Last day of 42

Happy 43rd 

birthday Jess. 

So, today was my last day as a 42 year old. The older I get, the harder it is to remember that I'm getting older and how old I actually am.

I still think I'm in my early 20s, and my mom is in her early 40s.... Hard to imagine for someone to actually think like that at this age.

I don't feel like this is a normal way of thinking or feeling. Mentally and emotionally, I seem to have stalled in growing with my age. So, I sink mentally into a deep and dark hole. I just haven't been able to crawl out of in decades. I have felt stuck since I accomplished my goal as a young adult. And, that was to graduate college. To start and finish something like that fed my motivation for all those years.

Since then, I've been frozen. Frozen in fear, depression, anxiety.

I didn't realize I was so stuck until this past few years, talking to my therapist. I guess I haven't grown because of the abuse that happened to me as a young child. I didn't realize who I am and how I act and respond to things happening around me are who I am. 

I found out when it all boiled to a head at almost 30 years old and I wanted to take my own life that morning I woke up instead of going to work. Since then, I discovered treatment including therapy and medication and coping skills. All of which I have stumbled in and out of over the years. Tripping up and having to restart them all.

I have just begun to realize that I have stumbled through these things over the past decade or so because part of me doesn't think that it will work. Part of me feels like I don't deserve to be loved or to be truly happy. Part of me believes that I don't know how to be loved or to love. Or how to be truly happy. That part of me believes that it can't happen to me or for me because I'm broken. So, that's how I have lived.

I've always had this small thought of "what if" .... I could run away and start fresh. Become a new person in a new place. Then, things would be different and I could make the life I choose. And not live a life that has just kind of happened. I don't feel and haven't felt in control of my own life ever. Because I am too afraid to actually make choices for myself. So, I just let life happen to myself. If that makes any sense.

My therapist has always told me that I am special, and I do matter, I do deserve love, I do deserve happiness. It's taken a lot for me to get here. But, starting life at 43, I finally think I believe I can get there. Just keep working on myself and get out from behind the shadow of my child-self that is frozen. Because I want to actually live life and not let life pass me by. 

This means I will have to get through some tough things this year... I will have to face my childhood demons and overcome them and let them go. Something I never could do and maybe I can't ... But I have to try. It's time. 

Here's to 43 in about 2 hours from now!