Hello forty! I am at my computer on the morning of my fortieth birthday. Woken up by the constant nudging of my two toddlers and the frantic remembrance that I had to do payroll for my husbands construction company last night but was too busy celebrating my birthday and forgot! Its 4am so the whole house is asleep and will hopefully remain so for several more hours. I was thinking of tackling the laundry because it is getting scary in there and the mounds of what is clean and what is dirty are slowly merging. But I just cant move myself into that type of action just yet. Plus...I shouldn't be doing those chores alone and on my birthday! So I write my first blog post. I have been thinking about doing this for awhile. I am not a great writer. I don't feel like a very witty person but I do feel like I have a very relatable story and that someone may benefit from reading about it. And since this is my website I get to do what I want with it, lol.
So, hello 40. Hello marriage of almost 13 years, hello 4 babies and one waiting for us in Heaven. Hello, to my private practice and the amazing world of EMDR therapy I get to consistently immerse myself into. Hello to helping my husband who recently took over his families construction company and all the new neural networks that are developing in my brain while I try and figure out this whole new world of construction and how I can play a part in it. I could stay on this happy streak all day!
But hello to some other parts of 40. Hello to thinking about whether or not my Dad will think of me today. Fiona will be three in August, which means it has almost been three years since we have spoken. I gave up our relationship.....Well if you call him texting me that he no longer wanted a relationship with us girls, meaning me and two of my three sisters because we don't accept him and his wife. I guess you can say I let the relationship go. I was no longer willing to put myself, my husband, my children in the path of their narcissistic, emotionally abusive, weirdly controlling path any longer. And because I wasn't willing to tow the line, I was let go. Sound familiar to anyone? I know as a therapist I am not alone when it comes to being estranged from an unhealthy parent. It was so hard to give it up because I had been molded since childhood to believe that my world needed to revolve around my Fathers needs. I wasn't a person, I was a tool. And once the tool started to not work well it was tossed aside. At least, that's what I felt at first.. But then, I learned about narcissism an codependency and growing up in families where your parents are emotionally immature and due to that they are abusive. Add into the equation a super anxious, super insecure step mother and ta da......years of therapy and either crumbling under the weight of caring for my Fathers endless emotional needs and taking the abuse from his highly neurotic wife or hunkering down, doing the hard work on myself to break the codependency in me and finding freedom. I chose freedom.
So hello 40. We made it! What does it look like so far, this freedom, these blessings? What has it taught me? First, child heal thyself. You may have grown up with the negative beliefs that there is something wrong with you or that you are only as worthy as what you can produce. Those were probably my biggest and loudest internal mantras. And with beliefs like that I was easy prey for people to use and take advantage of. Especially my Dad. But through my own EMDR therapy, I was able to change that mantra. I am worthy, loveable, IMPORTANT!! I was able to heal that little girl inside and let her know that no one was ever going to make her feel less than again. I had that power. I HAVE THAT POWER.
There can be peace in the chaos. Even with 4 kids, a big dog, two businesses and LOTS of other crazy schedules to cater to, I don't feel overwhelmed very often. I am not saying this to brag. I am saying it to emphasize that peace in the chaos is possible. It is something learned and something that needs to be worked on constantly. I want to do a whole blog post on this piece in the future.
So hello 40, I am happy to see you. I am excited about our adventures we will have together over this next decade. I look forward to growing with you. Thank you to all the 39 years that got me to this place.
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