Three grey pubes and an ankle sprain

I’ve started writing a post to sum up hitting 40 and a recap on my progress on all the things I wanted to achieve before I hit 40 about 6 times since the start of January and each time I get about one paragraph in and the inspiration just fizzles out.

I think it’s partly because I didn’t get anywhere near as far through my forty before 40 list as I thought I would and partly because the whole thing just seems a bit anticlimactic; not quite the pivotal life changing moment ’40’ is marketed as. So far all 40 has given me is three grey pubes and an ankle sprain… although the greys could have been there a while for all I know (I’ve not spent much time down there lately).

39 had all the makings of a great year to start with. I’d not long taken on a new developer which was going to free me up day to day to build the business, I’d got events and races and festivals and a marathon and all sorts of fun stuff in the calendar (lots of stuff to help complete the 40 list), the company had won a bunch of new clients and contracts: it was going to be epic personally and professionally!

And then I got threatened by a client, which knocked my confidence for six.

And then my new hire turned out to be a disastrous match for the company.

And then in the chaos of managing them moving on unexpectedly we lost work, and clients, and a fuck ton of money.

And then my daughter decided she didn’t want to see her dad any more so suddenly I was parenting 24/7 instead of having a break a couple of nights a week.

If you’re a parent who doesn’t share custody you’re probably rolling your eyes at the last one, but as a routine-driven autistic mum parenting a routine driven almost-certainly-autistic-still-waiting-for-diagnosis teenager, it was a bit of a shitshow for both of us. I support my daughter’s choice 100% and deep down am grateful that after years and years of pushback and shit and guilt trips for leaving her dad she chose me (so I can’t be as bad a mum as she makes out sometimes) but holy hell there was a long adjustment.

And of course parenting an almost-certainly-autistic teenager 24/7 meant that all those events and races and festivals? Yeah, not gonna happen. The items on my list slowly fell by the wayside. The gym attendance dropped off. The goals took a back seat.

So having expected 39 to be a whirlwind of adventures culminating in a holy orgasmic life changing BANG of a birthday, instead I got a year of work fuck ups, an intense increase in parenting responsibility, an injury that kept me out of running (not the ankle sprain, that’s new) and a resurgence in my drinking to cope with it all (healthy 🫣).

The birthday was alright though; banging party.