Mid Life Crisis??

With my 40th birthday approaching at the end of the month, I've been pretty absorbed lately in the realisation that I don't have a fucking clue who I am.

Gulp.

You heard me. 

Since childhood, I have been using food to soothe and to feel good.  Right now, "soothe" and "feel good" are about as far from the spectrum of emotions I'd associate with food as anything, because eating anything (or even drinking) is a chore. A necessary evil.  The mental struggle (of making sure I eat or drink enough, wondering what my stomach will or will not tolerate) has sucked the joy right out of sticking anything in my gob.  Don't get me wrong - I would have this surgery again in a heartbeat... but it has left me laid bare. 

Without my ability to self-medicate by consumption of food, I have lost my quick therapeutic fix.  Thankfully life is good and there is no need for me to be receiving therapy- BUT.... I guess I am left to ponder a huge question.  If I consistently used food to gloss over feelings, to feel good, and to have a sort of a quick "high"... then was I ever really "myself"???  Oh geez, this is starting to sound more like I might need help a la Dr. Phil...

I spent many years of my life trying to fit in.  This peaked pretty much in High School, where I achieved true chameleon-like status.  I tried SO hard to have SO many friends that I would have a mini-crisis at lunch because I would have no idea which table to sit at.  Combine this with my being an innate people-pleaser, one could clearly see the havoc this would cause in my noggin.  I was trying so hard to be everyone's friend that I bent every which way like Gumby - and truly lost who I was.  Thankfully by the last year, I had "grown a pair" and realised that I needed to be me.

Sadly, I was still a "me" that used food as a tool...

So who the heck am I now?  I guess deep down I'm the same me, without a lot of the insecurities of youth.  But I'm left to figure out a few things yet.  Is there anything left over from my first 40 years that I haven't dealt with? Is there anything that I would use food to mask right now?  Are there residual feelings or experiences that I have pushed aside... ones that might now begin to hamper my progress?

I hope not.  Honestly, I don't think so. 

I guess I'm kind of feeling a little like a newborn.  While babies are adorable, heart-snatching little bundles of joy - there remains the fact that they are bare, often-stinky, blank slates. 

Am I a blank slate?  Sort of.  Thankfully, I'm not stinky - but I'm definitely feeling bare without my crutch...