So I turned 40 back in March. A milestone birthday. No longer a young kid, not quite an 'old' person. Midlife. I still feel like Im a teenager. I feel kinda like im turning 18. I still feel a connection to the teens of today, but now understand the adult world more, if that makes any sense.
Im making some new headway in my life. I've been pursuing becoming a Peer Counselor and will be taking the state certification test in May. I've been taking a lot of online courses and just absorbing up any and all mental health classes that I can possibly get my hands on in hopes that it will help me, help others, while helping me get new insights into my own mental health. Its kind of scary and exciting all at the same time. I dont actually know if I will do anything with this certification. Right now I am doing it 100% for just gleaning insight into my own mental health like I said. I dont know if I am going to go into practice and take on clients, do group sessions or what.
When I talk to people about this, they look at me kind of cross eyed. Like they dont understand why I am putting in the effort and taking these classes and getting certifications and diplomas in all these different areas of study if im not going to do anything with it. I cant fully say what the motivating factor behind it all is, other than the subject is interesting to me right now. Well, I've always been interested in psychology I guess. I like knowing how people think and what makes them tick. Ever since I was little, I loved it when people would open up to me and tell me things that they wouldn't tell others. I've always been in the councilor role without really knowing it. And I have unwillingly fallen into the role with a friends adult son. He suffers with depression, bipolar, rage issues, and previous substance abuse. I see a lot of myself in him, and understand him on a level that I never really wanted to connect with him on. I understand the anger and rage and the bipolar outbursts. Everyone around him seems to run and hide when he goes off. I stand there in the midst of the outburst and see the pain and the overwhelming concern behind the screaming obscenities. Its like the more angry he is, the more calm I become. I've tried explaining to his family that when he is in this state that it has nothing to do with them and that it isn't directed at them, its his feelings coming to surface and is venting the only way that makes sense to him at the moment.
Maybe having this understanding and insider knowledge is what is pushing me to learn what I can. Maybe its my own bipolar mania that is driving me, and I am tricking myself into thinking that it is helping me understand myself? I dont know.
But turning 40 has really opened my eyes to a lot of different things. Mortality being one of them. Most of the men in my family dont live past 75, and being 40 gives me 35 years left. Where I feel that I have lived hundreds if not thousands of years most days. I realize that these remaining years are going to fly by. Some may think that I am being pessimistic about it and that I could live longer. But honestly I am being optimistic that I will live that long. I've had dreams of me being well into my 80's and 90's, but with my current health the way that it is, I dont know. Im trying to do better, but still not sure what the future holds. But it is something that I am thinking more and more about.
I sometimes wish I could be like Dorian Grey and have a painting of me and my cat that aged slowly giving me a supernaturally long life, or even to be that of a Vampire. That at the end of my long life, when I have done everything that one can do, and accomplished things that would take an entire life of work and toiling to see come to fruition, then walk out to greet the sun and move on to the great beyond. My mortality doesn't really bother me, its more of the pain of the people that I would leave behind that bothers me. Not in a narcissistic way, but in a loving way. This world is so full of pain, and I dont want to cause it unnecessary with something as mundane as my passing. I know its part of the cycle of life, and with further advancements in science, it seems as if the hereafter is just a shifting of energy and moving into a new dimension.
But all these things are fanciful dreams and musings right? Retrospective seems to be a good term to attach to my turning 40. Not that I havent always had one eye on the past and one on the future, while trying to live in the present. Though jokingly I have found myself saying things like "when I was your age" or "when I was coming up" and things like that more often. And its funny to me. Like at this current moment in time, when I think of 20yrs ago I think of the 90's not the dawn of the new millennium. I have an inside joke with myself of being this elderly crone telling stories like "gather round children, and let me tell you of the old ways". But at the same time, who and I to dispense such elderly arcane wisdom when I myself really havent done anything noteworthy?
I still have asperations for things that I would like to accomplish, and things that I would like to manifest into my life. But for now I am just taking baby steps to learn who this new Michael is.
But all of that aside, you should head over to my YouTube channel and check out what's going on over there and get weekly updates. Unless you enjoy my ramblings when I remember to update the blog.
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