Maybe because I’m changing too
Hey love,
This weekend, I got to get my youngest daughter, Shyla, ready for homecoming. Highlights and hair... she did the rest!
There was something about seeing her dressed up, excited to be seen, and making all those little choices about how she wanted to look and who she wanted to be that night that really got me.
I kept thinking, she is becoming right in front of me.
She’s discovering what feels beautiful to her, who she likes being around, and how she wants to show up in the world.
I’ve watched my older kids go through their own versions of this, but it landed differently for me this time.
Back then, I think I watched those moments mostly from the perspective of someone who had already had all those firsts. I’d had my first dance and first apartment, built careers, gotten married, had babies. There was almost an unconscious sense of, Oh, I know this part. I’ve been here before.
But watching Shyla this weekend, I found myself thinking something completely different:
I wonder what I haven’t experienced yet.
And I loved that.
Because sometimes even the word midlife can make it sound like we’ve reached this strange point where the exciting firsts are mostly behind us.
What if that’s not true at all?
What if this is another season of becoming?
Shyla is meeting herself for the first time, and maybe I’m getting to meet myself again.
I’m not trying to reclaim some younger version of me. I genuinely like the woman I’ve become. I’m just becoming aware that there is still so much of her I haven’t explored yet.
For so many years, a huge part of my attention naturally went toward raising kids and knowing what everyone around me needed. Moms get incredibly good at that. You learn your people because you love them.
Lately, though, I’ve been thinking that if caring for someone requires knowing them, maybe taking care of myself asks me to know me even more too.
What do I enjoy now at 47 that I might not have just a year ago?
What lights me up now that I haven’t acknowledged?
What have I never tried simply because I haven’t thought to ask or because younger me doubted herself?
That feels very different from asking, Who am I now that my kids are growing up?
It feels more like:
Who else am I becoming as they become too?
And suddenly the word homecoming felt kind of perfect.
Maybe coming home to yourself isn’t returning to someone you used to be.
Maybe it’s getting curious enough about yourself to keep discovering who you are now.
🌟 Your Add Wonder Tools
Here are a few questions I’m playing with this week:
- What about myself am I curious to discover now?
- Where have I assumed certain experiences or “firsts” belong to a younger version of me?
- What lights me up today that I haven’t really given myself permission to explore?
- If I stopped thinking of midlife as looking back, what might I start looking forward to?
Maybe one of the gifts of watching our kids grow up is that they remind us how much fun it can be to discover yourself.
Shyla had her homecoming this weekend.
And standing there watching her, I think I realized I might be having one of my own.
With wonder,
P.S. This is a big part of what I want to explore in my ladies-only call, Getting Your Wings Back, and it’s just $19.
It’s not about going backward or becoming the woman you used to be. It’s about noticing what lights you up now and beginning to choose more of her. Join me here.
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