I’m about to turn 40, and it isn’t as traumatic as I always envisioned it to be. Aside from disturbed sleep (which I experienced in other decades of life, but for very different reasons), it is proving to be quite the peaceful transition.
This has led me to reflect on the last four decades of my life.
I spent my teen years trying to be just like everyone else, trying to fit in and be accepted. Whether it was family, friends, or boys, I liked whatever everyone else liked in order to be liked. This forced me to learn what I didn’t like the hard way, to narrow down what I did.
I spent my 20s trying to stand out. No longer just wanting to be accepted, I wanted to be wanted. Whether it was friends, employers, or a potential spouse, I wanted to be noticed for what I was good at. I focused so much on the big things that I missed appreciating almost all of the little things.
I spent my 30s trying to survive. Usually covered in spit-up, wearing a baby while chasing a toddler and rushing from one thing to the next, I just wanted to crawl into bed and make it through another day. Whether for my kids, my husband, the house, or a job, I wanted to do it all and have it all. This forced me to spread myself too thin and end up with quantity instead of quality—time, relationships, results, etc.
I’m a big believer in not wishing to change the past. What I’ve been through has made me who I am today. I genuinely believe failure is, hands down, a better teacher than success. So, if given the opportunity, I wouldn’t go back to tell my younger self not to do this or that specific thing or warn against an upcoming heartbreak or misstep.
But I wasn’t always this way. I spent over half those 40 years wanting to skip the hard parts. I would wish and pray and naïvely believe that there was a stage of life that would be filled with ease and leisure, and eventually, I would find it.
While I don’t see myself lying on a beach without a care in the world anytime in the next decade, I do have a sense of peace I will hold onto in my 40s because of all I worked through in my earlier decades. I plan to focus on lessons learned, hard times redeemed, and helping those who could potentially learn from it all.
My younger self would never believe where I am today, but that’s because she had no idea what she would have to go through to get to me.
I know who I am because of my teen years. I know what I deserve because of my 20s. And I know what truly matters because of my 30s.
And while I wouldn’t change a thing about those years, I also wouldn’t want to do it again.
Cheers to learning the hard way in order to find the peaceful way.
Cheers to hopefully more undisturbed sleep.
Cheers to 40.
by Shelby Spear 
by Nicole Merritt 
