Losing a Parent, Sobriety, and the Privilege of Having Lived to This Point

Middle-Aged Lady Shit, Featuring Alexis McClain

My friend Alexis answered the call and shared her MiddleAgedLadyShit story with me. I’m grateful for her vulnerability, as she definitely helped me feel less alone. I bet she’ll help you, too. 

What are you glad you DID NOT KNOW in your 20s and 30s?

I guess I can say that I’m glad I didn’t know what it’s like when one of your parents dies. Like, I'm glad I was in my 40s. Because that shit alters your DNA. 

How did this change you? 

I am just more … well, I say The Thing. Straight to the point, cut out the bullshit. I have always had that in me, that I'm gonna be very pointed about what I'm gonna say. But it has to be big things. Like, it's just not random shit. I also appreciate my family more. I appreciate my brother more than I did before and my nieces and nephew. I have always loved them, but the loss of my dad really changed my relationship with my brother specifically. It's a deeper appreciation. He still drives me crazy. But he’s my one connection to my dad. And so I appreciate him. I see the fragility in my mother as well. My mom has been and still is a badass: gets shit done, handles her business, and that is powerful to see. And she is aging, as we all are. I didn’t see the fact that she will not always be here until my dad was no longer here. It's a reality check. 

What have you learned about grief? 

Grief. It's … there. Like, it never goes away. Maybe six months after my dad died, my uncle passed away. I was sitting there talking to my cousin who had just lost his dad, and I wish I could have told him something about where he’d be six months out. I wanted to be like, you’re here now, but in six months … . But, I was honest. I told him, it’s still not great. I'm gonna tell you that there are days when—even now—I wake up and think, I can’t get out of bed. It's never NOT there. Like, me and grief? She and I walk in tandem at all times. She’s there. Taking up space. 

But it also makes me very cognizant of the decisions I make, things I do, and other relationships I have. And I grow. I grow around my grief. But so far, she hasn’t dissipated over time.

I’m so sorry, Alexis. 

You know, it is what it is. It's part of this. This middle-aged shit. This thing that we call middle-aged, it has very high highs and very low lows.  

Your experiences aren’t foreign. I think about this a lot. By the time you hit your 40s, you've lost people. You've lost dreams. There's a lot of loss. And the universe is like, hey lady—you’re here now. What are you gonna do about it?

What are we gonna do? I know my dad would be like, girl, get up. What are you doing? But yes, the loss. I've also lost people that I went to high school with. One recently and that shook me. I'm trying to process all of this. And then people are like, “keep hope.” And I'm like, me and hope: we're gonna box. If hope doesn't start paying out, we’re gonna box. I try to ground myself in the here and now. Of course things could be better, yes I want MY fairytale so I try to remember that this story is playing out how it should and to live in the moment that I am in ... no more and no less. Of course I plan into the future but I'm trying to NOT stay there so I don't miss the present. 

Well, friend, you’re not a bitter person. You exude a lot of joy. Where are you finding it? 

Therapy. No, that doesn't necessarily bring me joy. *laughs* Taking in other people's joys helps. Yoga for sure. CrossFit. For sure. University of Colorado football always brings me joy. Even when they suck I still love them. Helping others brings me joy. My cat brings me joy with her crazy ass. I’m not saved, I can get bitter but I don’t stay there because it doesn't feel good, it's heavy. I don’t want that. 

It brings me joy, I suppose, to think about where I'm at now as opposed to where I was six years ago. So I have joy just in me, when I think, I've been sober this whole time. I wouldn't have been able to deal with my dad's death otherwise. Everything that I worked hard for I lost in my drinking. And I've got most of it back, right? The stuff that's important: my career, my home, all the things. And so that brings me joy. I’ve got this other stuff that's going on and it sucks. But like, neatly inside, there's joy, because I know that this could be far worse. And therapy, it really has helped me unpack things, and become far more self-aware and that is huge to me. 

What do you do when hard feelings come up? 

I just let myself sit through all those emotions. I let myself have the feelings: like, I have the right to be pissed off about this. I check myself a lot more than I ever did. When I was drinking, I would sink into that and stay there. But now I'm like, okay, you’ll be in it for a minute. Because it's your emotions. You own it. That's yours. Feel it. Process it. And move through it. I don’t rush it. People tend to rush feeling a certain way because it's not comfortable. They do not see what that feeling is trying to tell them. Slow down. Take stock of what the feelings are trying to show you. 

Why did you choose to heal?

I don't do my self-healing work or my education for anyone else. This is for me. If you like it, cool. Jump on board. If you don't, not my problem. Whereas before, I was doing everything to be outward facing, right, like to impress. To impress and do All the Things. But I had to take stock of what the hell I was doing and it was tough. I woke up one day and was like, this cannot be how this ends. I have disappointed endless amounts of people by doing dumb shit, and that felt gross and I did not want to do that anymore. I had to hit my rock bottom. And when I did I had to have a come to Jesus with myself. The shame and guilt were HEAVY as hell, and I knew deep inside that I could do better, be better. And here we are. Success is scary as fuck too so I am trying daily to not self-sabotage. That is all part of my healing.  

Do you treat yourself?

In my years of drinking, I did not do any of the little things we do to take care of ourselves. But because I stopped drinking, I have the money to take care of myself now. You know, I can go get my nails done. I get regular pedicures, and I get my eyebrows waxed, stay fresh and fancy because it makes me feel good. I buy myself flowers weekly. I read more. I’m the brunch and jazz in the park person. I go out and intentionally try new things like Aerial yoga—MY JAM! I try to come from a place of exploration as opposed to fear, but sometimes they are hand in hand. And again, I do it for me, not for others.

What else has changed in middle age? 

Okay first of all, I didn’t consider myself middle-aged until you started all of this. So thank you for that. But your thing came out and I was like, huh. Here we are. But yeah, I think I’ve been wanting to go out and just see different people. See different spaces, and talk about different things. I love my peace and quiet. I am far more direct now than I was before, which saves time. I recognize now that if people are not cool with that, those aren't my people. 

I tell my students, I want you to go and be powerful. And they look at me like, okaaaaay. But I recognize the privilege of my age right now. And they're like, that's the first time they had heard somebody my age say, the privilege of having lived to this point. It gives me more freedom to keep things 100.  

Alexis McClain is a real life middle-aged lady living through and loving herself through this middle-aged lady shit. Does her #GenX story resonate? Share below.

Interested in sharing how your GenX story? Email me to schedule time to chat about your unique brand of MiddleAgedLadyShit.