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What Am I?

What am I?  Not who am I?  But what am I?  What are the things that make me uniquely me?  What are the things that shape my beliefs, that led me in the directions I went, that influenced my decision-making? First and foremost, I am a woman .  Growing up, the fact that I was a woman never really occurred to me as being anything important.  It just was .  But now, at age 47, it's hugely important to me.  So yes, first and foremost, I am a woman.  I experience all the things that being a woman brings, that all women across the Earth have in common.  I have been sexually abused, I have been marginalized, I have been underestimated and underpaid, I have been criticized and viewed as less than.  I have been married, I have borne children, I have watched a parent die.  I have watched my world change in so many ways.  I am a woman. I am a wife .  I am in a marriage that looks nothing whatsoever like what I'd always dreamed ...
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Four Years Ago

I say four years ago, but really, it started before that... In 2015, the year I turned 40, I went through something.  Some not-quite-midlife crisis.  I went on a big trip to Florida with my three closest friends, I got a tattoo in the middle of my back, and I decided to try my hand at martial arts.   My boys had been in martial arts for a few years, and the instructors had been trying to get me into the class.  I had adamantly refused up until then.  I thought there was no way that I could ever do something like that.  A mother of three, miserably out of shape and with zero confidence?  No way.  But once my youngest started, I'd run out of excuses, and they were putting on the pressure, so I finally decided, "What the hell?  Why not?  What's the worst that could happen?" So I became a white belt.  And boy, was I out of shape!  It took me a good six months to stop huffing and puffing my way through class, and for my muscles to s...
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It All Starts With My Dad

I can't remember the last time I was happy.  Free, joyful, without worry, fear or stress happy .  I'm profoundly unhappy in my marriage.  I'm unhappy with my sex life (or lack thereof).  I'm unhappy with my health.  I'm unhappy with my body and my appearance.  I'm unhappy with my mind and thoughts and negative self talk.  I'm unhappy with my habits and the decisions I've made.  And I'm sad.  I'm terribly, unutterably sad.   My dad died unexpectedly in August of 2017, and my whole world changed in an instant.  It just...died.  It died with him.  I was unhappy in my marriage before that.  I was unhappy with a lot of things before that.  But the day he died, I lost my anchor.  I lost the person who made it all seem tolerable.  He was my heart.  My true north, if we're being cliché.  I no longer recognized myself or my world.  I felt like someone had cut my tether, and I was drifting.  I...
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