My Fortieth Year - My First Post

Hello there,

I have set myself the following challenges to achieve in my fortieth year. They are difficult and challenging but are things that I've always wanted to do.

The Challenges:

To learn to play the piano. I will learn to the point where I can give a concert to my friends on my 41 st birthday. The music must include a classical piece, a jazz piece that I sing along to, a musical theatre piece that I sing along to and more.

To complete my first novel and to get a literary agent.

To learn Salsa and participate in a competition.

To learn how to cook interesting and yummy vegan and vegetarian recipes.

Conceive a baby.

I need to do something towards achieving these goals every week and I will post my attempts and exploits once a week. (maybe not about the conception bit). :)

NOW - I have my very first piano lesson at 3pm today, in half an hour. Check me out next week to hear how I went and also the story of how I bought my piano against all odds. I will have a new recipe that you can check out and will tell you how I went in my search for a salsa teacher to take me through to my goal.

Wish me luck. Best wishes.

Susannah :)

An Explanation as to Why - For Those Who Want More......

Because:

I am forty years old. If you had told me at any point prior to now that I would eventually be forty I would have scoffed at you, as anyone who has never been forty before does scoff. As do people who have never been thirty. As, in fact, do people who have never reached the age of ten.

So, here I am, at the age of forty, coming to the realisation that I need to 'do something'.

Many people who are forty are too busy to 'do something' with their fortieth year as they have work commitments, children, spouses and creaky joints to take care of. But I have had a slow realisation that over the last few years that I have 'lost myself'. I am writing this blog to set myself the challenge of re-setting my mentality to find myself again and to also start a new chapter.

I suppose what I need to identify to you then, firstly, is who I am and so therefore who was lost in the first place. I will reveal many aspects of myself over the next year but in this first post I will summarise who I am/was by making a list of what was important to me in the time before I became lost.

I was raised as a vegan, when I left home I became a vegetarian who tried to maintain a strong connection to vegan sensibilities and lifestyle.

I was a theatre nerd. I worked in professional and independant theatre and completed my university studies in Theatre Performance.

I was actively creative - I wrote, I sang, I danced, I directed, I was silly.

I learnt stuff. I took lessons in things and enjoyed learning.

I was sociable and active.

Where I went Wrong:

At some point around the age of thirty four I was lost. I was so lost that I was scrabbling around trying to get a foothold and I ended up being more lost. By the ages of thirty five and thirty six I had seemed to forget completely who I was. This is despite being in a wonderful relationship with a lovely man who I married in my thirty fifth year, to whom I am still happily married. How is it possible that I could get so lost and yet simultaneously have achieved one of my dreams - to find a lovely partner and settle down?

One of my guesses is that it was a combination of things: trying to please and ending up lazy in my habits, being very tired from my job as a teacher and feeling I didn't have the energy to do the things I used to do, being distressed from negative dynamics at work and losing my personal confidence and ability to be assertive and self nurturing, not having anyone who I felt was a true friend apart from my husband - who was the same person who had to put up with all of the above.

Hmmmmmmm.

If I was not back on the road to recovery I would not be able to even conceive of writing the blog, I would have been too overburdened by life. But I am returning to myself to the point where I want to set myself a couple of challenges, here in my fortieth year, to give myself back to me and so that I can remember to never lose myself again.

These challenges need to be tough and they need to be things that I have always dreamed of achieving.

How I Started To Find Myself Again:

Not all of the ways I started to find myself again were easy or even fun, but they set me back on a path where I could see myself in the distance and where I was forced to reconnect with my heart and my body.

I left my job.

I had a baby.

I went to the gym two or three times a week with a strong focus on yoga.

I lost my beloved Mum too too early.

So now: to the challenges that I have decided to set myself.

Wish Me Luck

Ok, so here I am, I've written my first post and really committed myself to these difficult challenges. I will of course always be looking after the number ones in my life during all of this - My baby girl, My beloved husband - and ME. :)

Susannah :)