I remember the days leading up to my 30th birthday. I had just gotten home from Chicago, having attained topic approval for my dissertation for my PhD. I was living with Phil at the shore and for the most part, life was pretty together, but I was totally freaked out about that milestone birthday. I was worried that Phil and I would just live in sin for forever and that I would never get to be a mom. I felt like I was reaching the accomplishments I wanted professionally but felt like I was going to miss everything I wanted in my personal life and that age was slowly creeping in. I think that is the big difference between men and women, men think their time is infinite while women are all too aware of the seasons that we age in.
If I could go back to ten years ago, I think I would hug that version of myself. I would let her know how absolutely hard and devastating marrying Phil would be. How she hadn’t known it yet, but that she had already begun and would continue to lose herself in Phil’s world and toxic family. And how those patterns would just repeat on and on until you would finally move away and ultimately to the day of his funeral where your mother would look at you after all the insanity was over and say, “You’re no longer married to him. This is now your life to decide.” She was right. It is my life and they are my children to raise. I don’t regret my life with Phil because at the time it was who I loved and wanted and if I had chosen any differently, I would not have the three amazing kids that I do have.
I got to be a mom and I was given the gift of starting over and giving my children a childhood that breaks free of the generational trauma and toxic family dynamics that killed their father. Looking back on the past decade of my life, I see how hard it was. I see how hard I worked for my family and for everything that I have. I also see how much it all burnt me out and how I lost myself in the early to middle part of my 30’s, only to have life hand me the biggest curve ball and find the strength and mental fortitude needed to move forward and start over again.
There’s something to your 30’s being the decade that you learn the most about yourself. About what you want, what you will deal with and finding that inner glow up that brings with it a new level of confidence after surviving some of the scariest moments of your life from giving birth to trying to save your dying husband. To the even scarier stuff, meeting someone new and having those kinds of feelings for them that makes you want to let them into your world. And as you approach 40, you begin to realize that because of your special person that you are awakening your interests and parts of you that you lost being married to someone who didn’t appreciate you or really respect you by the end of it.
To my 20-something self, I would say…calm down girlfriend it’s all going to work out the way it’s supposed to.
To my 30-something self, I would hug and say, you deserved more than you got, but I am proud of you for staying true to who you are despite spending much of your time here in the epicenter of crazy and then in the middle of someone’s deteriorating mental health. You didn’t come out unscathed, but you absolutely came out stronger because of it.
To my soon to be 40-year-old self…man it’s scary to be middle aged isn’t it? Don’t focus so much on the ending of your life. It may even be another 60 years before that happens. Instead, enjoy all of the things you worked so hard for. Enjoy being with the true love of your life and doing all the things you both are passionate about, gardening and nature adventures and traveling. Stay true to your own passions of reading too much and painting abstract vaginas. Hold onto hope that you and your love will get to have your own children and that eventually your teaching career will fade into the writing career that you always wanted…perhaps with a little college lecturing on the side. Just because you’re middle aged doesn’t mean it’s over, it just means a new life has begun and there is still time to do all of the things as long as you make them a priority. Your life deviated greatly from where you thought it was going, but in so many ways it has become better than you ever thought it could be.
Be proud of how well your children are doing and how much work it took both you and your love to undo the years of having been at home with a disengaged father. Be proud of losing 115 pounds from the morbid obesity that three back to back pregnancies and a chaotic over-worked lifestyle brought you. You’re just 20 pounds away from being at your goal weight and you’re still under the two year mark from when you started your journey–that is just amazing. Most importantly, don’t be so afraid or anxiety ridden of the future…especially trout streams.
Here’s to turning 40 and the chapter of life that is yet to come.
Katherine Kuzma-Beck 
Published by