I entered you in silent protest, with trepidation born from a feeling of inadequacy. I was scared that I would be discovered, aware as I was that I wasn't worthy of the level of maturity that you would expect of me.
I knew I could play it OK, I felt I had spent much of my 20's playing at being a grown up but had been increasingly aware of the duplicity of it. As a teenager I had played grown up in a way which more thoroughly convinced myself but through my 20's I was, despite the throws of a stressful and responsible job and the parenting of two children, increasingly aware that I had not yet discovered who I was, what I wanted, where I was going or most importantly how to sustain any level of contentment at all.
At the turn of 30 I was married to a man I had been with since the child pretending to be oh so grown up me had met him at 16. I loved him in the way that familiarity and pattern allows you to love somebody who has been so much part of who you have become, but in my heart I knew that the biggest part of my disquiet with entering a new decade was the awareness, increasingly emerging, that I could not be the me I needed to be, could not fly, grow or be free of fear whilst I was in that relationship. I knew too that at that time I did not have the bravery to make that move. I was right. It took another 6 years.
And so we started our time together 30's with me unhappy but I felt your hand guiding me - into career changes and explorations of my sexual being, my need for expression, my abilities and strengths. I began to lay a foundation of independence that I would need to make the moves I needed. I passed my driving test, I made a network of friends who were supportive and strong. I stood up for myself at work and fought for promotions and changes.
The challenges that my parenting had given me in having children with severe allergy led me into supporting other parents in the same position and eventually into a change of direction in my nursing career. There was a reaffirmation of my academic ability and challenges faced when work colleagues became bullies but you knew exactly what you were doing - my facing of those challenges in my working life made me finally take note of the way things were at home and at 35 you had given me the strength to say the words "I wouldn't let anybody else speak to me that way so why do I put up with it from you" words born too from more lessons you had shown me about the fragility of life and the need to take our own path as I watched my mother battle cancer and lost a young friend to it for the first time. Life is too precious you said, to live so much of it unhappy and in the wrong place.
It was another year before I found the strength to end my marriage.
I may mock my less aware 20's but they had given me experience with grief and made me resilient. You, my wonderful 30's had added strength, a support network and the anger I needed to get through what I was about to do. I had to be strong and for the first time in my life I had to be quite quite cold. I felt your hand at my back pushing me through, showing me a light ahead to keep me moving forward.
I finally collapsed through the door of my new home just before Christmas into an unknown adult single life. I was scared and lonely but excited and inquisitive.
You showed me quickly that despite the new found passions of a 30 something divorcee I could not separate love from sexual intimacy. I felt a little lost and frightened that despite my bravery I would still not be complete. I was scared again, this time that you, having given me the strength to make the move which had so torn me and others apart, having torn me from the familiarity that I needed to lose you had placed me somewhat lost in a new place and left me quite alone.
I was wrong, next you did the most amazing thing of all - You opened up my heart.
You showed me wonderful 30's what you had known all this time. You showed me the thing that had carried me through all of my teenage angst, my grief ridden childbearing and my unhappy and bullied marriage and family, my mother's illness - you showed me me!
I finally saw it and felt it for the first time in earnest - a core strength, a love that I simply had to look for to find. All I had to do was hold it, know it and trust it and I was free to be all I could be, to be truly content, to be happy.
You had given so much and I would have been happy had you left it there yet you had not finished - in having finally embraced my true self, having opened my ears, my eyes, my sense of being at one with the universe, I was able to follow the signals that I must have spent so much of my life ignoring. In trusting the universe and trusting myself the last few years of our time together has been a whirlwind of light, of action, of love and fulfilment that I would never have dared to dream of before.
I found the love of a man who met me where I stood, who made me his centre and who loves and supports me for who I am every day that he gives me.
I explored again the fun and wonder of acting and in so doing built again the strength to perform. I found a passion and an awareness of feminism and with it friendships built on sisterhood, on shared values and on truth with women who were, like me, lighting up with the wonder of self-awareness and strength.
I cannot place a value on the things I have in my life now, they are amazing each and every one. I am linked in love and wonder with so many beautiful people, I am taking a path that meanders and twists and touches places and people where I see history being made. I am totally embraced in the arms of my partner and family and I see the links with the me that has always been and the me that moves forward into new and exciting life to come.
So the time has come to say goodbye and I am brimming with tears, but not this time in fear or sadness. This time I am looking back with awe at what we have achieved together, at what we have made. I salute you 30's as I am turn my head and I walk forward in to my 40's with wonder, with excitement and with absolute faith that I am ready for whatever comes next. What a transformation.
Hello there 40, I'm ready, what's next?
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