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I just turned forty-nine years old, the day before yesterday. Forty-nine.  Fooouuurrrtyyy. Nine.  I am forty-nine years old.  Half a century.  Is there supposed to be a hyphen in forty-nine?

The words themselves, "forty" and "nine" hold no real meaning, other than quantifications of a thing or things.  In this case, a quantification of years; years spent on this planet, in this skin, with this mind and these memories and experiences.  But, does forty-nine equal experienced, that is, knowledgeable and wise?  To be honest, it does not feel like the equation pans out.  So far, forty-nine just means forty-nine.  Half a century.  

So, it was my birthday on Friday; so, I turned forty-nine.  The whole situation seems unreal to me.  I am kinda wondering what happened, exactly.  I don't remember slipping this far down the timeline.  What was I doing, and where have I been?  It is amazing how hard my life is to remember, now that I am sitting here, on this side of forty-nine, wondering how I got here.  I feel as though I need to catch up with myself, see how things have been.  I feel like I need to check in, because somewhere along the line I lost track of what the heck was going on in my own life.  And ended up here, day before yesterday, at forty-nine.  

I know, in my deepest heart, that I have never healed from any of my life's traumas, from early childhood all the way through to forty-nine; it was stumbling upon that thought which turned me back to this blog and my thoughts of writing.  

I know what you're thinking..."Sure, yeah.  Go ahead; write.  Like you always said you would, right?"

But, listen...I really think I have no choice now. The other day was really a bit painful for me, because I have never actually thought about all the time I have had on this Earth, so far.  When you come right out and say it, it seems like a lot of wasted time, and that feels embarrassing.  Like, what the hell HAVE I been doing?  Where the hell have I been with my thoughts and feelings?  Who has been taking care of my mind, body and spirit while I have been bumbling around on clumsy autopilot with my eyes closed for forty-nine years??  I need to explore this.  I need to find the answers.  This is my life, and I  know almost nothing about how I got here.  That freaking scares me.  I know it cannot be healthy.  So, I am back again, on this little blog I created, beginning again, again.  

I really feel like I have something to say, or at least have the right to say what is in my head, before it comes exploding out in some other, destructive (self-destructive) way.  I feel like it is a damn shame that I am forty-nine.  I feel like I was robbed of time that I wasn't paying attention to.  I feel like I lost some race, or failed some quiz, or the test was stacked, and I am now forced to reverse engineer the plot twists that led me here, so I can figure out the exact moment things went blank for me.  When did I zone out, and allow myself to go on autopilot?  When did I lose connection with the now, effectively severing my potential from my attention?  When, exactly, did I decide to turn my attention outward?  And how could I have been different, how could my life have been different, had I chosen to stay present and pay attention?  Was I forced out of focus, or did I wander on my own???

Be prepared, if you decide to be a reader of mine, to be led around in circles.  Be ready for wandering tangents and rambling musings that do not seem related.  But, rest assured, they are all related.  Everything I say and spew here will be relevant, because this is my space.  This is my Blog.  This is my place to examine this "forty-nine" that I find myself in.  Do you want to come with me, and see how I got here, and where I'm going to go next?  Will you hang out, and witness me figuring it out?  This is apt to be meandering, messy and somewhat emotionally charged at times.  I hope you can handle that; I won't ask you to understand it completely.  At least, not right away.  But I would be delighted if you would come along and find things with me.  

Today's post is really all about rediscovering this realization, that writing is all there is left for me to try.  Writing is all I have ever thought about when I thought about what I wanted to be "when I grew up".  I have always been attracted to books, words, expression.  I have always been a bibliophile.  Going to the library was always my favorite day at elementary school.  I knew I wanted to write stories and poems from a very, very young age.  I used to tell stories to my classmates, making them up as I went along.   I wrote short stories and poems from the time that I could write sentences.  I used to be really great at it.  I could write a poem in minutes, a compelling story in a day.  My imagination was wild and broad and colorful and rich.  And then it was stunted.  By trauma.  And I was blinded and lost my way.  The other day, when I turned forty-nine, I realized it is time to find my way back to the beginning, so I can get back to my original purpose.  I need to get back to the purpose I had before the world traumatized me.  I need to get back to my bibliophilia, back to my love of words and expression, back to the fount of creativity that is boiling inside of me, aching for a way to get out.  

Life has a way of putting blinders on us, without us ever realizing it is happening.  Love, marriage, children, careers, emotional, mental, and physical traumas, bills, finals, loss....one thing or another will always come around to shake our focus.  But, turning forty-nine made me suddenly understand that I need to take back the reins.  I can no longer allow my past to control my future.  I can no longer allow my traumas to dim my inspiration and expression.  I am forty-nine, and it is time to, essentially, grow up.  It is time for me to reach out and take what this life has given to me, but that I have laid buried beneath years of turmoil, regret, and insecurity.  No more time to be bashful, ashamed, afraid, timid, fearful or untrusting.  I am forty-nine, and juvenile fears have to go by the wayside.  I will never know if I can make it as a writer if I don't try.  Even if I use this blog as just my nonsensical, unorganized pile of thoughts journal, at least I am writing.  Even if my spewings and musings make zero sense to anyone but me, and maybe my one solid fan, it will be enough for me.  Because I have wasted too much time.  

Too much of these forty-nine years has been an exercise in repetitive lessons and futility.  So, now, I choose to do something different.  Now, I choose to take off the blinders, open my eyes, leave my fear aside, and tell you what I feel.  I vow to speak my mind, express myself, and tell my story.  I vow to tell my stories, even if it is to no one but myself.  Because, the other day, I turned forty-nine.