144 Days

While walking yesterday, I asked myself, Why is turning 50 in a few months affecting me so badly? Immediately, the answer came — it’s because I’ve lived my life in survival mode. I never sat down and truly smelled the roses. It’s all been a blur.

I’ve never had a birthday celebration, so I never paid attention to the milestones and the things others do. I dont remember my first gray hair, period, when I got married, divorced, hot flash or anything that folk tend to remember. I flew through my 20s just trying to pay bills and eat. I spent my 30s wanting to be married, get out of debt while still having to pay bills, and eat. I spent my 40s just craving breathing room from working six or seven days a week to pay bills and eat. I have dated a little in my 30’s and have had 3 relationships, because I never had time to even consider men. I have bad or no experience in that area, so I’ve avoided it.

It feels like just yesterday I got my first apartment and had my daughter — but it wasn’t yesterday… it was almost 31 years ago. The days have been long, but the years short. Nobody really tells you how fast it all goes. And just like that, in 144 days, I’ll be half a century old. I feel cheated.

I don’t feel any older or different than I did in my 20s — but I am. I’ve wrestled with feeling like I should’ve accomplished more or that somehow I’ve wasted the years. Now I’m rushing to do something to make this first 49 count, like a mad dash to the middle line. I feel like I can’t just turn 50 without having SOMETHING to show for it. 

Even with all that milling about in my brain, another part of me knows I’m walking into the best season of my life. In this chapter I’m finally free from people’s control & opinions, and the peanut gallery. It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks of me, how I post or what I do.. I’m finally free. Now, when I have a thought, I go with it. I don’t need permission or approval to be authentically me. Personal development has changed my trajectory and I’m finally excited about life. I’ve turned off those inward defeating conversations and have re-written the script.

I honor the old version of me, while at the same time, I relish the new beginning that awaits me in just a few months. I don’t know everything that’s to come, but I KNOW my latter SHALL be greater. I have to believe that.

“He has made everything beautiful in its time.” Ecclesiastes 3:11

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?” Isaiah 43:18-19

The best is yet to come. 🥂