Society has told me that this is the age I need to fear, the age when I need to start investing in “anti-aging” (as if that’s an actual thing), the age when things start heading downhill, the age when we wish we were young again, the age of midlife crises when some of us may feel compelled to buy fancy cars and toys to remind us – and others – of our importance.

Maybe it’s my age or maybe it’s my life story but I’ve never been more clear-headed or more centered. I’ve come to see myself and, in-turn others, in a way I never have; with curiosity and compassion. I’ve become willing and able to take my own moral inventory and shine a light on my own character defects; dissecting where they came from and how they’ve infiltrated my choices, my actions. I’ve come to see parts of myself as a child who needs my love and acceptance and nurturing. I’ve come to see the child in others, too, that still needs mothering and I can meet it with an openness instead of a judgement. I’ve come to value my role in certain communities and recognize the fact that we need each other not as a weakness but as a gift; I spent my early adult years clawing at independence and today I embrace interdependence.

We move, we shift, we break, we break open, we fold, we bend, we expand, we morph. The only opportunity to truly find ourselves is in the present. It’s all written in sand, waiting to be erased and rewritten. Over and over again.

I recently listened to a guided meditation on impermanence and it talked about how some children cry when a wave washes away their sand castle and how others use it as a blank slate to rebuild again. It presented this idea of how clinging to anything too tightly predisposes one to suffering.

I’m another year closer to death, I’m also the closest I’ve ever been with my authentic self. It’s funny how life wants to chew you up and spit you out just when you feel most alive; I feel like I’m only now coming into my womanhood, my sexuality, my true self — just when life wants to alter me, to devalue me. And yet there’s perks to stepping out of the spotlight we all found ourselves in during our youth; to live quietly on the fringes, in peace, experimenting with life, settling into my center, and not needing the attention of the spotlight or the validation from a society I’m not sure I fit completely in anyway. Life is one big catch 22 and I’m as invigorated as ever to open further.

My brokenness has been my greatest catalyst, an unexpected gift. I think life brings you suffering as a mirror to show you the parts that need tending to. Watching the seeds sprout, noticing my mind shift, witnessing my self-talk change has proven to me that brokenness can also be opportunity in disguise.

I’ve always considered myself to be a late bloomer. Only now, at 40, do I feel like I’m showing up for myself unapologetically with compassion for where I’m at on this journey and for where others are at on this journey, too. Life… it’s wild.