At 52, I think I’ve finally given up trying to fit into what a “normal life” is supposed to look like. And strangely enough, that feels pretty good.
When I had my first child, I made a decision that I didn’t want to go back to another traditional nine-to-five job. That decision didn’t suddenly make life easy. Quite the opposite. I spent years raising my kids as a solo parent, working things out as I went, living week to week and trying to keep everything moving.
I was lucky enough to have the support of my parents, who became almost like second parents to my kids. Their support mattered enormously, and I will always be grateful for it. But day to day, I was still the one carrying the responsibility of raising a family, making the decisions, paying the bills and trying to hold everything together.
Life has been hard. There have been a lot of lessons. And man, have I learned some good ones.
For Most of My Life, I Didn’t Really Understand Me
One of the hardest struggles was knowing that somehow I never quite understood myself.
Why could I handle some enormous problem thrown at me but struggle with something everyone else seemed to find simple? Why were my emotions so big? Why could my brain race through a hundred ideas and then completely forget where I put the keys? Why did I seem to spend so much of my life trying to make myself operate the way everyone else apparently did?
For years, I didn’t have an answer.
What I did know was that I wanted my kids to have something different. So many of the things I struggled with, I tried to teach them to do the opposite. Understand yourself. Speak up. Don’t spend your whole life trying to become what somebody else thinks you should be.
Then, at 47, I finally received the ADHD diagnosis I needed. And suddenly, after nearly five decades of life, things started making sense.
Not instantly. A diagnosis doesn’t hand you an instruction manual and magically sort everything out. In some ways, it was the beginning of an enormous learning curve.
I started learning about my brain. My emotions. My reactions. My body. Why some things overwhelmed me. Why other things lit my brain up. Why I could become completely absorbed in something I cared about and struggle terribly with something that seemed simple and uninteresting.
For what felt like the first time in my life, things actually began sinking in. I began looking back at situations differently. There were things I had spent years criticising myself for that I could finally begin to understand.
And I’m still learning. I’ll probably always lose things. I’ll probably walk into a room and occasionally have absolutely no idea why I went there. I may still forget where I put the keys.
But I found me. And that has changed everything.
This part of my life feels less like trying to repair the person I used to think I was supposed to be and more like discovering the person who was there all along.
This is my journey. My new beginning. And, in many ways, a completely new path of self-discovery and finding my purpose in life.
Somewhere Along the Way, I Started Questioning the Life We’re Sold
The older I’ve become, the more I’ve noticed how much of the world around us is marketed to us.
Someone is always selling something. A product. A service. An answer. Information. A better body. A better house. A better career. A better life.
We’re constantly being shown what we apparently need next. And somewhere amongst all of that, a lot of ordinary people are working harder, trying to keep up and wondering why they still feel like they’re falling behind.
I know that feeling. I’ve worked ridiculous hours. I’ve run businesses. I’ve helped other businesses make money. I’ve worked just to cover the bills.
And eventually I reached a point where I thought: I don’t want the rest of my life to be about helping somebody else make more profit.
I needed something more than that. I needed purpose.
I Want to Put Some of the Value Back Into the Hands of the People Who Need It
People like me. People who have spent years working, raising families, juggling bills and doing whatever needed to be done.
People whose lives might look limited from the outside because there wasn’t endless money for holidays, new cars or whatever else we’re supposed to be chasing.
But limited doesn’t mean without joy.
Some of the best memories in my life didn’t cost much at all. Laughing until your stomach hurts. Throwing sand at each other down the beach. Trying to drench someone standing at the edge of the water because they’re too chicken to dive in. Sitting around a table with people you love.
Those moments taught me something. We actually don’t need as much as we’re encouraged to believe we do.
Sometimes I think we spend so much time looking at the people next door, our friends, our families and everyone online who appears to “have it all” that we forget to ask a much more useful question: What do I actually need to make my own life better?
Not theirs. Mine.
The Kitchen Has Always Been My Place
If I have an area of expertise, it is food. The kitchen became the place where I felt comfortable. I could feed people. I could create something. I could put a meal on the table and watch everyone dig in.
There is a particular moment I love. The food hits the table. Everyone starts eating. And suddenly the table goes quiet. Then someone says: “Oh my God. How good is this?”
It’s hard to describe what that feels like. There is something incredibly satisfying about making something that gives someone else pleasure.
Over the years I realised that the happiness I got from giving often felt greater than the happiness I got from receiving.
But I’ve also learned that giving needs boundaries. Some of what I create will be freely shared. Some I’ll charge for, because my time and my work have value too. But profit is no longer the only reason I want to build something.
Maybe This Is Me Finding My Way Back to Joy
I don’t have every part of the next chapter worked out. That’s probably the point. I’m finding my path as I go.
Pantrix started with food, because food is what I know. But I’m beginning to realise this journey is about something bigger for me.
It’s about learning how to make more from what we already have. It’s about questioning some of the things we’ve been taught to automatically accept. It’s about spending less time chasing what everyone else tells us a successful life should look like.
It’s about capability. Independence. Confidence. Laughter. Food. Family. Understanding myself. And finding a little peace.
So Why Am I Blogging?
Because I have stories. I have opinions. I have made plenty of mistakes. I have learned things the hard way. And at 52, I’ve reached the point where I’m comfortable admitting that I’m still figuring things out.
I don’t want this blog to be a place where somebody pretends to have the perfect life and then tells everyone else how to live theirs. There’s enough of that already.
I want to talk about real life. Food. Money. Shopping. Business. Raising families. ADHD. Working too much. Starting again. The ridiculous things that happen along the way. And the lessons we sometimes don’t recognise until years later.
Some stories will make people laugh. Some might make people think. Some will probably make people disagree with me. That’s okay too.
I’m not looking to tell everyone how they should live. I’m simply sharing what I’ve learned while I work out how I want to live mine.
And if somewhere along the way one person reads something here and thinks: Maybe I don’t have to keep doing life the way I thought I was supposed to either.
Then perhaps sharing my story was worth it.
At 52, I’m not trying to fit anymore. I’m learning who I am. I’m finding my joy. I’m finding my purpose.
And perhaps most importantly: I may still lose the keys, but I finally found me.
Written by Michelle Hanlon
Pantrix Australia