Yup. It’s EXACTLY how it sounds. I honestly don’t know where 22 years just evaporated into nowhere. However, turning 40 isn’t as scary as it was turning 30. What is it about the Big Three-O that’s got everyone so shaken? Everyone, as in women, in particular.

I think for me, it was the fact that I was leaving my 20s behind, and there was just so much that I wanted to accomplish by the time I was 30 that I didn’t. You know, graduating college, meeting the love of my life, getting married, moving out, and so on and so on. The fact of the matter is due to this bipolar curse that was thrust upon me; instead of looking towards the future to acquiring all those things, I was continually being pushed back and back and back, with constant hospitalizations and traumatizations. Honestly? My 20s were a fuckin’ nightmare, and it lasted well into my 30s. I mean it wasn’t like I was poverty-stricken or anything, I was just in mental anguish all the damn time, and I wanted someone desperately to love me. Desperately, I say again, DESPERATELY.

Love was the only thing I ever wanted, and I would have sold my soul for it, sometimes I think that I had with all the creeps I had been dealing with, and The Devil was having his fun collecting his due. But that’s for another time. The volumes of my hypersexuality can wait till I am ready to talk about them – “bipolar slut ” is putting it mildly.

In this attempt to find love, I was doing basically what everyone is doing now – except without the swiping and the apps. I was on dating websites, filling out questionnaires, trying to make the perfect profile, spending hours perfecting the most flattering selfies to post on them, and trying to make myself stand out among all the other relationship-seekers on these sites. Now, we all know that girls get more messages than guys, but what is in abundance of quantity, is severely lacking in quality – much so as it is today. In my case, though, (and I don’t know if you guys are guilty of this too), I never went past the messaging phase, ie. I sat on my computer all day talking to guys and never meeting them. Ugh, no wonder I was miserable.

Why am I talking about this? Well, the sad, sad reality is, that the 22 years between my high school days, and my present college days, (getting my degree now, woohoo!), is that a whole lot of nothing happened. Okay, the drama with the hospitals, manias, car accidents, hearing Jesus and Aliens, and all that good shit aside, (I promise I will let you guys in on some of that insanity), but after all that had settled down and I was HEAVILY medicated, so I came back down to reality – it became quiet…..too quiet. I basically spent a bulk of those years drinking very heavily and screwing around online talking to thousands of guys, in which half of them were probably in relationships or married.

What kind of life is that?

This last hospitalization in 2019 taught me one thing – this shit has GOT TO STOP. Like seriously, I can’t be like a revolving door in a psych ward, come on already! When I got discharged, my mom came to pick me up, and on the drive home, she told me something that has stood with me and has been my driving force to do all the things I’m doing today.  She said, “you messed up the first 40 years, make the next 40 count.” And that’s EXACTLY what I’m doing. I happen to have met the love of my life in there this time around, (go figure), and he has a whole host of problems that I don’t even know how I am gonna handle all his shit, my shit, money shit, job shit, apartment shit, and dammit, grown-up shit! And how am I gonna handle being someone’s wife???!!! ARGHHHHHH!!!!

40 seems scary as hell now.

But it also seems very promising as well.

Stay tuned.