Midlife crisis. It’s just words that mean nothing and then you look back and forward and you’re in the thick of it. Lost, alone in many ways. Making yourself alone. Hiding from the world. Quantifying your own worth.
Who am I? A mom, a wife, a woman who’s been through pain. Some I caused myself, some placed on my shoulders. Four special needs kids. I can tell you one thing, if God was looking for a special person to raise these children he had Gene in mind. I just move from moment to moment.
Lots of tears lately. Lots of who am I’s? When I was 320 pounds I was invisible. Unless I was the jolly fat girl. I lost the weight and the back pats.. My friend talks about how nice it is to hear all that and she’s right. It makes you glow. “Oh Nancy, you look so good.” Compared to before. Now I look like a forty five year old woman with extra skin. Sorry to gross all of you out, it’s true. Am I happy with the skin? As long as I’m not in shorts I get by. Gene could care less. I’m not thrilled, but I worry more about Herne and the boys and my husband never letting anger out, or joy. No heart attacks Mr. You’re not leaving me with this zoo.
Now people just see a person when they look at me. Pain, weight loss, stupidity, brilliance, all there, but not out there for people to note. So, I tend to talk about my poo. Tell that life story so people will know I’m not just another person. Yet, I am just another person. No more blessed, nor harmed than anyone else.
You can’t quantify pain. My fears and defeats are mine and they hurt, but no more or less than anyone else’s.
I write. I write funny frivolous and rather lurid romances. An afternoon of forgetting that the guy in the toilet stinking up the joint is your prince charming. Who ever said he didn’t leave the lid up?
If you strip away the burning desire to be good at things, to stand out somehow who am I? I know I’m in here, but half my life is gone and it’s not coming back. I track my accomplishments on the scale, the fridge, the overcoming of my fat demons. Which is unfortunate, because the creamy, buttery mashed potato monster is just a substitute for the person who faced pain with food. It could have been booze, drugs, instead it was food and it can be deadly. It would have been for me. It’s also cheaper than booze and drugs.
So now I’m digging down into hard packed dirt and asking myself hard questions I don’t have answers to. Why did I do that to my body, my temple. Oh sure there was the 1000 calorie diet at 14 that probably started my road well and good. You know, like in the Wizard of Oz. The road is a point, I don’t know what that point was with me, and then it gets bigger and you head down it because it’s harder to go back and find another way. Food was my way. I live in terror of it happening again. So I’m still obsessed with food, only the other way.
Does this happen when you’re forty five? When you wake up and realize you’re not going to be a singer on Broadway, and average is okay?
I think I’m asking normal questions, but I think there’s a lot in my past I thought I let go and didn’t. I feel a strong need to confront it, face it down, be stronger than that. Forgive. It does not hurt the man who molested me to have me angry with him. It hurts me. Stops me. He’s dead. He could care less. He was just trying to do something he found acceptable. It was wrong and sick and twisted, but it was his way of dealing with life. I just happened to be there. If not me, someone else. Turns out a lot of someone else’s. So, I forgive him.
Now the hard part. Forgiving me, moving on and laying that pain by the side of the road like cow pies. One day the stink will be gone and flowers will grow in their place. I’d prefer not for them to be roses, but you don’t get to pick the flowers, just know that they will grow if you allow them to.
I’d like to leave the first half of my life with the courage to face my fears. I’m not good at it. I’m good at avoiding them. It’s gotten me through things, but not gotten the things through me. They are still there, ready to deal with and now it’s time. Ready, or not.