This is 38

- One day to yourself and you are working on a research paper. Your mind is foggy because you are too old and too exhausted for this shit, but in you heart you know that you are lucky to be here, alive, somewhat functioning, and being exited about life changes. I hate playing a victim. I hate the word shame. I dislike what those two together make me feel. My PTSD has taken a lot from me but it is also giving me a chance to start almost fresh, somewhat fresh, like go buy almond croissants at the store and then pretend you baked them kind of fresh. 

Life is a beautiful thing and it sucks not to be able to see all the delicacies it has to offer. Depression takes that beauty away. Anxiety muffles it to the point where everything looks grey. PTSD makes at it as hard as looking through the fog and not knowing when to turn the corner. 

This is not a post about depression. This is a post about love. Interestingly it is a post about being a female in her late thirties and trying to find a new version of herself again. Not post divorce. Not post critical illness. Not post any major life event. Just post shitty few years and a soul-killing work environment. 

This post is about meeting new people and immediately falling in love with them. A new girl friend just walked into my life and this post is about strong female friendships from first sight. It's hard to believe that at 38 that kind of magic is still possible, with plans for BFF bracelets, spa dates, and all night girl parties. 

This is a post about closing a tab on "exploring the metaphor-body-psychotherapy relationship" and psychotherapy homework and inPrivate googling "how to talk dirty to your man". This is a post about playing a desperate housewife and shaving your legs on a Wednesday morning even though you have no where to be. 

This is a post about accidentally watching Netflix's Sex Life at the gym while attempting to scale the imaginary hike through the  Mohave desert on a well-used elliptical. It's about finally choosing myself over everyone else so I can soon be back to helping people survive and thrive. 

This is a post about truly figuring who I authentically truly am now. It's about feeling someone's weigh on your body instead of being weighted down by emotions. It's about touch, and romance, and new explorations and the unpredictability of life but in a fully romanticized way. It's about being ok with where I am today and where those around me are today. It's about the psychology of here-and-now... and about starting to write the book... all the amazing stories a life can hold and no one ever hears them. It's about people who cross our lives so spontaneously, so unexpectedly, like a wind that somehow leaves you with sex hair and a bite mark. 

This is a post about life that we sometimes forget to have while struggling with normal every day things. 

This is a new chapter and it will be a great one. 

This is spring.