Am I Too Old For Success?

Starting from scratch after 50

Photo by Walter Sturn on Unsplash

I’ve been wondering if I can be successful starting something new at my age.

I turned 51 this August. I’m proud I made it this far. I wasn’t supposed to live past 30. I worked pretty hard to not even make it to 30.

I am a survivor of childhood trauma. I’ve lived a high-risk life filled with drugs, promiscuity, and violence. I was a teenage punk rocker in Hollywood in the ’80s. I wasn’t supposed to live until 30, but I did. Because ultimately, I’m a survivor. I try hard not to feel shame at the life I’ve led. I have to remind myself every day that everything I did was to survive.

Twelve years ago, my father died and I dived into the deep end of the pool and hit bottom.

Surviving is the last thing I wanted to do. Somehow, I survived.

Ten years ago, I stopped simply surviving and began my journey toward thriving.

I reunited with my ex-husband after 17 years of separation. We moved to his inherited thirty acres of dirt just outside a tiny city in Texas. The property and house had sat fallow for seven…