I’m 35, Almost 36 Years Old

I feel like for the first time in a real real long time (if not ever) I know who I am.

I have well-defined interests that I understand. For the first time maybe ever, I’ve figured out what exactly my taste in music is. I have a favorite artist even. Who I’m going to see in concert (my first concert) later this fall. I still read everything in sight, but I have favorite authors. I even know how I prefer to present myself appearance-wise.

I’m comfortable and confident in my queerness. I’m still evolving and working to define my sexuality, but I’m comfortable in that process. I understand my gender, which is that I don’t have one.

I know what I want in a friendship. I’m seeking out individuals that I want to know better. I’m taking an online acquaintance who is sort of local to the concert this fall even, in a bid to get to know them better.

In general, I have a life full of friendship. People who love me as I am. People I love back with all my heart. I’m opening my home to one of them, who is more like a child of my heart to me, and not just a friend. My eldest child comes home to me this winter.

I’ve defined and become comfortable in my spirituality. I have found comfort in the old gods. They help me to define my place in this world and give me strength in my hours of need.

I have found comfort in witchcraft. I have taken my fate into my own hands and project my desires into the world helping them to manifest.

I have taken my fate into my own hands and accomplished one of three degrees I will need to pursue my dreams. I will accomplish the other two degrees then I will go into practice as a psychologist diagnosing, especially those who are afab, with autism and ADHD. I will research and strive to correct the problem of this subset of the population being severely under-diagnosed. I will be the change I want to see in the world.

I finally understand my own neuro divergence. I have ADHD. That is officially diagnosed. I am autistic. That is unofficially diagnosed with therapist support. Suddenly life makes sense. All of it.

Gods. There is so much more. So much I’m forgetting. I could go on for paragraphs more. But I think my point is made.

But let me say this. If you are reading this and young and lost and floundering in your identity, please no that there is no deadline in figuring out who you are. Life is trial and error. It’s an imperfect process. I’m 35 years old and only just now finding my identity. And I’d be foolish to assume I’ve learned all there is to know about who I am.

So many of you are delayed in self-discovery due to things like abuse and mental health issues and general neuro divergence. And that’s ok. I understand the frustrations. I understand feeling lost. But please know it will come. When? I can’t answer that for you. But it will come.

Continue to grow at your own pace. Continue to explore who you are and your interests and gender and sexuality and just your identity in general.

And it will come.

Self Worth

For so long now, my self worth has directly tied into my grades. I have an amazing GPA, I’m graduating Summa Cum Laude, this is what my value as a person is based on, in my eyes.

My therapist is working to convince me that this is not the best thing to measure my worth on.

She also went as far as to suggest that in grad school, I won’t continue to be a straight-A student; which I immediately took as a challenge. I will defy that or die trying.

Then when I shared that sentiment with my friends and family on Facebook, someone else pointed out that it’s not worth the die trying sentiment because literally, no one is going to care about my grades after I graduate.

So really, aside from being useful towards getting into grad school, grades don’t matter.

So then maybe this is why I shouldn’t base my self worth on them.

Dear Body

I’m sorry I have hated you for so long. Misguided in ideas that I was supposed to be a girl and society’s version of what a girl should look like.

Stretch marks don’t give my body character? Bullshit! They are there because my body held and grew three children. They are a beautiful celebration of the lives I gave birth to. I would no sooner fault a tiger for it’s stripes.

This does not define me, but it tells a story.

The weight I carry? I know it doesn’t help my fibromyalgia and I would like to lose some weight in the name of being healthier. But not through shame and mistreatment. Withholding calories out of shame for my shape does no one any good. Increasing my overall daily calories, but spreading them through the day so that I’m eating smaller meals, but more frequently, is the answer to both loving and respecting my current body, while gently shaping it to a healthier form.

And if this just never happens? I will not feel shame. Just like my stretch marks, my current form is the result of carrying three babies in my core. It’s also the result of 20-30 years of intense mental health meds. I feel no shame for this meds, I feel no shame for how they shape my appearance.

Make-up? Hair? Lack of both? Even if I was a girl, it is not society’s job to tell me what I’m supposed to look like. I do not choose to paint over my self portrait as a means of hiding who I am. And hair is just not something I’ll ever be able to work with. And that’s fine. The me I present is the me I am happiest with and there are no apologies offered.

I am, however, struggling with my breasts. I’m torn between hating them and indifference. They are a source of physical pain as the weight of carrying them destroys my back. They are a source of mental pain as they are a huge trigger to my dysphoria.

It is noted, though, that I used to appear to enjoy them, as I flaunted what I was given. What can I say? I was hungry for attention and breasts were a means of feeding that hunger. Ironically, a breast’s sole purpose in life is to feed… hungry babies. And a wept over my inability to produce milk. I wept over how such a large burden, a large weight against my shoulders, could fail to do their one intended purpose.

So how could I feel loyal to them?

The patriarchy says I am to have a painted face, long silky hair, and large firm breasts.

I reject the patriarchy.

So I will work on refusing to hate my breasts any longer, as that is a self destructive emotion, but I can still elect to be done with them. I do intend on getting a breast reduction as soon as I can. But I will not hate myself over the fact this could take years. I have bigger health emergencies in the forefront.

And nonbinary presentation does not equate to androgyny. So I can be me and still have my breasts, I tell myself. Anything to help the dysphoria.

The patriarchy find so much wrong with my body. The patriarchy has taught me to internalize those “imperfections” and hate myself for them. To want to mold and sculpt myself into me “perfect from”.

Yet in all the ways my body has truly failed me, having cellulite isn’t even related to any of them. I don’t need to contour and cover my face with makeup to fight my anemia. Long flowing hair only hurts my headaches and anxiety.

I am who I am and I will love myself for every bit of my appearance. I can work on being healthier physically as I work on being healthier mentally. The two can coexist and I don’t need to hate myself. Especially since society tells me I should.

But then society is trying to sell me something.

Travel

I don’t know why but of all the places in the world, I want to visit Greenland and Iceland the most.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to travel Europe and visit all the museums and historically significant places.  It’s a dream.  But if I were to only leave the USA once, I’d want to go to Iceland and Greenland.  They just to me seem to be the most beautiful places in the world.  Plus, they aren’t exactly tourist hot spots so it wouldn’t be so… crowded.

I don’t know.  I really don’t know what it is.

I bet there is a cruise that goes through the region and will stop at different ports of interest.  Or, I’d just take a flight and stay at different motels as I explored each country.  I’d need a few weeks to do it.  Maybe when my kids are grown and I’m done with my schooling I can reward myself with spending a summer doing just that.  I don’t know.

But…

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I Don’t Really Hate Math, Of Course

I feel like I bit off more than I can chew, taking two math classes at once. Either way, it would have been two classes at the same time, but I might have paired it better if only one class was a math class, and they weren’t both 15 weeks long. The next 15 weeks are going to be stressful.

The thing is, I know I can handle it. I’m scared I can’t, but that’s how I am. I never give myself credit.

What I don’t know is if I’ll survive this term with a perfect 4.0. I’m having to let go of some impossible standards. There are only so many times I can work a problem before I give up and admit defeat. Defeat isn’t the end of the world. It only feels like it is. Defeat simply means I need a little help and that’s ok. It has to be. I’m not perfect.

I’m not perfect.

Which the insane part is I long ago accepted I’m not perfect, and yet I hold myself to the standard of perfection when it comes to my academics. I know it’s because I know I’m capable of great things. But I’m still only human. As much as I hate to admit it, I’m human and I make mistakes. Or I simply don’t understand everything with perfect clarity. And that’s ok. The standard I hold myself to is an impossible standard and that standard is not ok.

I repeat, mostly to myself because I’m the one not listening, holding myself to a standard of perfection is not ok. It’s not healthy. It has me obsessing over every miserable point loss, and spending hours reviewing what I already know because I’m afraid I’ll forget something come test time.

I can’t do this to myself. I’m fighting a hard enough battle as it is, why do I insist on purposely making it worse?

I need to stop.

So.

So what if I get a B? That’s still above average. It’s a passing grade. It’s more than acceptable to any rational human being.

My perfect 4.0 won’t last forever. At least it’ll be better if it’s because I’m not perfect, versus not doing the work. I’m putting in the effort. It shows. I’m getting the vast majority of the material even. I’m just… tired? Not perfect. And in my mental and physical exhaustion, I make mistakes,

I might even pull off an A in both classes. All this stress over my GPA might be for naught. Either way, I need to just let it go. Accept what is and let go of what can’t be.

I just. This is hard for me.

All I am right now is a student. I don’t have a job to excel in. I have motherhood, of course, but that isn’t all I am. School is what is taking me away from my kids so I at least need to make the best of it. Be the best at it. No. Just do my best.

I need to do my best and accept that no one’s best is perfection. No one is perfect. I need to accept I’m certainly not the exception.

It’s a Metaphor

Have you ever just known you were solving a math problem wrong but you were so far in you just had to see where it took you just incase, but 10 minutes later you’ve confirmed it had to have been wrong all along? Oh, and you’re not sure when exactly it went wrong?  Sometimes you have all the skills but you just don’t know when or how to use them.  Sometimes you had the skills but that was like a decade ago, and best of luck with that.  Sometimes you never had the math skills, the individual how-tos and you’re just plain stuck.  Sometimes even with all the skills math still throws radicals, insane fractions, and irrationals your way.  It’s all mathematically correct, but it makes zero sense and is just a mess.

Also: this can all be a metaphor for life and suddenly you can relate to my math struggles.

Ah well. I’m going to try isolating the other radical and see what happens.