Will I ever let go of the things in my life that are toxic? I eat too much in a continued never ending sad attempt to dilute my anger? my fear? my inadequacies? I have spent a good deal of my life trying to make everyone else in my life happy by putting my wants, needs, and dreams on a back burner. I am now way passed my forties. I am actively enmeshed in my glorious (not) fifties. I do not like the way my body betrays me. I have allowed the fearful part of myself to control my life. My physician asked me to come back for a follow up after my physical in October because she was worried about my state of being (mental health check). I feel like I am standing on the edge of a beautiful mountain side but I am on the wrong side of this vision. There is nothing beautiful left on this side. Everything lies in ruins, overmined and stripped of all of its natural beauty.

I grew up feeling like a misfit, not really part of anything. I was withdrawn in school. I did well academically but never had the ambition to find my dream or a mentor to help me find a direction or career path. I had zero friends. My level of self loathing off the charts but somehow I managed to hang on. I adult with no direction. You can’t tell me you are surprised. Can you? I still have no life plan. I never thought for one second in the time of my youth that I would live longer than the age of thirty; yet here I am in my current lovely state of disrepair. I have spent most of my life chasing a version of myself I am not sure exists anywhere but in the corner of my mind.

Where to start? I can not continue to get up day after day feeling like what I do and who I am is not important. I want to recapture my joie de vie.  Did I ever have a joy for my life? I am sure I did. I am struggling with the getting older part. “You know your skin is saggy in places. You are getting AGE spots. Did you know you drool in your sleep?” Youthful Trish mocks me. I do not want my picture taken ever again but I will pose when asked. I am forever telling people to stop underestimating what they mean to others but I have no idea what I mean to people in my life. You could be someone’s hero even when you feel like a big fat nothing, I am trying to break free of my sadness. A sadness that does not seem to have a true origin. Is this what menopause is? A long journey into sad? I want to throw tantrums, but I am a grown woman and quite frankly who wants to see an overweight, older, adorable female throw herself on the floor of a local Trader Joe’s? I mean, what a way to go viral on social media! Thank the gods I have more restraint than that, well, at least I think I do.