Time to start

Start what?  Finding myself, finding what I want to do with my life, find the things/passions that make me tick, finding my purpose, finding my usefulness.  People are going to look at me weird.  At 46, you are supposed to know these things.  You spend your 20's discovering yourself, your 30's having a family and your 40's...what, I don't know.

I am taking voice lessons.  I am now involved in local theater.

I want to learn to drive a motorcycle and see if I want to buy one.  I want to drive a 1967 Mustang.  Okay, maybe those are just shallow, mid-life crisis kinds of things.  Or maybe they are things that fit with my personality.  Wants and desires I have tamped down for 19 years so my ex wouldn't see me as shallow.

Here is where I will talk about my path.  Do all those things to create the life I truly want.  I will dream here, share my experiments, be playful, be reckless and fearless, question all my old beliefs, and ignore reality in favor of my own brand of fantasy.  My own transformation.

Why this urgency inside, why am I pushing so hard?  Because right now, I am anxious, sad, confused, terrified, unfulfilled.  Right now, I hear from people and my own head that I am too old to be doing this, to be searching, to be acting like this, to want or have desires.  Right now, I am terrified of making the wrong move, of finding out that I am not good enough or strong enough to actually become the person I want to be, or even being able to financially keep myself alive.  Right now, I ache.  I sit alone at night, after the family goes to sleep and wonder what the hell happened and how am I ever going to make a life from these scraps.

And right now, I am grateful.  Grateful for this opportunity to discover myself, to pull out my strengths, to find the person I can be inside of me, to build a world where I am creative, beautiful, and wonderful.  To find out how to love and be loved by friends, family and lovers.  Right now, I am on my knees, with joyful tears in my eyes, praising the universe for sending me here and providing me this time.

What to talk about?

So not going to talk about law or law school.  I thought I would start blogging my progress to become a new woman.  And to attempt to get my life back on track after a rough decade.

Learning about myself.  I am trying to pay attention to not only the talking going on in my head, but also my emotions, likes, etc., to relearn who I am.  You probably have absolutely no reason to want to know this, but I have found the oddest thing.  Hard rock music makes me hot, totally.  I never really noticed before (how the hell did I not notice?).  Even more TMI, I have had a fairly bad sex life for over a decade.  Okay, now I am single and I am learning more about this area of my life.  And the only I can think of is "I learn this NOW?"  I mean, why now?  I am not planning on having sex again, possibly ever.  I know that I can, but the last decade was so disappointing, I just don't want to deal with the extra baggage.  But I love hard rock, so now I spend a significant percentage of every day turned on.  The worst part?  All these women that talk about not having a libido after menopause?  Well, in my family, the women actually get an increase well into the 70's.  I think that's why so few of our men live past 70.

Sharing, it's such a novelty.

Holy Attrition Batman...

I am leaving legal work.  Why?  Why in the world am I leaving a field that I spent 3 years and over 100K to be in?  And you know it's the debt that makes me feel the worst about leaving, right?  I feel like I should at least stay in long enough that the debt is completely paid.  Not happening.  After the debacle of the law firm, I tried to stay in the area.  Very bad idea for staying in law.  Too small of a market, no IP firms, and little IP work.  Add to that, anyone with experience is not going to hire a patent attorney with as little experience as I have.  I stayed for the husband.  

Well, I am getting a divorce.  So I sit back and kind of laugh at the...is that ironic?  Maybe.  So what am I going to do?  Honestly?  Spend about a year to two regrouping.  Figuring out where to go and what to do from here.  Find my purpose and become the person I want to be.  I don't want to make any huge decisions now.  I have already hit so many.  Leave the husband...check.  Get out of law...check.  

So now I will work in science, teach and try to maintain my sanity for a bit.  Maybe blogging about it will help.  A middle-aged woman, newly single, having to deal with everything on my own...Huh, maybe a older Mary Tyler Moore situation is brewing here.  I mean, just wait until I start talking about dating and middle-aged sex (if I ever get any).  Could be interesting.

Stay tuned, this might turn out better than I thought.