Single. Never Married. No Kids.
This is Forty
I never imagined myself to be where I am today, at this age, without the merits and milestones that society has expected me to have by now.
Single. No kids. Never married.
I just embarked into a new decade… my forties. Up until the day after my 40th birthday, I was having a complete internal crisis that contained mini meltdowns here and there…simply put, I was freaking out and felt so much angst coming to the surface. There were sweet supportive moments from wonderful friends who would say “honey, it’s just a number.”
Agreed it is just a number, but also it isn’t.
From my personal experience as a woman, this is a massive hurdle.
My body is changing… (Hello perimenopause! never heard of it until the last couple of months).
My time is limited in creating new life.
I am “aging out” in the dating pool. A straight man I briefly dated asked “so why haven’t you been married yet? Is there something I should know?” Mind you he is well into his forties (society doesn’t really question why he is still single).
The list goes on. This is forty…
Men…their silver hair is hot and sexy as they get to embark on the Silver Fox, Daddy, Zaddy era of their life. “Men get hotter with age.” In the meantime, I am being fed products in adverts all about anti-aging face creams and how to freeze my eggs. For many (not all, I know), their lives become better in so many aspects. Oftentimes, they are financially more secure, if they already had a family it is still relatively acceptable to date younger women (or men) and begin a second life with their new person. Again, this is just my observation of the hetero man.
In my personal observation, it feels as though society allows the space for men to “mess up” while women’s lives need to be precise, calculated, and planned to perfection while we constantly battle time. Milestones have to be achieved within certain years otherwise the opportunities are…gone. I have been sitting with this unshakable feeling that I am losing so many opportunities while still harnessing some youthfulness as each day goes by. I might feel “younger”, but the reality is mother nature is on her own timeline. All I hear is my mother’s mantra since I was little “You are wasting your time.” Have I been wasting my time? Lately, it feels that way.
I was chatting with a dear friend the other week, and she said something that has not left me “You know, I know that little me is so proud of all that I am today.” I have not stopped thinking about how I couldn’t be further from this feeling. I just didn’t think that this would be my life at this age. Little Kim had dreams of becoming an astronaut, the first woman president, an Asian Lucille Ball, or a philanthropist married to a musician and we would travel the world together helping folks (hehehe). She was on the academic trajectory of going to Stanford. Little Kim imagined that she would be married with a couple of children (hoped for twins), and would live in a beautiful home that she created with her husband. Little Kim had an incredible imagination, she was fearless and ready to go after all of the dreams she had. She knew what she wanted. She was hungry.
As Little Kim experienced life with all of the roadblocks, abuse, bullying, and every dream not coming to fruition (because it was out of her control) she lost all faith…all of it. She was beholden to the adults in her life, laughing at her silly dreams. Her dreams were not their dreams. Her dreams were “cute”, but their dreams for her were what was to be taken seriously. Their dreams were the only measurement for “success”.
The same person who asked if there was something that they should know in regards to me being single and almost forty, after sharing with him what my current dreams and goals are, told me that I am probably stunted, that I am stuck in a delusion and that by now at this age I should be living in the real world and should have achieved certain milestones. Aggressively, he suggested that I grow up and learn to value myself. (This person was in my life for just a few months and obviously, he did some damage).
This statement, yes coming from some asshole, once again made me rethink everything I dream of doing. Unearthing much of the self-doubt that I have buried since I was a little girl. Are my dreams unrealistic? Is it all a joke? Will they even come to fruition? This interaction with the aforementioned person plus the age that I am now has brought a destructive inner dialogue to the forefront of everything I do. It is so damn loud… I’m not “successful”, I haven’t had children, I haven’t found “the one” yada yada.
This is an interesting new chapter. I never thought about the internal impact of turning 40. I didn’t think that there was so much unpacking to do, it was all living in a subconscious place, one that has been profoundly impacted by society. Everything came to the surface a couple of months before the actual day. Now that my birthday has passed, I am leaning into where I am in life…what else can I do? The anxiety, the sadness, the stress it was all rollercoaster; a wild unexpected purge. Again I find myself leaning hard into the tools that I have been learning over the last decade. Allowing myself to feel without escaping, being as compassionate as I can to myself, having those conversations with friends, and asking for support.
As I take brave little steps to go after my heart’s dreams, I try each day to turn the destructive inner dialogue into one that believes in me again. I am learning to slowly trust the process again, and to stop looking to others for validation and asking them “is this what I am supposed to be doing?”
It is my hope that other folks can be empowered by their age and stand strong in their own personal milestones, not ones that we have been fed to follow our entire lives. It takes courage. The impact of society is known and unknown. I know that there have to be other folks out there that maybe have felt what I have been processing. I want other people to not feel alone. Perhaps we can all help each other? I am doing my best to rid the shame of what it “means to be 40” and my current reality.
It’s not a big deal but it is a big deal LOL.
Well, this is 40…
Thanks for reading! Love you.
xo, Kimi