{"id":16012,"date":"2021-09-22T12:44:13","date_gmt":"2021-09-22T16:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/briwebapp.net\/cfgxfm\/?p=16012"},"modified":"2021-09-22T15:37:41","modified_gmt":"2021-09-22T19:37:41","slug":"the-view-from-here-almost-50","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/briwebapp.net\/cfgxfm\/blogs\/afternoons\/2021\/09\/the-view-from-here-almost-50\/","title":{"rendered":"The View From Here &#8211; Almost 50"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Eeek.\u00a0 \u00a0My 50th birthday is approaching quickly and all of a sudden I&#8217;m caught in a wave of reflection.\u00a0 Looking back on my life.\u00a0 On all that I&#8217;ve been through.\u00a0 Overcome. Accomplished.\u00a0 Survived.<\/p>\n<p>I admit I&#8217;m excited about this milestone birthday, but I&#8217;ve also got some mixed emotions.<\/p>\n<p>I kinda wanted a big celebration for 50.\u00a0 In my mind I always thought I would have a big party, and play all the 80&#8217;s music I wanted, with a focus on my fave band of all time &#8211; Duran Duran. (smile).<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<div class=\"video-shortcode embed-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" width=\"610\" height=\"355\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/J5ebkj9x5Ko\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Dance all night.\u00a0 Smile.\u00a0 Laugh.\u00a0 Celebrate.\u00a0 Connect to my younger self.\u00a0 Try not to hurt myself or break anything.\u00a0 \u00a0(smile)<\/p>\n<p>Now it&#8217;s two weeks away.\u00a0 There is no party and I don&#8217;t know whether to feel disappointed or a bit relieved.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe this is just one of the fallouts from the pandemic.\u00a0 It kinda sucks.<\/p>\n<p>50.<\/p>\n<p>Gasp.<\/p>\n<p>Looking back, it&#8217;s a blur of events.\u00a0 \u00a0Great loss, heartache and challenges.\u00a0 Also some pretty amazing experiences.\u00a0 \u00a0I have a lot to be grateful for, but at the same time I&#8217;ve really started to feel the weight of those hard things.\u00a0 It&#8217;s made me question myself.\u00a0 \u00a0It&#8217;s made me start really looking into different areas of my life that I think I still need to do some work on.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not sure if it&#8217;s because of the pandemic &#8211; and all that has been going on, and the negativity, and frustration and anger and sadness, feelings of isolation &#8211; but I started to realize that I was more affected than I realized.\u00a0 All the feelings of the past year, and some of life&#8217;s challenges, brought up some past issues that I know I never really dealt with.\u00a0 All kinds of feelings that I was almost surprised to be dealing with.\u00a0 I was trying to be positive and happy and there were days I didn&#8217;t know what was wrong with me or why I couldn&#8217;t be.<\/p>\n<p>I started looking at areas in my life where I needed help.\u00a0I started reading self-help style books and listening to podcasts.<\/p>\n<p>One of the podcasts I&#8217;ve started listening to has a local connection.\u00a0 \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lifesseasonsspeaks.buzzsprout.com\/1780268\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Life&#8217;s Seasons Speaks.<\/a>\u00a0 An incredible podcast that takes you through all kinds of life situations, feelings and more.\u00a0\u00a0It&#8217;s like a therapy session with every listen.\u00a0 You may be familiar with<a href=\"http:\/\/lifesseasons.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Life&#8217;s Seasons Care and Support\u00a0<\/a>.\u00a0 It&#8217;s a counselling service for individuals and families in Sarnia Lambton.\u00a0 \u00a0They are truly amazing.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve listened to every episode and I&#8217;ve had many &#8220;a-ha&#8221; moments, as Oprah would say.<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ve all got a story.\u00a0 We&#8217;ve all been through &#8220;stuff&#8221; that has been not so easy.\u00a0 And if I&#8217;ve learned anything in my almost 50 years on this planet?\u00a0 It&#8217;s this.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>You don&#8217;t have to be strong and carry the weight of the world on your shoulders all the time.<\/li>\n<li>It&#8217;s okay to ask for help and reach out when you need it.<\/li>\n<li>It&#8217;s okay to feel broken and work on healing yourself at the same time.<\/li>\n<li>It&#8217;s NOT okay to bury your feelings and stuff your &#8220;stuff&#8221; and think they will not creep back to the surface.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And sometimes, no book, no podcast, no best friend &#8211; will be able to help you figure things out and understand you the way an experienced counsellor can, and help you understand why you are the way you are.<\/p>\n<p>I am not ashamed to say I reached out for help this year.\u00a0 I got to a point where I knew I couldn&#8217;t do it alone or figure it out on my own or carry the weight of it anymore.<\/p>\n<p>I asked for help.<\/p>\n<p>Was it easy?\u00a0 Nope.\u00a0 It&#8217;s HARD to be vulnerable.\u00a0 It&#8217;s uncomfortable.\u00a0 We tend to think we can handle it.\u00a0 We can figure it out. We can &#8220;get through it&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>I think there is great strength in admitting you need help.\u00a0\u00a0And it was such a relief to have someone LISTEN and understand and sympathize and VALIDATE me and my feelings and give me tools to work through the &#8220;stuff&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>I am thankful for those in the field of mental health.<\/p>\n<p>I have spent the last few years focusing on my health &#8211; exercising and eating right.\u00a0 \u00a0But that&#8217;s only part of taking care of ourselves.\u00a0 Our mental health needs to be a priority as well.\u00a0 Don&#8217;t be afraid to reach out or ask for help or even admit that you&#8217;re not &#8220;ok&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ve been through a lot.\u00a0 We&#8217;re beaten down and feeling defeated.\u00a0 \u00a0We&#8217;re tired and worn out.\u00a0 \u00a0The weight can get awfully heavy.<\/p>\n<p>Make a promise to be kind to yourself and to celebrate yourself and heal yourself.\u00a0 \u00a0That&#8217;s what I&#8217;m doing ahead of my birthday.<\/p>\n<p>So I go into my 50th year feeling better about myself.<\/p>\n<p>Eager to celebrate the milestone with understanding and compassion and kindness for me.<\/p>\n<p>And if someone can arrange to have Duran Duran show up &#8211; I would be forever grateful. (smile)<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>As always &#8211; reach out anytime<\/p>\n<p>TEXT 519-464-1999<\/p>\n<p>EMAIL &#8211; <a href=\"mailto:cbuchanan@blackburnmedia.ca\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">cbuchanan@blackburnmedia.ca<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eeek.\u00a0 \u00a0My 50th birthday is approaching quickly and all of a sudden I&#8217;m caught in a wave of reflection.\u00a0 Looking back on my life.\u00a0 On all that I&#8217;ve been through.\u00a0 Overcome. Accomplished.\u00a0 Survived. I admit I&#8217;m excited about this milestone birthday, but I&#8217;ve also got some mixed emotions. I kinda wanted a big celebration for","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":16014,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"featured_img_display":"Yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[4767,1114,2189,3419,1953,3345],"class_list":["post-16012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-afternoons","tag-4767","tag-birthday","tag-duran-duran","tag-libra","tag-milestone","tag-october"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-29 21:26:25","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"react_link":"https:\/\/foxfm.com\/blogs\/afternoons\/2021\/09\/the-view-from-here-almost-50\/","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briwebapp.net\/cfgxfm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briwebapp.net\/cfgxfm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briwebapp.net\/cfgxfm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briwebapp.net\/cfgxfm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briwebapp.net\/cfgxfm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16012"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/briwebapp.net\/cfgxfm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16019,"href":"https:\/\/briwebapp.net\/cfgxfm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16012\/revisions\/16019"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briwebapp.net\/cfgxfm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briwebapp.net\/cfgxfm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briwebapp.net\/cfgxfm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briwebapp.net\/cfgxfm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}