So about 22 months ago I entered Hazelden Betty Ford for treatment of alcoholism. I was 42, a mother of three children, a wife in a very dysfunctional marriage, a master’s level clinical social worker, and a aspiring writer of children’s books. Little did I know entering those doors would be the beginning of the rest of my life.
So a little backstory on my life… Grew up in white, upper middle class family in small town Minnesota. I had two great parents that were loving and involved, two sisters close in age that I adored and despised all at the same time (and now we are best friends). Very cookie cutter upbringing, until it wasn’t.
The beginning of my trauma begins with something that seems so silly, a first love, a broken heart. He was my best friend, my neighbor, my everything. We were “together” for 1.5 years, which is a long time in middle school relationships. He was also two years older than me, so he soon got his drivers license and was driving to neighboring towns with buddies to go to house parties. Well, he met the love of his life, apparently it wasn’t me, and eventually broke my heart to a million pieces. I would walk down to the park in between our houses and sit on the swing and pray for a chance to see him coming or going in his beat up old black sports car. I can still feel the pain as I write this, the pressure on my chest, the sadness that creeps throughout my entire body, and the feeling like I lost my person. Forever.
I never did get over that boy, my feelings were dismissed by family and friends, I was told to “find something else” to distract myself, “just get over it”, “you’re too young anyway”. My pain was not worthy of anyone’s time or space. That is how my story of pushing, hiding, shoving my emotions deep within my body and mind began. And it lead to some really fucked up shit.
And it’s gonna get real, and raw, and explicit at times. Cause dating in your 40’s is a whole book in itself. And let me tell you I have stories. And I have done things never in a million years did I ever think I would do, or maybe I did think about them but would die of shame before acting on them, but here goes! I’ve done it all, well at least most of it, and I’m learning to trust and love myself all over again, on my terms. So hold on tight as I intertwine family, divorce, sobriety, recovery, sex and dating into this shit show I call my beautiful life…
