Writing the second-half of my life while being in denial that the first-half is already over. That’s where we meet. Hello. I’m Shellie.

I have whatever the female-equivalent version of Peter Pan syndrome is. Meaning, I think of myself as perpetually the same age. Or at least in the same decade. If you secretly are in this club, thanks for making it here and being in my club. I mean, even as a young girl, I knew was I a full-grown adult trapped in the maze of eyelet lace, toe-head blonde curls and baby dolls – a maze not of my own making, but one I had to conquer. I knew that I just needed to bide my time until the world would open up to me and my skin would reflect what I already knew – I was bigger than I was given credit for.

I have a really natural ability for joy, and for tears of all origin, and for over-intellectualizing any small thing.

Is this a sign?

Is this reincarnation?

Was that my soulmate on the corner over there, whom I will meet after year of laughable, disastrous, and rather-reckless oopsies? (this was likely a side-effect of years of youth group Bible Study in which we had to pray “for the husband God is preparing for us right now. I was 15. I didn’t have boobs or a period, but yeah, I hope he is doing super cool stuff today.)

No, Shellie. That was a stranger who just happened to be humming a non-descript tune on his blue bicycle. Get back down to reality, please.

But also, I have also loved this part of myself. Somehow it survived years of trimming by my parents’ expectations, their 90’s style CMA parenting -a religious culture of it’s own-, the world’s idea of a Good Girl, and several monsoons of depressive self-doubt. That one image that floats around on social media, where a figure of a woman is carrying on in life, or up a hill, or sitting with a flower, all previous versions of herself, at different ages and stages, look on and applaud her journey. Yeah. I saw that , felt that, and knew that long before an algorithm put it in front of my face. I knew that I would be acutely aware of all the past-Shellies and the almost-Shellies that lurked on the fridge for my whole life. I knew this long before the world told me what I was suppose to know about myself instead.

In fact, when I was young, like 7 or 8 (I mean, at some point, you can only narrow down the age you were during a specific memory based on the current style of bangs or that one nightgown you wore religiously), I was restless in my bed and I came out to the living room to talk to my dad. A police officer for our local Northern Californian city (if California is an arm, thing shoulder, not elbow), my dad was the sole-bread winner for our family – back when one income could provide that kind of life for a family of 5 – and he balanced his roles the best he could, with what he knew, for the time he was doing them. (Empathy for our parents is a gift of adulthood and perspective).

My dad was in his classic, early 90’s smoky-blue LazyBoy recliner, with the tall, gold lamp next to him that had the glass table halfway up the lamp-post. Nod your head slowly as you capture this incredible scene, or one you have lurking in your own millennial memory.

He was watching something on TV and went to mute it while doing his best to give me his undivided attention. As a parent now myself, I know he probably worked really, really hard to stifle the sigh of disappointment for not being “clocked off” from parenting, as he probably assumed he would be once we climbed into our beds, my brothers and I. Nope, for good fathers, dad-duty is never really done. If you think otherwise, you’re probably a really bad dad. No, seriously.

I climbed up onto his lap in my pilling cotton nightgown, explained that I could not sleep, and then precede to freak him the F-out with my elevated existentialism in my 50 pound frame.

“Why am I stuck in here?”

“What do you mean?” *imagine the panic? Confusion? *

“I mean, I am inside this body. Like, I was chosen to be put inside Shellie’s body. I can see out of her eyes, and can only feel things when she is touched. But when someone pinches Ashley (my very best friend at the time), I can’t feel it. Why?”

I have no recollection what his response was, but I am sure it glazed over the genius sitting on his lap and erred on the side of feigned tolerance and parental guidance back to the land of slumber. When asked about it later in life, he does not remember this conversation. Yet, it is one of the strongest memories I have of my childhood. Beyond what I was every given for any Christmas or birthday or random Tuesday – I had that kind of mom – or beyond most of my family vacations or first-days of school. I remember the feel of that nightgown, the pit in my stomach, the certainty of Otherness that I felt.

Now, there has not been a day on this earth (I say this because… who really knows….) since becoming a parent that I didn’t brace myself for these kinds of discussions with my own three sons. Surely, they would be as deep and profound as their mother was in the 2nd grade. But alas, I have yet to have these deep, philosophical questions with my offspring as of yet. My oldest is 13. Still waiting.

All of this is to say, to explain, to outline, that in my life, in my body, I have been tuned in to the “other” of life. The deep curiosity that defeats judgement – not that I don’t have decades of religion-affirmed loathing for people I was taught to “save” before getting right with myself and my Higher Power (as I call Him, God) – and this curiosity has led me to a life that I love. A kaleidoscope of flowering creativity, saturations of love (long and short, fulfilling and sacrificial), defeating chapters of depression & self-abandonment, but ultimately, very Enneagram 4w2 and very me.

So this blog is where I start the second half of my life – at 41. Married for the 3rd time. The right time and the right husband for this version of myself. A mother to 3 beautiful young men. Desperately clinging to living out a yoga lifestyle and the teachings of Jesus to keep my perspective on the Right. And unapologetically loving the road that got me here. And when I doubt it, I remember that I am put in this body, for this time, for purposes yet to be revealed.

Welcome.