in California with my sisters, their kids, and my son by my side. 41 was a blur, sandwiched between two relationships, both of which failed, grief, and struggling to adjust again to small town life deeply lonely and deeply buried in grief. Yesterday, I turned 42 in the big beautiful house I purchased all by myself, with the people who have held me up my entire life gathered around my kitchen table. Single. Successful. Beautiful. Resilient. Educated. Writing.
I love being in my forties.
I love that I started working out in my 30’s, so now I am the fittest and strongest I have ever been.
I love that I spent my 30’s building a career that afforded me the opportunities that freed me from the marriage and allowed me to enter this next phase.
I love that I am financially independent.
I love that I am writing again, taking back control of my one constant talent.
I love that I can do anything for myself and do not need a spouse or partner to complete me, which gives me freedom to be picky about who I allow in.
I love that for the first time in my life I can look in the mirror and I know who that beautiful woman standing there is all about.
I love that I have maturity and wisdom to control my actions and reactions.
I love that I have the experience to know when my actions and reactions are disproportionate to the situation and the means to seek clinical support for understanding why.
I love that I am on a journey of self discovery, self expression, and reclaiming the versions of me I gave away to ideaology, love, work, friends.
I love that I no longer care who likes me, who doesn’t, and what anyone has to say about me.
I love that I live my life entirely on my own terms for the first time in my life.
I love that I am free to choose any direction I wish to go, and I have the wisdom to discern which direction will be best for my son and I, free from the opinions of unwashed, unhealed men trying to stand in the light I shine on the world.
I love that I can decide to drive to the Grand Canyon at random on a Sunday morning because my son wanted to get out of the house and had never been.
I love that I have built a small, mighty group of insanely supportive, deliriously wise women friends who subscribe to my blog, make room for me in their plans, hold space or me in my sorrows, and celebrate together when one of us wins.
And I love that on the year whose number is the answer to the great question of life, the universe…and everything, I woke up single. Fully free. Fully in my power. Educated, brilliant, creative, wealthy with friendships and family, financially sound, and completely capable of going wherever I want to go and doing whatever I choose to do. For the first time in my life I can say with certainty that I am the kind of woman who stands on her own, builds on her own, and is absolutely refusing to remain stuck in patterns, relationships, or places that do not promote the highest path I am meant to walk in this life. There will be struggles, heartbreak, and disappointments ahead, but in my 40s I have earned the highest confidence in my ability to successfully navigate whatever comes next.
If my 18 year old self could see me now she would be absolutely stoked.
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