Trying To Start My Life Completely Over At 56 Gives Me Serious Anxiety
Darya_Ostrenko | Shutterstock I thought those days were over. Feeling stupid and ugly. The 12-year-old girl who walked into 4th-period Spanish class, facing the fear of the mean girl bullies every day, was back. Is back.
Back inside my 56-year-old aging body. Back inside my hamster wheel of a brain. Worrying and fearing that no matter what I do, wear, type, or say, it won’t be right. No one will cheer me on; no one will read, listen, look, or sign up. No one will engage. And I’ll fail.
Just like I did after 6 years of sobriety, I fell into peer pressure and my own insecurities. I fell and failed.
Deciding to change my life trajectory isn't new for me
I’ve had ADHD since birth, and I have a huge need for growth and change. This 1970s Ritalin baby doesn’t sit still very well.
I’ve never liked the word fail. I think we try our best to do what we think will work, and if it doesn’t, it’s a learning curve in life. We can’t fly if we don’t leap. We can’t land firmly if we don’t jump. And we can’t succeed if we don’t try. But trying is freaking scary, especially when you aren’t really sure what you’re doing.
And you’re past what society thinks is your prime. What a joke. I’m still a missionary working in Guatemala, feeding hungry children, bringing clean water to those with none, and sharing the word of the Lord when I can. But after my sister’s unexpected death from cirrhosis, the pull to help others with sobriety and wellness became great once again.
I had the call to do something like this almost 10 years ago, but I was deep in being a co-owner of a sailboat rigging company and had a yoga studio of my own. It wasn't the time, nor the place. And my sister was still very much alive.
When my sister died in 2022, I went numb for the better part of two years
Photo from Author / Author's sister circa early 2000's
Just rolling through the daily motions of life in a fog, not really engaging and not feeling like I had much purpose. I wasn’t present in my own body.
In 2024, I started writing again. I’ve had a few blogs over the years, but this was more specifically targeted at drinking, mental health, and my family history, and proved to be successful. It took almost a month to write the story about my sister’s death, and unbeknownst to me, it resonated. To date, it has 11.7k reads, which tells me I’m onto something.
I continued writing not just about drinking but about life. My life, life experiences, the lives that have affected me, and some wacky stories that I just put on paper to get out of my head and help stimulate my aging grey matter.
But now I’m turning it into a movement, and starting something like that terrifies me
They say be careful what you wish for when you turn your hobby into a business, and it’s true. Been there, done that. I opened a yoga studio and realized after one year that while I loved my space, I just wanted to teach. I didn’t want to run a business; I didn’t want to herd cats (that’s what it’s like managing hippies), and I didn't want to stress out about the overhead of a 3000-sq. ft. building, as beautiful as it was.
I just wanted to teach. I’ve started building my website under the same name as my pen name. It’s coming along swimmingly, but I’ve been startled awake several times in the past week, and given that I’m now creeping past the edge of menopause, that insomnia phase should be over.
I‘ve done all the things I've dreaded doing. New domain name, email, site-builder, etc; I’ve even learned about sales funnels. Just a few short weeks ago, I had never heard of a sales funnel. And frankly, I’d be better off if I’d never heard what a sales funnel was because now I’m obsessing over setting up a sales funnel. What the actual heck?
A few nights ago, I woke up thinking, What am I even doing?
Am I going to burn myself out to a crisp (no pun intended with my name)? And then went through two hours of self-inflicted torture as my Ferris Wheel of a mind overthought every single nuance of what I am trying to do: Continue writing, start a podcast, and occasionally create webinars or courses about wellness and sobriety. Do some public speaking, and fulfill my not-so-secret desire to do a TED Talk.
And I live not far from Lake Atitlán, Guatemala, which is a hub of hippie retreat centers, which would be perfect for me to host a yoga/wellness retreat on sobriety. Wow, that’s a lot. And who actually wants to hear what this middle-aged (okay, I’m being kind to myself) old bag has to say?
My life is like an episode of Kitchen Nightmares. But instead of Gordon Ramsey coming in to scream and swear at me to slash my food menu down from 15 pages to one, I’m screaming at myself. However, there are no censorship bleeps; it’s all harsh, self-loathing, deprecating self-talk, and I can hear every word of it. It’s too much, you’re overdoing it, you won’t be able to handle it, people will be confused.
Sigh. Girl needs to stop.
I woke the next morning with a new attitude. Maybe it was the few hours of sleep, maybe it was the Guatemalan coffee, or maybe it was the message I received from an acquaintance telling me how excited they were, that they’d signed up on my waiting list and looked forward to seeing my site, and that my sister would be proud of what I was doing. That was all I needed to hear.
My age doesn’t matter; my mission does
I swore my sister wouldn’t die in vain, and I need to keep that promise. She got caught up in a whirlwind of problems, and alcohol became her self-medication. I can’t sit back and pretend “it’s okay” or “she did this to herself”, or “life will go on.”
Losing her was the most traumatic thing I’ve ever experienced, and it remains my motivation for this movement. To help others help themselves and/or simply make sure people over 50 know that life can still be just as fun and rewarding on the other side of “the middle.” Alcohol isn’t needed.
I’m not a recovery or addiction specialist. I’m a sister who lost her best friend. A yoga instructor who likes to help people move and breathe. A missionary who believes we should all help our neighbor, whether rich or poor. And a drinker who struggled (struggles) with her own battle and knows how hard it can be to give up anything that you’re addicted to.
No matter how old I get, these are my labels, this is my journey, and my mission, as always, is to help others “find yourself and love what you find.”
I now commence my regularly scheduled, chaotic life plan.
Kristen Crisp is the founder of Not Even Wine With Dinner. A community/mission for those looking for peer support with sobriety, self-esteem, mental health, aging, and all the things that come with being human. She is also a frequent writer on Medium under the handle @notevenwinewithdinner.
