This year I turned 40 years old. For some reason, that seems like such a significant landmark for me. When I turned 20 and 30 years old, I hardly noticed it. I didn’t do much to celebrate and didn’t really care one way or another. This year was different.
It could be that I found myself in the midst of a huge transformational period in life on every level. Less than two years ago, I thought I was in a good long term relationship with the father of my son. Then in a most confusing, abrupt, and hurtful manner, I wasn’t anymore. I found myself a single mom of a teenager with little money, no home, haven’t had a job in 18 years and now I had to figure out what was next for us and how to survive both financially and emotionally.
Today, I have an e-commerce business that I’m still feeling my way through, and a personal blog that I enjoy writing for, my son is growing fast and exploring his own options in life, and I have big dreams for where I see myself in a few years. I’m slowly building, investing, and creating one step at a time for a future that is very different than the one I thought I’d have just a few years ago. This future, admittedly, has far more potential than the one I envisioned before so there is something to be said for major change.
This feels like part 2 for me in the book of life. I probably have another four decades ahead of me to live, so it’s probably accurate to say I’m having a mid-life epiphany. While I’m starting to realize I’m older than lots of people, I’m not nearly old enough to be “old.” (I still cannot purchase alcohol without showing an I.D 😛) But boy do I feel like most of my peers are younger than I am in life wisdom.
I’ve lived on a boat for five years, I went to sea for months at a time, I had a world record, I had a child, I took care of an elderly person with Alzheimers for eight years, I experienced a narcissistic relationship and learned people like that existed, I got to compare living in a city versus living in the suburban south, and I discovered the wonders of living in Florida while I built my business. The journey has been diverse, dramatic, and rewarding.
Overall though, I’m happy with where I am. I sometimes think I could’ve started sooner with the projects I’m working on now, but I didn’t have the knowledge back then to do so. I guess everything unfolds in its own timing and I have so much more to offer the world in the coming years. I hope I can take full advantage of this new chapter that I’ve been blessed with.
