Is it the 40s?

Day 27

There seems to be a commonality among many of us.....often women in their 40s and 50s coming to the conclusion that wine is not for them any more.

I'm sure much has been written on this but it's on my mind today.  This is going to sound like the most childish post in this blogging universe but I think I'm on to something in regard to my wine drinking.

I faced a major life change at age 40 and I stagnated for the last few years, for sure, but I think it's more than that....something that was coming on before that, back when I became a parent in my thirties.

I've been trying to figure out why my drinking went "inside", behind closed doors.  Oh, I always drank more than healthy but not like since I hit 40.  I've evaluated a number of excuses: divorce, new relationship, some financial anxiety etc.  I'm usually okay with change, though, almost exhilarated by it.

In other words, I don't think that my shift in drinking really had to do with the above.  The escalation of drinking at home to "tune" out life happened to coincide with a major shift in my life, but, again, I don't think that was the reason.

I think that, for me, and this is going to sound really petty, it was realizing that I was finally "grown up".  I was at the point where I could now remember my parents turning 40 and what they were like at my age.  I always wanted to have a bigger house than I grew up in (materialistic, I know), wanted to travel more than they did, have a bigger social network than they did, have more money to do more things.  (And I was not under privileged growing up....I wasn't handed things on a silver spoon but I didn't want for much.)

The pressure of realizing I was grown up (and needing to "get real" with that) triggered something in me.  I became, I think, subconsciously depressed.  Suddenly, I had to come to terms with the fact that "I was where I was" in life.

Suddenly, driving through my old home neighborhood, I could no longer say "I might own that beautiful big house someday."  I know I can't, and am unlikely to be able to, afford that home.  I'm in the house I'm in for the long term unless I sell and end up in a similar type of home or in a city with a much lower cost of living.  I have the social network I have.  I've traveled a lot, had a good career in the corporate world and now working mostly for myself.

Basically, I think I got BORED!!  Drinking away the evenings was a way of tuning out that I felt I had done what I needed to but also wasn't going to go much further.  On the one hand I felt I had had a fulfilling life through work, marriage, motherhood, travel.....I had done what I wanted to do for the most part but I also was at a "status" in life that probably wasn't going to change much from that point forward.

I don't know why I thought this, I'm only in my 40s!  I was depressed at the thought that I was on the down side to my working career and money making years, headed toward retirement.  I had to finish raising my son but I couldn't see beyond that.  I've always had goals and now I had none.  Because I was just telling myself I'd sit tight until my son graduates high school and then figure life out, I chose wine at night as a way of not feeling bad, not thinking too much about where I'm not in life nor where I need to go.

I'm pleased to say that fog is lifting after 27 days.  I'm still not ready to do too much advance planning.  I'm just enjoying being overall happy again, sleeping well and not hating myself from 2-5am every day.  I'm enjoying watching my body change as I work out more (not a lot but enough) and I'm enjoying who I am becoming....not so edgy, a better wife and mother, etc.

Admitting in this blog how childish I feel about why I drank is important for me.  This "getting to your status in life and knowing that probably won't change much from here on out" may resonate with some and not with others.  Plenty of entrepreneurs do something with their life in their late 40s and 50s. It's a mindset of mine that is holding me back.

I know that changes won't occur if I keep drowning my petulant thoughts in wine.  I'm looking forward to the clarity that will be coming, the changes I will make that right now I cannot even envision.....but I know, now, those changes will come.  I will no longer remain stagnate.

HD