I Should’ve Died at Forty
While my hair is still thick and black and my pussy wet with enamored anticipation. While I still recognize the person gazing back at me in the mirror.
Now I spend a little longer trying to assure myself that despite the remarkable alterations — this life is truly mine.
I remember back in the day when I was a Facebook addict — sifting through material deposited from friends and foe. A friend mentioned how she couldn’t relate to bitchy women in their forties who seem to have a lot more to bitch about ever since they turned forty.
That hit me hard.
Mainly because of the way she belittled the personal experiences of those of us who hoped for the best and never anticipated the worst.
I want my life back.
Not only that — but I want to feel like I did before my thirties left me in the dust. As much as I would like to boast about how amazing it is to be a strong, independent and successful woman, who doesn’t need a man to validate her needs — or could care less about the symbols of aging that keep manifesting daily — the truth is that this process of getting older is kicking my well-propped ass.
I mean I am literally on the floor begging for the referee to ring that bell. I am pleading for an intervention. I want to be kidnapped and stored in a hostel with other crazies who were once of sound mind and body.
There has to be a drug that helps minimize the shock of not knowing how to deal with symptoms of a continuous train wreck that crashes into you with no mercy.
None of the ones I’ve tried seem to work.
I just end up alone with pinkish orange hair, skin bumps and a hormonal. deficiency — that is determined to punish me for living long enough to witness how scary things can get — when you dare to live long enough.
To be honest — nobody wants to tackle the shit that comes with transitioning from a bright-eyed beautiful gal to a stoney-eyed frazzled woman on the verge of a mental breakdown.
It’s an ugly process that can only happen behind the curtain of uncertainty. There is a lot of blood, sweat and tears — and this is a literal description.
It’s quite possible that I assumed I would die at forty.
This wouldn’t have been a horrible fate because my life in some ways ended at forty.
My body shut down and stopped producing whatever the hell it needs to keep me sane and healthy.
I became a gray-haired monster with erratic pores and squeamish tendencies.
I melted into a puddle of disarray and my dismembered parts multiplied beyond my grasp.
People related to me the exact way that I related to myself and the results were hauntingly ironic.
You’ve come full circle when you used to be the shit and then you’re forced to remember when you used to be the shit.
Yeah, this not a good place to be.
And yet there is no escape. You can spend hours pouring over digital outtakes that capture the glory days.
Once the scrolling ends — you are left with nothing.
Except questions with answers that don’t match the pieces of a puzzle that you thought you solved long ago but, somehow the mystery has been reimagined.
You’re breathless, tired, defeated, desperate, manic, sketchy, itchy, bored, clueless, senseless, demanding, relentless, shameless, and crazy.
When assholes call me Ma’am I want to walk into traffic holding their hands.
When I consider job prospects or anything that puts me in the spotlight — the desire to lie about my age becomes a life saving tactic.
When I ponder mating and childbirth — I become numb with fright at the reality of such a quest.
I am a pleasurable mess.
Ownership be damned. All you really need to know before the razor blade nicks the right vein is:
