A few days later

Sometimes it's bizarre the things that become a win.

Case in point, not crying the other day when four teenagers openly made fun of the way I look, and in an even weirder example, since my last blog post, I hadn't thought I was having a stroke for four whole days. (Unfortunately I worried about that yesterday.) For some reason my hypochondria seems to be most concerned about me having a stroke or a brain tumour. It usually plays on my mind daily, so four days of "freedom" was amazing.

My perspective does seem to have shifted since I last wrote. Maybe seeing the words, or the time I took to make them coherent, or just the warmth I felt from those who read and took time to empathise
or send thoughts actually got through to me. I've felt healthier, both emotionally and physically since.

That said, I'm still anxious, and I'm still not able to sleep through the night etc but baby steps, and this week it finally felt like I took more than one step.

I'm trying to reframe how I see things, and how I cope with them. Instead of whipping myself into a frenzy over what I should be, or worse, who I should have been, I'm trying to think about who I am and who I can be (realistically...it may be time to accept that I will not be Colin Firth's trophy wife... actually no, I'll hang on to that goal a little longer.)

I think I've been dwelling on this idea that I'm going to fail at being in my 40s, because you have to be a real adult to be that age, and I'm not grown up enough. It's occurred to me that is absolutely ludicrous for a couple of reasons.

1) Where is it documented that you have to be a certain way to be an adult? Or that you have to have a certain level of maturity per age? Your age increases daily, whether you still like Disneyland or not. You don't only age when you hit a certain adult level.

2) I am actually a functioning adult. I'm not always brilliant at "adulting", but I make adult decisions
and deal with adult responsibilities and adult consequences everyday. I seem to be tracking alright so I'm going to assume that I handle at least of these responsibilities at least reasonably well. (I admit I have less, or perhaps different responsibilities than those who are parents.)

3) You can be and are allowed to be an adult and still enjoy "frivolous", "younger" things. I've been told that I should stop collecting toys, should stop wearing certain things, stop liking Disneyland, Snoopy etc, and I have felt lesser/a failure because I don't. Again, why? It's my personality, my likes, it's me, not my age. To give up my love of reading Sweet Valley High books, while listening to boy band music just because I'm in my 40s would be inauthentic to me. It's occurring to me that I'd rather be who I am, not the changed person I should apparently be.

This all comes back to my attempts to realise that I'm fundamentally good, and what's important is to know that I'm good enough. Those kids didn't bother me like they normally would the other day, because I'm more than my weight so I didn't need to feel ashamed, I was causing them no inconvenience so I didn't need to feel guilty, and my weight is just one aspect of my look so I didn't need to feel ugly. Plus I was somehow able to see that I the teasing was really more a reflection of them than it was me.

And importantly if someone chooses to focus on what they see as a negative about me, whether it's them finding me immature or ugly as examples, that is really much more on them, than a notice that I need to change. (I'm not talking about if I was behaving in a way that negatively affects someone. In that case, that's on me.)

Not every day is going to be up. I struggled with some work stuff today, and I know that I'm still going to struggle every day, and be able to be set back, but for a change I feel a bit stronger. A bit more in control, a bit more confident, a bit more valuable.

I hope these feelings do carry on. It's a welcome change to actually feel kind of okay.

And again, thank you for all those who have bee supportive. You're all wonderful. x

(The next blog will be about something way more frivolous. I promise. I'm hoping it'll be a discussion on the US trip I didn't get to blog at the time.)