i am home

growing into myself at 62

A weird thing happened in between the time I closed the newsletter and when I came back: I grew up.

It’s true I’m going to be 62 in a month and I should have grown up already, and maybe I did. I made it to adulthood, became a mother, had and retired from a career. All hallmarks of growing up. I even own a house and a car. But maybe I don’t mean that type of growing up, the kind we all do chronologically. I mean I grew mentally. I grew spiritually. I grew emotionally. And it all happened so fast.

As I’ve written about before, the years since 2020 have not been kind to me. The pandemic, a devastating divorce, various illnesses and hospitalizations, mental issues, my dog died, I found out my ex had been cheating on me the whole time. It was just a litany of the most terrible things that could happen to me without someone actually dying. I had a choice: I could crumble underneath the weight of everything, or I could get on with my life. I came close to crumbling.

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I come from a background of codependency issues. Since high school, I have never been truly romantically alone. I had never even lived alone before. I thought I needed a partner to be whole. I thought I needed someone to guide me through life, to hold my hand, to tell me everything is going to be okay. I didn’t have the self worth or esteem to be on my own. I didn’t have the desire to be on my own. I felt like I couldn’t exist without someone to prop me up, to hold me, to save me from myself.

I was engaged at 20. I never did marry him, but when that relationship ended I went straight into another one where I did get married, at 27. I also got married at 40. And at 51. Just a succession of marriages that were, in many ways, terrible for me, but which I viewed at the time of each as life affirming and life saving. Each marriage was good until it wasn’t. Two of my husbands were addicts of various vices. One was mentally abusive. I don’t have a good track record of choosing who I’m going to be codependent with.

My codependency kept me from growing. It stagnated me. Each marriage was different, but they all had this one key element; I let my partners lead. And by doing that I didn’t have the chance to be my own person, make my own decisions, or do my own thing. They guided me in a way that I thought was needed, that I thought was done with love and care, but was just about power. It wasn’t totally their fault things were this way. I allowed it. I asked for it. I craved it. I thought I couldn’t do anything alone, that I needed to be instructed and guided. My last ex took great advantage of this especially and ultimately I wasn’t making any decisions without consulting him first. I could say I had forgotten how to live on my own, but that’s not something I ever really knew.

I tell you this because it’s important. It’s crucial to know where I came from in order to understand the enormity of where I am now.

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So here we are in mid 2024. I’ve had three years to heal from my breakup; maybe six months to heal from uncovering those dark secrets that opened my wounds and tempered my healing. I’ve had a year to heal from my surgeries, to get on meds for other ailments, to get my diabetes under control, to lose the weight I gained. I’ve had a year to adjust to retirement, to figure out things to do with my time, and ways to manage my lack of money.

Grief does not know time. Your heart does not know time. Counting all the days since each personal atrocity happened did nothing except make me feel like I was not getting there fast enough. But where was “there?” I had no idea where I was supposed to be landing after all this. All I knew is I felt afloat for a bit, that my grief and hurt were all I knew besides the fear of being alone.

It wasn’t a pervasive, romantic loneliness I feared. I was now alone in the sense that I had lost the ability to turn to someone and say “how do I do this?” or “i’m afraid to do this.” I had no one to instruct me, to guide me, or talk me through an endeavor. How would I survive? How was I even getting through the days without his assistance? It was frightening at first. The little faith I had in myself was completely gone. My answer to everything was gone.

As I fought my way through the days and week and months of post-everything, a recurring thought was hanging out in the back of my mind. Every so often I would say to myself you’re still here. I would remind myself of the things I’ve done without him, without my guide. I navigated putting the house in my name on my own. I got through being very sick without him by my side telling me to buck up, as he always did. I did the research and made the decision to retire without his input. With each thing I accomplished without him holding my hand, I grew stronger, and got better. I just didn’t realize it was happening at first.

It wasn’t until about two weeks ago when I was making an attempt to meditate away my insomnia that I took stock of the year since I retired. I thought about the way I was living; alone, successfully. I maintain the house, I pay the bills, I do the gardening, I either fix things or call someone who can. I redecorated and made the house mine instead of something that used to be ours.

And it’s so much more than that. As I sat there in my dark room with white noise playing I started to have some real clarity about the past year. I looked at myself from the outside. I began to see what others have seen and have been relating to me. I have gained confidence from having to navigate medical issues and advocate for myself. I have started really, truly taking care of myself and it shows. My self esteem is better. I’m healthier than I’ve been in years, this is the lowest weight I’ve been at since 2016. I have a better outlook on life, I feel like I can meet challenges and do things I hesitated to do before.

Most of all, I have learned to like myself. I’m a pretty good person, and fun to be around. I’m no longer hiding my personality to suit my partner’s vision of me. I’m no longer content to sit around on the couch all day watching baseball. I’m asking people to be social with me.

I had an epiphany during my meditation; it was that I am happy - not for the first time in my life, of course - but for the first time I am truly happy without being reliant on a partner for that happiness. I make me happy. I have chosen to live a life that suits me, that works around my needs. Never again will I let a man dictate my moods. Never again will I let a partner determine how I approach life and all of its troubles.

I have waited more than three years to heal. I have waited my whole life to feel whole, to feel like I’m somewhere I belong, somewhere I can be me. Allow me some hyperbole to say I feel like a phoenix rising from the ashes. This is not so much a new me, as it is the me I was always meant to be.

I am healed, I am whole. I am home.