And just like that, I’m 40. It’s official. Despite all the other times throughout this past year where I kept thinking “I’m 40” when in fact I was not. I don’t quite understand it. It was almost as though I was excited about hitting a new decade, like a kid at Christmas time. Which is quite the 180 from when I turned 30. At that time I thought I was above the stereotypical “I’m dead” mentality. Plot twist, I was in fact not. I was just ignoring that sense of doom like I do with any and all of my emotions.

If looking back on 22 years with my husband has taught me anything it is that I do not recognize my own feelings. I don’t know if that was a conscious choice on my part or of it was a learned behavior. Regardless of the reason, one simple fact remains: I don’t know how I feel as I’m feeling it. It’s not until I am alone with my thoughts that I finally have found enough peace for them to come roaring to the forefront. Then I breakdown. Well, most of the time. Ninety percent of the time I do something entirely different.

My go to behavior whenever I’m feeling emotions is that I cover them with something: food, sex, buying crap. There are no ends to what I will do to avoid “being human.” And that is what has gotten me in trouble over these last few years. I did all of these self destructive behaviors in an effort to suppress whatever I did not want to face. Evidently it was a lot.

As an adult I am slowly unpacking my feelings. I can finally recognize when I am upset or bothered by something. I may not know what it is yet, but I will try and figure it out. Sometimes I do, and other times it’s a complete and utter fucking mystery. Those are the times that make me angry, and that I feel with un-tethered abandon.

So, today I will do nothing. I will celebrate nothing. There is no point when the family you had known up until now is gone. I just want this day to pass as if it never happened. It was just a regular Tuesday. It just so happens that I have been present for 40 of them.