Thirteen years ago, not long after my milestone 40th birthday, I started a blog called ‘From Forty With Love’, where I voiced the questions that were rattling around my head at that tricky time.
Questions such as:
‘How on earth did I end up here - single and childless at 40?’
‘What do I want to do with my life (after burning out in my first career)?’
‘Why have none of my relationships worked out?’
‘Will I ever become a mum? How will I become a mum? Do I even want to become a mum?’
Launching that blog changed my life.
Up until that point, I’d been flailing around in the dark, unsure what to do with myself after limping away from my first career as a Reuters news journalist following a burnout and breakdown that left me sobbing onto my pyjamas in my solitary North London flat, wondering how everything had gone so horribly wrong.
A few years earlier, my life was on track, or so it had seemed.
After a decade living and working abroad, which began with me scrubbing toilets on a campsite in Australia and ended up with me working as a foreign correspondent in Latin America, I’d returned to London ‘in triumph’ (that’s how it had felt at the time) to take up a highly sought-after role as a political reporter for Reuters, based in the Houses of Parliament.
I was pretty pleased with myself for landing that plum job.
I had climbed high from my low income, single-parent family, Liverpudlian roots. I was a long way from the days of free school meals.
But the problem with climbing high is it’s an awfully long way down and in my mid-30s, I hit the ground with an almighty thump.
When it all went wrong
My dad died, a relationship ended and a deep sense of nothingness engulfed me as I realised that, on the outside, I’d achieved everything I’d set my sights on - the globe-trotting career, the nice flat, the independence, the financial stability - but on the inside, I felt empty, exhausted, confused and utterly, painfully alone.
Yet the moment I found the courage to drop the mask, come out as me and post those wretched feelings on this new thing called a blog, I felt a chink of hope - a reawakening.
Then, when a complete stranger - a reader, no less - replied, thanking me for sharing her truth through my words and for helping her to feel less alone as a single, 40-something woman without kids, my own aloneness eased and I felt the flicker of a sense of purpose.
I had found my voice. My own voice. I was no longer parroting the words of politicians and VIPs.
And I’d found a way to connect to others who were in the same boat, navigating the same vast, uncertain seas.
I was no longer adrift.
From them on, writing - and writing from the heart - would be my anchor.
From lost to found (more or less)
Over the next few years, my blog became my diary.
I shared my journey through my early 40s as I battled with the career, relationship and motherhood questions I listed at the start of this post.
I shared the peaks and troughs of my life, and the rolling hills in between, as I explored the roots of my relationship woes and the confusion I felt in relation to becoming, or not becoming, a mum.
And I shared the answers to my endless hours of soul-searching as I gradually understood why all my relationships had failed, transformed my dating patterns and found healthy love.
I also shared about my ambivalence towards parenthood as it became apparent to me (I’d been oblivious to it before), along with the steps I was taking to find fulfilment and joy in my career and in my life.
Those musings and my journey from lonely to loved up and from soul-dead to joy-filled formed the basis of my first book, How to Fall in Love.
Thirteen years after launching ‘From Forty With Love’, everything has changed.
I am married to a wonderful man and I live by the sea on the Dorset coast.
I have reinvented myself and transformed my career and I now coach, write and speak from the heart, supporting others to love themselves, create lives that they love and find healthy love.
I have found purpose in my pain.
Becoming a childless adult orphan
Life hasn’t been a bed or roses, of course.
Three years ago, I lost my Mum, a topic I’ll return to in other posts because our complex relationship is too much to untangle here. But suffice it to say that I’d spent most of my life thinking it was my job to make her happy and keep her alive, a heavy burden for anyone to bear. She lived to 80, which is a good age for a woman who struggled to take care of herself.
Since my Dad had died in my mid-30s, Mum’s death made me an ‘adult orphan’, a ‘childless adult orphan’ to boot (or an adult orphan without kids, because I still struggle with the childless label because of the complexity of my story and my motherhood ambivalence).
This left me with an odd sensation, which is still there when I pause to think about it. I’m like a puppet with no strings and no ground beneath my feet, hovering in mid-air, nothing above, nothing below. Thankfully, I have a rock of a husband by my side.
In the midst of my grief over losing mum, I hit peri-menopause, or rather stumbled into it in a state of denial, which is a whole other post, or series of posts.
And, around the same time, I brought a dog into our family of two, which I’ll also write about, as it’s been a challenging and enlightening journey.
In recent years, I’ve delved deep into my childhood trauma and the real reasons why I developed an eating disorder as a young girl, abused alcohol, formed dysfunctional romantic relationships with unavailable men and became a workaholic perfectionist.
This knowledge of trauma has accelerated my ongoing transformation, informed my writing and enriched the work I do with my wonderful coaching clients.
In another piece of the complicated jigsaw puzzle that is me, I was diagnosed with ADHD soon after turning 53. This has helped me to make sense of some of my more entrenched patterns of behaviour and the struggles I have in relation to managing my time, my impulses, my business and my sensitivity to my surroundings.
I look forward to writing more about all of the above in subsequent posts.
Peeling the layers of the onion
In summary, I have peeled many layers of my particularly large onion over the last 20 years since I began my personal development and healing journey, and especially since turning 40.
There are many more to peel, of course, but I’m delighted to say that I’ve found answers to the questions I shared at the start of this post and to many other questions that plagued my life - questions I know many of you struggle with too.
I now understand, with a clarity that was absent in my 30s and 40s, why none of my relationships worked out, why I kept falling for emotionally unavailable men, running a mile from the good guys and avoiding true intimacy at all costs.
I now understand why I got to the age of 40 without having children and why I was so ambivalent about motherhood.
I now understand why I craved validation, affirmation and safety to such an extent that I prioritised my career above all else and worked myself into the ground.
I now understand that nothing is ever wasted and that my experiences can benefit others.
And I now understand that writing, for me, is a need.
A catharsis.
A way of making sense of what’s going on inside.
Something I just can’t live without.
You are welcome here
All that to say that I welcome you to my Substack with open arms and a warm heart and I look forward to moving you with my words and supporting you with my work.
I promise heartfelt, emotionally intelligent writing that inspires you to think deeply, leads you to have your own lightbulb moments and motivates you to act in your best interests, even when you’re scared.
I promise vulnerability, authenticity and courage.
And I promise a myriad of posts on the stuff so many of us struggle with, from dating and relating, to finding our path in work and life, to being true to ourselves, to having a voice, to loving and caring for ourselves, to being childless, to overcoming emotional eating, codependency and other addictions, to understanding the impact of developmental trauma (Complex PTSD), to achieving our dreams, to …
I could go on but better that you just stick around.
See you here!
Katherine x
To receive my posts directly in your inbox, subscribe via the button below. All posts are currently free. You also have the option of donating a small monthly or annual sum to support my writing.
Lovely words, Kathy. :) Looking forward to your work. :)