SO THIS IS 40?!?!?!

Tonight I sit here outside my home in the dark drinking and smoking and staring out into the cloud covered sky. It's fixing to storm here and the clouds are starting to cover the stars and the lightning is breathtaking. I sit and I stare at the clouds taking shape as they did when I was a child and I can make forms out of them and then I think to myself I am 40 now and my kid goes off to college this fall, I am not a child anymore but far from it. I stare at the house and the light from her window and realize that soon that room will be dark and I have an overwhelming emptiness come over me. I then realize she is what has kept me grounded, sane and at times still on this earth. Without her I have no purpose I'm afraid, I mean what do I live for now? What do I do with my life? I can do anything now I guess and the reality of that scares me, because all this time I have lived my life for her and now I get to live it for me and I'm not entirely certain how to do that.

Thoughts run through my head like ..will she miss me, what will become of me, will I have enough money to retire, where will I live, how often will I see her etc????So many unanswered questions and so many possibilities and now I can feel the panic come on. It settles in my chest like an elephant sitting on me, I'm having a panic attack. Damn it not another one , that's 3 this month, this is silly. So this is 40? I am divorced for a second time in my life, I have had so many struggles, lost my tubes at 36 and can;t have more children, I let my home go to someone who didn't deserve it,I quit a job, lost another one, found the love of my life and now find myself somewhere in the middle of happy ,sad and empty all at the same time. SO..THIS...IS..40 I say again to myself. Wow ,what a fucking roller coaster, I never thought I'd make it to forty but here I am.

I write this for those of you out there going through the same thing right now. I know we are not alone and there are several of us I'm certain. This is our time to start fresh, rebuild our lives and possibly make them into what we always wanted. Now we live for ourselves and every time you look into that empty room where our babies used to be remember that another mother is out there doing the same thing and take a deep breath cause WE GOT THIS LADIES. So I leave you with this song