I am thirty-nine and...
Learnings, ponderings and the voice within.
I am thirty-nine and…only late last year did I learn I was extremely hyper-mobile, what hyper-mobility is, and how it’s been impacting my body my whole life. As a result I am now re-training myself how to walk, stand and relax without the unnecessary strain and if that isn’t just the most delicious correlation to life I don’t know what is. The re-training, re-wiring, the practicing of how to rid your body (and life) of unnecessary strain.
I am thirty-nine and…only this year did I realise you could keep bread in the fridge so it wouldn’t go moldy. THIS. YEAR.
I am thirty-nine and…only recently learned that I’ve operated most of my life with a general wash of anxiety. I didn’t know I was anxious because it was just my normal state. Thanks to therapy and making changes this isn’t my normal state anymore and I can feel the difference. I heard a great phrase recently that said, “You cannot heal in the environment that is causing the hurt,” and if that isn’t a fucking revelation.
I am thirty-nine and…navigating the revelation that is the likelihood of your own neurodivergence is wild. Having that affirmed by a therapist, but having to navigate an over stretched and under-resourced system for official diagnosis is exclusionary, expensive and the least ADHD friendly system ever. It’s fucking wild out here, folks. The clarity, and the grief, that rub up against each other with these revelations though are deep and crunchy to navigate. Pattern recognition in my own behavior's means I can now create systems to help myself and the way my brain works, rather than just feeling shit about myself. The recognition that i’ve made parts of these functions markers of my identity as a coping strategy when they’re not actually about personality at all is sad and confronting to navigate. Again, unlearning, relearning to rid myself of the unnecessary strain.
Acceptance. Empathy. Gentle.
I am thirty-nine and…I love getting older. I love feeling the fucks fall away from my body like ice melting in the sun. I love the clarity and comfort I feel in unravelling all of the things i’ve tried to perform, or fix, or model in the past and simply feel the joy of being. If this is thirty-nine, imagine forty-nine, or fifty-nine - I cannot wait to meet her.
I am thirty-nine and…I definitely feel a shift in the last few months, a pondering of the next (hopeful) twenty-five years of my working life if I abide the imposed cultural structure. I have delicious questions about the experiences, changes, details, adventures, learnings I want to witness and unravel in this time. If you think about twenty-five not as years but as birthdays, or Januarys, or summers…twenty-five really isn’t that many.
I am thirty-nine and…I finally feel comfortable to wear a dress that shows off my body as it is, no restrictive undergarments, or trickery of the eye, just a simple mantra…This is my body on this day and it is enough.
I am thirty-nine and…last week I ran for twenty minutes without stopping. I didn’t know this was something I could do. Admittedly i’ve never tried to do this until now and now that this new information is a reality i’m now pondering what other things I can do that I have no idea about yet. And that, my loves, is thrilling.
I am thirty-nine and…I now know what it feels like to feel safe in a romantic relationship, to feel truly held, to have empathetic, loving conflict that is about care and needs being met and not a sign of disaster.
I am thirty-nine and…I am learning how to truly regulate my own nervous system for the first time ever. How do we get to thirty-nine and not know how to breathe properly?
I am thirty-nine and…I still feel like I am twelve, or fourteen, or twenty-seven, or thirty-three depending on the moment of the day or whose trauma is triggered and feels like she needs to take the lead. I’m thinking about intuition a lot lately, the soul voice, the gut, the inner knowing, true self, whatever you want to call it. And the visual I have of this part of me is like a small present that got put in a box when I was a kid, and then with each cultural lesson, each incident, each trigger, another layer of wrapping paper got wrapped around the box. So, I can still hear the voice, but it’s muffled under all the decoration. It’s easier to hear the voice now that i’m shredding bows and ripping paper like a spoilt kid at Christmas.
It was hard to trust the voice in this muffly stage because we’re so out of practice, and the wrapping paper is very loud and pretty and convincing. But, i’m learning the more I trust the voice, even when everything is loud and terrifying, it pays off, and the next time, there’s less paper and the voice is louder, easier to hear, easier to trust and believe. I think about how loud this voice had to be to really get my attention in the moments in my life when her reckoning destroyed the side of the box and she had to scream. Like the time she said, “It is not safe here, leave now,” or, “I don’t want to be married anymore.” I feel a sadness for how hoarse her voice must’ve been to get my attention.
I am thirty-nine and I am listening. Finally.
I’ve got three Play Date workshops coming up if you wanna go on a creative date with me. The first on is on Monday the 27th of February. We’re gonna hang out, play, dazzle our imaginations and relish the joy of making…just because.