Embracing the midlife unravel through travel
Following the difficult birth of my daughter Mia in 2011, my husband’s cancer, and then my mother-in-law also being diagnosed with cancer, I was diagnosed with PTSD.
I felt like an imposter and a terrible mother, I was constantly comparing myself to other mums, to society’s picture of what a good mum looks like. I convinced myself that my husband also thought I was a terrible mother and was disappointed with me. I genuinely thought that anyone else in the world could look after my daughter better than I could.
Reeked with guilt and overcome with anxiety, in my mid-thirties I began a ‘personal journey’ to unpick the life I had created, the walls I had built to protect me and the person I’d become. At the time I had no idea that this was the beginning of my journey, I was just desperately unhappy and needed help. The social anxiety had taken over, and I hated the person staring back at me in the mirror – not only was this affecting my life, but also, I was hurting those closest to me – my family and friends. They didn’t deserve it and I wanted to be better.
It was time for me to be vulnerable, open, honest and authentic. I had to ask for help, and I had to let people in and so I sought the help of a lifestyle coach who specialised in anxiety. I dug down deep, and it was extremely painful, but slowly I found a way to begin to let go of the guilt I’d felt around the first few years of Mia’s life. I discovered ways to manage my anxiety, built a far more balanced lifestyle, began to show myself kindness and love myself again.
Then just over 3 years ago my dad died suddenly. There is nothing quite like the death of a loved one to make you consider your own mortality. Life is such a precious gift and I wanted to make my dad proud – to honour him by making the absolute most of my precious life and to be happy. I had to find my way back to me again, and to do this I needed to travel, to live my dreams… and so I went to volunteer on an Elephant Conservation project in Namibia. To grieve, to do something positive, to experience adventure and to reconnect with my true, authentic self.
I was searching for something, for meaning, for purpose. It was during this trip however that that I realised true happiness is not something you can find; in other people, in places, or in material things. I realised that in order to be happy and to be a good mum I simply had to be me. I had to let go of the ’mum guilt’ once and for all and move on.
Since my ‘awakening’, I have travelled to back to Namibia and to Tanzania to volunteer with friends, and earlier this year to Namibia again to volunteer this with my 8-year-old daughter Mia and husband too.
Having rented for many years in 2017 we purchased our first official family home. A beautiful 300-year-old listed cottage in Croscombe, Somerset. In the beginning I was happy there, but very soon the cracks began to show. The reality of stretching ourselves financially and owning a ‘project’ house was that it turned into a total money pit, the debts grew and rather than loving it, I resented the house and everything it was stopping us from doing. I felt trapped, suffocated, and longed to feel freedom again. I knew it certainly wasn’t the life for me, and in the end my husband felt the same. We sold the house in September this year, cleared all the debts, and are now living in an Air bnb while we work out what the next move is.
I long for freedom – it’s my passion. Freedom to travel, to experience life, to spend time with loved ones, to meet new people, to learn, to be outdoors, to do the things we love, to live a life that’s full, beautiful and kind, not to just conform to the way society tells us we must live our lives.
The demands and pressure on mothers these days are high. We go to work, we send our kids to school, we unload the dishwasher, we try to stay fit, we do the washing, we plan the meals, the list goes on… we juggle and we try to keep everyone happy, working in a constant state of stress and anxiety just to get by, to ‘live for the weekend’ or for the next 1- or 2-week holiday.
I want to build a lifestyle we love and live every day, I hope to live a long life of course, but I certainly don’t take that for granted. My dad died at 60 – he still had a mortgage outstanding and a huge pension pot he never had the chance to enjoy. Life is for living right now, every day, not some day ‘when you have enough money’, ‘when your kids have gone to uni’, ‘when you have lost 2 stone’. Not because you might die tomorrow, but because you might truly live!
Right now, I am taking another look at life, holistically, I have thrown all the pieces of the puzzle up in the air and am trying to figure out how to piece them back together. I am starting again with the hugely valuable knowledge I have now gained in the 38 years I have lived, the things I have endured and experienced and learned about myself, with the support of those closest to me in order to make the very best lifestyle possible for myself and my family, and to be happy.
This all seemed all very exciting initially, but in reality, it’s quite a struggle. I feel lonely, exhausted, out of control, tearful, insecure, like I am having some kind of breakdown. Tearing down the walls that I have spent an entire life building up to protect myself and keep me safe isn’t easy. I have worked hard to build up my armour, my ‘coping’ mechanisms and the persona I have created of a strong, independent woman who doesn’t need anyone else to help her and can cope with anything. But underneath all of that there is a girl, a woman, a daughter, a wife, a mother, a friend, a sister, who just wants other people to love and look after her. Ironic isn’t it!
Like most people I like to retain a certain amount of control, but I think I must accept that you can’t control or manage an ‘unravelling’, you just have to go with it and trust that the universe and your loved ones have your back. The alternative is to continue to ignore it, to be in denial or to numb it by finding something else to focus on, to busy myself with planning, spending, learning, or by drinking too or eating too much.
However hard it seems, I want to embrace my ‘midlife unravelling’. I feel a desperate pull to live the life I want to, not the one I’m ‘supposed’ to. I must admit there seems to be a bit of an internal battle going on as I am challenged to let go of who I think I’m supposed to be and embrace who I am, but in the end the universe will win and I will be far happier for it.
For now I will continue to travel and to allow the unravelling to unravel, and see where it takes me!