By Megan Burr 
When I was 19, my mom was 39. To me, she seemed like the epitome of an adult. I was pretty sure that she knew everything. I would call her with even the most basic of questions. Because even though I was also an adult, my mom was the “adultier adult.” She had already done everything, seen everything, and could guide me through it with grace. At least that’s what I thought. And while she did know a lot more than I did at the time, and she was able to help me navigate many complex things, I am just now beginning to realize that maybe, just maybe, she didn’t know everything, like I thought she did.
At 40, I find myself still constantly looking around for an “adultier adult.” But lately, I’ve started to realize something quietly freeing: maybe there isn’t one.
Maybe everyone I’ve ever admired—my parents, my teachers, women in my neighborhood —were just a few steps further down the same winding road I am on now. Still guessing. Still learning. Still becoming.
When I was younger, I thought adulthood meant arriving. Having it all figured out. Reaching some invisible finish line where doubt and second-guessing finally stopped.
But what if adulthood isn’t an arrival at all?
What if it’s just the first time you’re given enough space to actually hear yourself?
To notice what you like.
What you don’t.
What makes you feel alive.
What you’re ready to let go of.
At 20, I was busy surviving and proving.
At 30, I was busy building and holding space for my children and family.
And now, at 40, I feel like I’m finally allowed to ask a gentler question:
Who am I, really, when no one is telling me who to be?
Back when life was slower, before children, before my husband’s grad school, I had hobbies. I had interests. Those seemed to fade away as life became loud and chaotic.
My hobbies slowly morphed into my children’s needs and wants. Into their hobbies and interests. They became the work of trying to hold myself together while my husband spent hours working hard in medical school, residency, intern year, and starting his own practice. I became my children’s mom and my husband’s wife, and not much outside that.
And for that season, that was exactly what I needed to be. I needed to hold everything together while my husband worked himself to the bone to be successful in his career.
I did what I had to do.
I showed up.
I kept the lights on—literally and metaphorically.
And there is nothing small about what I did during that season.
But seasons end.
And lately, I feel a new one quietly opening.
My kids are older.
The house is sometimes a little quieter.
The constant urgency that defined the first decade plus of my marriage has softened just enough to let something else through: Curiosity. Remembering.
I find myself wanting things again.
Books.
Writing.
Creating.
Space.
Ideas.
Time alone with my thoughts…and a place to put those thoughts.
Not because I am in any way unhappy with my life; quite the opposite, in fact. I am at a place in life where I love everything about it, and I’m content. I’m surrounded by all the people I love, and who love me. And I’m finally feeling like I can breathe. Like I can finally, finally, live my life to its absolute fullest.
There’s something powerful in realizing that reinvention doesn’t mean rejection, it doesn’t mean tearing down everything about who I was. It can also be adding to who I was. Becoming the woman I am going to be in this next phase of life—midlife.
I also get to carry it all with me, all the past versions of myself I still hold close to my heart:
The young woman who had big dreams
The mother who held her family together through every big transition in life
The wife who supported her husband through some of the hardest career paths in our country.
And, the woman I’m becoming now.
Maybe this is what the middle of life is really for.
Not a crisis.
Not a decline.
But a return.
To yourself.
Originally published on the author’s Substack
by Kelsey Scism 
by Keri Forsythe-Stephens 
by Christine Leeb 
