I don't know who I am ... anymore.. or did I ever really

Sunset, Tulabi Falls

 I am sitting in what I have come to call my self-care room. It used to be my work out room but honestly the workout equipment in here hasn't been used in a while. Both because of pain but also because of fear. I have started to transform this room to allow me to explore other things like art, creativity, sewing, painting, yoga, really a room that feels like is holds puzzle pieces. 

Sitting here contemplating what I want to do - as in it is 4:00 am and I'm stuck. Stuck in the moment, stuck in life and stuck in fear. When I turned 30 I felt free, like it was a gift because I never imagined or saw my life beyond 30. When I would be asked "where do you see yourself in 10 years" I never really had an answer because I didn't. I honestly didn't think I would live past the age of 30. We even decided to tempt fate and went tandem sky diving the day before I turned 30. I had a small birthday party and promised myself that I would now really start living my life. I have no idea what it meant and no idea what I was going to do I just knew that is what your are suppose to do, right? I mean, YOLO and all. 

Top of Tulabi Falls

I still didn't know what that meant and approaching my 40th birthday I could look back to the time right before I turned 30 and the promises that I made to myself about how life would be different, but little did I know that life would be the same in so many ways. After turning 30 I faced a difficult year where I had my first serious bout with depression and anxiety which I just pushed through. I didn't know what I wanted to be and where I wanted to be in my life. I had done the things I was suppose to and had the life that I had been taught by life I was suppose to have. I was married, had an amazing daughter, a small modest starter home with a huge yard with lots of potential, two cars, a good professional career but I was miserable. 

Here I am facing 40 - a whole decade later and in so many ways in the same position and in so many ways not the same position. I am married again to a man that I drive nuts but can't imagine being without; still have an amazing, wonderful, brilliant child, a modest home with a small yard that I just transformed into an area that I love, one car, two dogs and two cats.  I have a job (of sorts) I am on long term disability away from my job working on healing myself, a job that I loved that my boss literally told me after I was hired that it was like the job was made for me and my specific qualifications and experiences, but that specific job, that fate seemed to push me towards, will soon no longer be mine.

The path to the bottom

I am sitting listening to an amazing spoken word artist on Instagram - Adam Russell thinking about happiness, trying to figure out what is happiness? What makes me happy? Who am I really? For much of my life I have worn masks and armour to defend and protect myself so that I could carry on, so that I could present who I was suppose to be and what people thought of me. Away from all the things and stuff in the world, hidden away the masks and armour have been removed and what is left is me, just me, the real me a person I haven't seen or heard from in ... well I don't know how long because I honestly can't remember. So I sit listless and yearning to get going, to get moving and to figure out who I am.

"I think happiness is about letting go of what you thought your life is suppose to be and just embracing where you are now and how special it is." - Adam Russell

I took my 40th Birthday as a day mostly to myself, it was not the day as I had planned. I had planned to spend the day with my husband and daughter, maybe some friends or family, but unfortunately circumstances that I could not control meant that I was with my daughter and one of the dogs at the yurt. So I went with what life gave me and took part of the day by myself. I faced things, such simple things that were such huge fears and I found moments of it - moments of happiness. When I tried to control of exert power over the moments they fought back and taught me to just be still when I needed to be still, be strong when I needed to be and to be ok with making a decision not to do something when I never really wanted to do it in the first place. Being in this space on this day I realized that so much of my life has been dictated by fear, fear of failure, fear of success, fear of being seen, fear of not being seen, just fear of everything. So for me this next year of my life I will be focusing on being Forty and Fearless. 

I will also be looking at doing a 40 while 40 list. Do I have a list yet? No. Does the list have to be big things? No. What makes the list and doesn't? I don't know and that is a start of not letting fear dictate my life. 

Climbed to the base of the falls

Me on the cliff, in a bikini at 40 deciding not to jump