Who The Hell Am I?

I think that the term Midlife is so accurate. Not only because you are in the middle of your years on this planet – all being well. But because this is the time when women can feel lost in the middle of their own life.

The daily mundane tasks, the caregiving, the juggling everything, the being the centre of the family and tying it all together. The giving, giving, giving.

And then comes the loss.

The loss of loved ones, the empty nest with its loss of purpose, the loss of hormones, the loss of your brain shrouded in fog and the loss of flexibility to get up from the floor when you have finished restocking the fridge.

Don't get me wrong I would do it all again. My family have been and continue to be the centre of my world, but one day you just wake up and think who the hell am I. You have spent so long putting others first that you have forgotten what you want and stopped believing you can ask for more.

But somewhere inside is the spark. The little bit of your inner child that never went away.

When trying to work out who I was, I found it helpful to think back to things I loved as a child — painting, music, films, dancing, romantic stories, animals — and see how I could bring them into my life now. I even considered getting a purple scooter. Still thinking about that one.

Think about the things that gave you joy and see if you can find her.

Apart from the scooter, for me it meant picking up a paintbrush. I had always loved creating, drawing and painting.

Do you remember those absolutely huge Littlewoods and Grattan catalogues they used to have in the 1970s where you could buy absolutely everything? (This was well before everything went online). Well when Mum had finished with them she would give me the old one, a pair of safety scissors, a pot of glue and a roll of wallpaper lining. I would sit on the floor cutting out the people and things and making little scenes. I do wonder if this is where my obsession with faces came from. I dipped in and out of painting over the years but lockdown and the really hard season that followed meant that the need to paint came back in force.

For you it may be something else but she is still there and she has been waiting. What you need to do now is to encourage her to come out from where she has been hiding under the bed and to start bouncing up and down on it instead.

— Jewels