Don't you just love mid life?
Ugh….I feel like my body has just turned eighty, my mind is still ten but my birth certificate says fifty...Yay! I was under the impression that when I turned fifty, something magical would happen - I would have my shit together, I would not be, as I have found myself, starting over.
My journey to disillusionment began a couple of years ago when my body started to act kind of funny. I have been, I think (apart from having a few...ahem.... okay, a lot of extra pounds) fairly healthy, but when I suddenly had an inexplicable rash on my stomach did it start the realisation that although my thoughts and being were firmly planted in my twenties, my body was progressing rapidly towards the upper years of my life. Please do not get me started on where my emotional age is. Off to the doctor I went, a few minutes later, no diagnosis, a prescription for some cream and a shrug of the shoulders I came out none the wiser. This was followed by my hair thinning, my period becoming erratic and oh my god....the body aches, brain fog and lack of memory to list a few more symptoms. So I sought advice from an old trusted friend, google, who told me I was in peri menopause. Wait....what? Say that again?? Gulp….I am going through “THE CHANGE” I am far too young surely? Oh crap, it seems not.....
Feeling a little lost as my mum is no longer with me to ask her advice whilst trying to figure out how I got to where I am right now, fifty and pretty bloody clueless about a life I have found myself in, I put my big girls pants on literally and stop feeling sorry for myself. I am fully aware every woman goes through this but I had no idea there are so many symptoms so, universe and anyone who will listen please let this be as painless as it can be.
With my body feeling like an alien has invaded, I also started looking at my whole life and wondered what exactly did I have to show for a woman just about to turn fifty? I am part of a growing number of women who do not have children or partner so I have or am not having to tackle empty nest syndrome or have a busy household, so what was my excuse?
My world and life as I knew it was unravelling before my eyes, so, all I can do is hold on as tightly as I can and put my faith in the universe. We all know some men are allowed to go through a mid life crisis but are women still supposed to hold it all together or do they get permission too? There is a very sad statistic out there that the highest suicide rate in women in the UK is between the ages of 45 and 49, so clearly we do go through crisis but behind closed doors, a smile and the famous words 'I'm fine', until it gets too much.
Fast forward 2 years, to make matters worse a recent article comes out that the celeb’s turning fifty, are now partying totally showing twenty something’s up and looking the best they have ever done, so that is just fucking great. I sit on my sofa at 9pm whatever day it is, in my pj’s trying not to fall asleep, rolls spilling over my bottoms, feeling crap but just popping in the last piece of a family size chocolate bar even though I vowed yesterday to cut out sugar, scrolling tik tok wondering why these youngsters are richer than I am and having a better life than I can right now imagine.
I used to love my career then I dipped my toe in the entrepreneur pool but got eaten by sharks, freaked out so I am now back in a job which doesn't light me up. I am single and exhausted after chasing men around the world and getting rejected in various languages. My bank account is screaming at me like a b-movie star just about to get murdered, my confidence is six foot under keeping the worms nourished, my social life is as inactive and frozen as I was when I had Cryotherapy, energy? ugh..…what energy?
I know, I know I sound so morose and of course it is not all THAT bad, I do have a lot to be grateful for and that is mostly due to the inner work I have done over the last couple of years which has been accelerated in the last few months. I got a massive jolt just before I turned 50, which had me devouring self help books like a piece of cake, researching spiritual practices, and finding more on how to heal the inner me (both physically and emotionally) and I can say that I have come out the other side liking me more and thinking I am pretty fucking great.
So, with all the wisdom I have decided the next part of my life is going to be even better than the first. I do know that I have a shit load of resilience, far too much motivation, intuition and KNOWLEGDE! that at the time was rendered useless but now...useful, no fear of failure and a curiosity for life after fifty that it has not only killed one cat but a whole litter (pop band reference). I also have a lot of self awareness, getting to know myself has been critical in who I am today and I am so proud of the fact that I live each and every day with authenticity and true to who I am my values. So, I may not have the outer ‘successes’, but I have billions of cells which carry my identity that I am proud of and in my eyes that is a pretty huge, fucking success.
So, I would love for you to come along for the ride of me starting over, tackling issues that us women face and try on some level to make sense of it, meet my friends on my couch and listen to their stories too....Let's Whine with Sophie.