FOREVER 45

This morning wasn't supposed to happen.

There is something I have never told anyone.

Not my family.
Not my friends.
Not the people who wondered where I disappeared to over the past year.

Last year, two weeks after my youngest son and I moved into our rental, I made a decision.

I decided I would be Forever 45.

I had just left an abusive marriage and was trying to figure out how to rebuild a life I barely recognized.

But leaving wasn't the instant freedom people sometimes imagine.

By then, I was exhausted in ways I didn't know how to explain.

The year leading up to my divorce had already taken a lot out of me.

I had been diagnosed with pretty severe ADHD after spending most of my life not understanding why my brain worked the way it did.

Three months later, I had a hysterectomy.

I was dealing with fibromyalgia, and it worsening. 

I forgot things. Sometimes important things.

I was quiet. Moody. Overwhelmed.

And through all of it, I was desperately trying to be a good wife, a good mom, a good Nana, and everything else I thought everyone needed me to be.

Apparently, I wasn't doing a very good job of any of it.

At least that's what I had started believing.

Then my marriage ended.

And I didn't only lose a husband.

My oldest son decided I wasn't the kind of person he wanted in his life anymore.

With him, I lost my three grandchildren and my daughter-in-law too.

There is a particular kind of grief that comes with loving people who are still alive but no longer part of your life.

I didn't know what to do with that grief.

I didn't know what to do with any of it.

So two weeks after moving into our new home, I quietly made a plan.

I gave myself one more year.

I would use that year to get everything in order.

I would make sure my youngest son would be okay without me.

I would take care of whatever needed to be taken care of.

And on the night of my 45th birthday, I planned to end my life.

The note would contain two words:

Forever 45

Nobody knew.

And while I was making that decision, something else happened.

That very same day, a man messaged me about something I had listed for sale on Facebook Marketplace.

Except, as I later learned, he wasn't particularly interested in what I was selling.

He wanted an excuse to talk to me.

Today, he's my boyfriend. My incredibly patient, understanding, and kind boyfriend.

He had absolutely no idea that he had wandered into my life on the same day I had privately decided when I was going to leave it.

Neither did I.

And somewhere between that first message and this morning, something happened that I never accounted for in my plan.

I started living again.

THE YEAR I “TOOK OFF”

I know people wonder where I went.

I'm sure people speculated.

I stopped showing up to holidays.

I missed family events.

I pulled away from friends and people I loved.

Most of the time, I stayed at my boyfriend's house instead of going home. Because I could more or less forget what I was going through when I was there. Or at least it wasn't directly in front of my face. Constantly reminding me of everything.

Did I handle everything perfectly?

No.

Would I make every decision exactly the same way today?

Probably not.

Maybe people were hurt by my absence.

Maybe people thought I was selfish.

Maybe they thought I had replaced my family.

Maybe they thought I didn't care.

Whatever.

Because there was something they couldn't possibly have known.

I had given myself an expiration date.

While other people were wondering why I wasn't showing up for my life, I was privately trying to find a reason to stay in it.

They weren't inside that marriage.

They didn't live through what happened behind those closed doors.

They weren't trying to understand what years of fear, control and abuse had done to me.

They didn't lose my son.

They didn't lose my grandchildren.

They weren't trying to navigate ADHD, a hysterectomy, fibromyalgia, divorce, trauma, grief and the collapse of the life they thought they were going to have.

They saw my absence.

They didn't know what was underneath it.

And here's something I've finally realized:

I don't have to hate myself for how I survived it.

I can acknowledge that my disappearing affected other people.

I can acknowledge that I didn't handle everything perfectly.

And I can still give myself compassion for the woman who was doing the best she could with a life that had become unbearably heavy.

For a little while, I couldn't be everything to everybody.

I couldn't be the friend, daughter, sister, mother, Nana or whatever else I thought I was supposed to be.

For a little while, I needed to simply be Heidi.

And Heidi needed help.

She needed counseling.

She needed quiet.

She needed sleep.

She needed somewhere she felt safe.

She needed someone who could sit beside her without demanding that she hurry up and become okay.

She needed to stop performing.

She needed time.

So I took it.

Maybe from the outside it looked like I disappeared.

But inside that little bubble I had created, something was changing.

I started sleeping.

I started laughing.

I started learning.

I started understanding what had happened to me.

I started figuring out who I was when I wasn't constantly trying to manage someone else's emotions.

I started Divine Chaos.

I began telling pieces of a story I once planned to take to my grave.

I found purpose inside things I had spent years carrying with shame.

And somewhere during the year I had intended to be my last...

I healed enough to want another one.

THE MORNING AFTER 45

Yesterday was my 45th birthday.

According to the plan I made a year ago, there wasn't supposed to be a September 2nd for me.

This morning wasn't supposed to happen.

But it did.

I opened my eyes.

I was still here.

And my first realization was incredibly simple:

I'm not mad that I woke up.

Maybe somebody reading this understands just how enormous those words are.

I'm not saying everything is fixed.

It isn't.

There are relationships I still grieve.

There are grandchildren I desperately miss.

There is one I hope someday I finally get to meet.

There are things I wish I could change.

There are mistakes I've made.

There are people who may never understand my choices.

There are parts of myself I'm still learning to understand and forgive.

But I'm happy.

Actually happy.

Not pretending-for-the-picture happy.

Not convincing-everyone-everything-is-fine happy.

Not walking-on-eggshells-but-smiling-anyway happy.

Just...

happy.

And that feels almost unbelievable to say.

A year ago, I thought the greatest thing I could do for my youngest son was spend twelve months preparing him for a life without me.

Today I understand something very different.

Maybe the greatest thing I can give him is the chance to watch his mom learn how to live.

So today, I'm retiring Forever 45.

Those words were supposed to be my ending.

I'm taking them back.

Now they will remind me of the birthday when I reached the ending I had secretly written for myself...

and decided I wasn't finished.

I don't know exactly what the next chapter looks like.

For once, I don't need to.

I'm here to find out.

And maybe that's what this entire year really was.

Maybe I didn't disappear from my life.

Maybe I disappeared long enough to find my way back to it.

Yesterday I turned 45.

Today I woke up.

And I'm really, really glad there was a morning after 45.

🖤

This is Divine Chaos.

It isn't always a phoenix exploding out of the ashes feeling powerful.

Sometimes rising is much quieter than that.

Sometimes RISE is surviving something nobody else knows you're surviving.

Sometimes it's withdrawing while your nervous system finally learns what safety feels like.

Sometimes it's going to counseling.

Sometimes it's sleeping.

Sometimes it's letting somebody love you while you're still learning how to love yourself.

And sometimes...

rising is simply opening your eyes one morning and realizing:

I think I'd like to stay.

SURVIVE → UNDERSTAND → HEAL → RECLAIM → RISE

Welcome to Divine Chaos.

Together, we #RISEUnbreakable. 🖤