Cathy Marie Bown

44 is a terrifying age.

And yet, something about turning 44 is sitting deeply in my soul. It’s whispering through me that all of this has been building up to something: a suffocating desire to burst out of the mold of my prison and explode into who I am meant to be.

The last year was not good to me.

While trying to recover from the deep emotional wounds of a 16-year-marriage that came to an abrupt and disastrous end months earlier, I launched myself into a chaotic love triangle that completely consumed my free time, my ability to think rationally, and my sanity.

It’s been roughly 6 weeks since the triangle was destroyed by one of the deepest betrayals I’ve ever experienced. That betrayal shattered what was left of the relationship between me and my nerdy viking. That very brief and chaotic handfasted marriage ended in a complete breakdown in trust and communication.

Caught in a weird place where we aren’t exactly strangers, since we’ve lived 18 months inside of each other’s heads, but not quite friends, because we’re each one misunderstood signal away from a block button.

The last year has seen me hospitalized multiple times for my chronic mental health conditions. The stress from trying to balance a relationship that always felt like it was one incorrect answer away from ending with a job that was constantly demanding more and more and more for less and less and less had me standing on a ledge, genuinely convinced that jumping into the abyss of death was a better outcome than forcing every single thing that was hurting me to stop immediately while I sorted through the damage.

To compound the problem, I am in my final MFA class at SNHU. I’ve had to take medical breaks 2 separate times this past year, meaning that I’ve delayed my graduation by an entire year now due to mental health crisis situations.

And then, look around us all. The country is on FIRE, and reality doesn’t even feel real anymore. We’re living in Nazi Germany disguised as modern-day America. We’re slaves to a government that is actively and aggressively trying to kill as many of us as possible on any given day.

To say this last year has been a dumpster fire would be a gross understatement. 2019 was a dumpster fire. 2020 was a pregnant dumpster fire. And each year after has been a dumpster fire giving birth to an infinite number of dumpster fires. 2026 feels like an episode of The Twilight Zone that I watched when I was 12 at my grandmother’s house at midnight, but I fell asleep and woke up here, and now I don’t know how to turn it off. It doesn’t matter how much I scream at the TV; nothing happens.

If you wake up in Hell, what do you do?

I’m turning down the distractions. The endless scrolling that’s nothing more than dopamine addiction dressed up to look like human connection. The RedBull at 2 am because I haven’t stared at TikTok long enough to appease some inner disease. Hour after hour, playing games that accomplish nothing more than wasting time.

I tried to form a daydream today. A “what would my perfect birthday look like” fantasy.

I came up blank.

Birthdays are always hard when you never feel like you belong. Birthdays are hard when so many of them before have been spent in unhappy circumstances, the day heavily influenced by the angry or annoyed mood of my partners/family/parents/strangers in a restaurant. Enough is enough.

It’s time for me to start dreaming again.

Today I slept in. Then, I went to lunch with my mother and stepfather. We had Orange Dreamsicles, and my mom drove my car home. We had an amazing time!

I spent time with my family. I spoke to most of my children. Some of my friends wished me a happy birthday. Some didn’t. I noticed but didn’t feel any kind of way about it. I love my friends/family/acquantances, and I know that they all live very busy and complex lives.

I spent a lot of time alone. I read a book from my TBR pile. I worked on my MFA novel. I wrote this post. I started the mental process of distancing myself from an overstimulated lifestyle.

I spent the day working on me. Who I am. What I want from the rest of my life. What I want for the next year. Who I want to be. Who I don’t want to be. What my heart and soul have room for and what I need to let go of.

Today, I wanted to spend the day chasing what made me happy, and I’ve taken notes.

It was a beautiful, absolutely perfect birthday.

Until Next Time,

Cathy Marie Welton