Medicines often warn you of the risks associated with taking them, especially in advertisements on television. They tell you all the great things they can offer you over a period of 55 seconds and speed through all the possible things that can wrong. I’ve been on a lot of medication in my lifetime, and every time I pick up prescription, I’m flabbergasted at all the side effects. From depression to death, they list everything out, but tell you it’s safe. To be completely honest, life is the same way. “Live your best life. You only get one.” Nobody ever really prepares you for what living your best life entails, or how much it costs to do so. No one warns you of life’s side effects, pitfalls, and all the possible outcomes. So here are a few things I’ve picked up along the way.

I knew for sure that life would change after I turned 30, and my mindset would shift, but no one told me about all the things I would have to prepare for. No one mentioned how difficult it would be to unlearn some of the toxic behaviors I had acquired growing up. Also, the advice I had received from my elders who had lived in a different time and place, was not very helpful. There are huge life things that happen to people around this time that nothing can really prepare you for. I watched my parents in their 30s and understood the financial burden of raising kids on a limited budget, taking care of a house, two cars, medical bills for children and themselves and making sure that we had the best possible experience as kids. With 30, comes a different type of struggle that impacts us in ways that attack our mental stability. Grief is a very real thing, and people who haven’t been gifted the emotional intelligence or been taught how to handle grief, suffer tremendously. I watched my mom bury both of my parents. I watched my dad express his emotions over losing parents in his youth and how it impacted how he raised us. They didn’t pick these skills up one day and flourish in them. They suffered through it just like we all would. They learned through experience, but could never pinpoint the things that helped them through. My parents will never be able to tell me how to prepare for their deaths. My friends closest to me have had some experiences, but I’m sure they won’t be like mine. They found their way and made it work. These, my friends, are our mid-life growing pains.

My growing pains have been a little different from my parents. I had a plethora of experiences and have been able to garner some emotional intelligence, but life has made me an empath to the max. My life could be falling apart at the seams, and I could literally be on fire, but my first thought is to help others. Over the past month, with this transition of moving states, I’ve worked really hard to find my center, but I’ve struggled with similar things I did in my early thirties, the most prominent being my struggle with HIV. It plays out in my daily life in ways I didn’t realize. There is a psychological connection associated with remembering to take a pill every day for your general health, and the knowledge that while it makes you well, there are some life altering side effects that affect you mentally, emotionally, and physically. For me, the association that I make with his pill hasn’t been the positive spin that it will save me and keep me from getting sicker. My association taking this pill is the memory that I placed myself recklessly in a situation that compromised my mortality, and now I have a reminder of it everyday. My association with this pill is the psychological side effects that it creates that manifest themselves physically. I remember how receiving the news threw me into a depression. I remember how my body physically aches sometimes and it probably would not have been the case had I not been more careful. I’m literally in excruciating pain as I’m typing this because I refused to let it get the best of me today. This pill has some side effects that no doctor or commercial will ever warn you of. I just heard one of my alarm reminders go off on my phone so I can remember to take it and not block it out because of the negative association. I use to “forget” on purpose just so I could feel normal. Pile this on top of the other adult things we deal with (work stress, money, relationships), and I’ve created a recipe for disaster. This has been my experience for the past 8 years; this wrestle with the side effects of life. The silent ones. That no one dares to speak of. They hit us all in varying points in life, and we are left to just deal, which isn’t easy for everyone.

My work for the remaining months is to separate the negative association and reshape my thinking into something positive. This was one of the last major things I wanted to do better with in 2019 in the steps towards healing and growth. Don’t get me wrong. I know it’s not easy work. I know it’s going to take some real digging in to get the root of this. I’m super educated about this, so it’s not a question of ignorance. It’s a mindset issue, so it’s time for more growth.

Just when you thought you had tackled all your major issues, the realest one comes back and says “aht aht, bitch. What about me?”

So, you’re here now bitch. We got 5 more months. Let’s just fight.

Still Healing. Still Growing. All 2019.