On turning 40

I want to write something profound, demonstrate the wisdom and lessons I have gathered during my 40 years on this earth. I want to tell you I go to bed early, have eliminated sugar, gluten and all processed foods, meditate and have rejected a materialistic lifestyle. I have done none of these things. Somehow, with my love of sugar, hot chips and a brush with aggressive breast cancer I have made it to 40.

My 20s were turbulent as the maladapted coping strategies I'd learned led to one crisis after another. I was a hurricane storming my way through life leaving friends, jobs, and lovers in my wake. I started to 'sort my shit out' a few months before I turned 26. I attempted to catch up with my peer group by settling down, getting a post graduate education and a career. I landed in journalism but my imposter syndrome and sensitivity were a toxic mix in an industry where you sink or swim.

A deep sense of unease started to grow as I entered my 30s. I got married at 32. Divorced at 35. I returned to journalism following my marriage breakdown, much like returning to an unhealthy relationship I knew was bad for me but I was always drawn back to. At the end of each year I would think to myself, 'next year, next year it will be better'. Plans to move to London were replaced by a life altering loss that grounded me. Friends fell away as I moved through my grief and tried to keep moving forward.

And then I got cancer. A chance finding in the shower the day before I started a new job. Eighteen months of treatment. Losing a breast. Losing my hair. Celebrating my 38th birthday in bed after my 7th round of chemo. My sisters, niece and nephew visited me as I sat in bed, a bald queen for the day.

Cancer gave me a gift a few months before my 40th birthday. Through a series of chance meetings and co-incidence I found myself sitting in a psychiatrists office. Her office was the front room of her home, her elderly cat sat on my knee drooling with contentment. I spent two hours describing the confusion of my childhood, the impulsiveness of my teens and 20s and the underlying overwhelm of my 30s. My chronic anxiety and continual hum of depression. I left her office with a script for Ritalin and a new identity as an adult with Adhd. I am part of the lost generation of women who are in the 20s, 30s and 40s who are being diagnosed with Adhd. We spent our childhoods internalizing our hyperactivity and learning to mask our symptoms. We were labeled chatty, told we were not living up to our potential, too emotional, too sensitive. Cancer led me to the psychiatrists office because stress is not a friend to the Adhd brain. What I now know are my Adhd symptoms became worse after cancer.

It is a glorious thing when your life suddenly makes sense. After my Adhd diagnosis I have a growing level of acceptance of myself. My quirkiness, my weirdness, my brain that never stops...they make me who I am.

Cancer is a loudspeaker shouting something needs to change. Recently I sat in my car at an intersection and thought if my cancer comes back how do I want my life to look? Do I want to keep trying to fit in places I do not fit?

In the final days of my 30s I decided to push past my fear and leave a job that is making me sick. I have the opportunity to create a life that supports who I am and what I need to be content. I am walking into my 40s with hope life will be different as I do what is right for me and makes me happy.