Decades

My life is spilled out to me in decades.  My first Decade was spent on developing my mind, my personality and my body.  I learned to walk, to talk, to feed myself. I spent my summers just being a kid and the rest of the time absorbing what school had to teach me.

My second decade was spent growing my hair, my nails and my breasts. The latter part of that decade I spent learning how to self-destruct. Using alcohol, drugs and my own body against me. Because even though it was pain I was causing and pain that I felt, I was still alive right?  Dead people can't feel pain right? I did it to numb the pain that was hidden just below the surface of me, So I caused pain in other areas of myself and my life. It kept the cries from escaping other parts of my mind and soul.  It was a wonder that I even had another decade.

My third decade was spent learning to stop punishing myself, learning to love myself and at the same time realizing there was more to the universe than just me.  I thought I knew the depths of love, I knew nothing, until my first born left my womb to be placed in my arms.  Oh the wonder of it all!  Her small hands, her perfect mouth, the soft way she sighed.  The eyes that looked back at me with such love, such  trust.  It is now that I look back at that moment and know they should also arrive with a warning label!  It was the decade that I thought I left my childhood behind.

My fourth decade is where I shattered.  I couldn't do it all anymore.  I knew in order for me to go forward I had to go back to my past.  I dealt with childhood issues that I thought were long taken care of.  I liken it to a long hallway with many doors, some doors well lit, some cast in shadows.  There were a few that I just wanted to take a peek in, just to relive a great memory, and there were others where the doors were scorching hot, and they burned me as I turned the knob.  I opened all but a few.  Those were the doors that I didn't really want to know what happened, I am at peace with my choices.  The second half of that decade was ridding myself of all the drama. I walked away from everything and everybody that I felt took more than they gave to me.  It was wonderful to be free of that garbage, but I still had to deal with the guilt of sometimes putting myself before others.  Your wholechildhood your taught to be nice, to accommodate everybody so no one feels left out, even though your spread so thin that you wonder if there is enough of you to go around? Its something you don't realize until its almost too late.

So here I sit on the first year of my fifth decade wondering but looking forward to what's in front of me. Here is where I stop writing in decades and start in the here and now.