I live, by all accounts, a complicated life.  Always have, always will I suppose.  I’ve blogged on and off for several years – some under my real name and others, like this one, by pseudonym.

As my real-life online presence continues to grow, I seek some anonymity with this blog as I intend to put down thoughts here that may or may not be well-received by others.  Of course, it is from such compost that life and truth actually emerge in the printed word. 

This is a blog about the life of a 21st century woman.  It is my story.  My handiwork.  My artistic expression of the forces within and around me.  It’s not always pretty.  Sometimes it is magnificent.

Some basics:

• Abandoned at birth and raised in a middle-class family with a mother who had serious mental illness
• Watched my brother nearly lose his life to drugs and alcohol growing up
• Was given every opportunity to excel – and I did.  But was also given restrictions that no sane person could live with
• Married too early, made a baby too early, and divorced young
• Baby I made has had a life scarred and nearly destroyed by bipolar disease.
• Lived something of a wild life during the 80s
• Settled down with husband #2 – this one has stuck for 25 years
• Survived while my son sank into madness – nearly taking us all with him
• Found part of my birth family – with nothing but good outcomes there
• Played a major role in raising my first grandson – the others I am unable to see as I am deemed dangerous by my son …. well, more about that
• Held many jobs, hold many degrees, now at the pinnacle of success by all measures – owning a rapidly expanding company
• Surviving peri-menopause – and having a lot of trouble over the past couple of years regulating my own moods
• Dreaming of stepping off the treadmill, getting out of the rat race – whatever you want to call it.  But I can’t yet.  Too much invested in where I am – I have to at least get back my investment to date.

In sum – typical of the struggles of many women my age with big careers and big personal expectations.  Looking back at a life lived largely to make other people happy and wondering if I’m going to live long enough to do what I want to do – which I can’t even identify anymore.