Letters from Mid Life

To the Woman Pulled in Every Direction

August 11th, 2025

Dear Me,

You didn’t expect this stage to feel quite so full.

The kids are grown—technically adults now—but your role hasn’t ended, it’s changed.
Instead, it’s shifted into something less visible, but no less demanding.
You’re the sounding board for career decisions, relationship hiccups, and “how do I…?” phone calls & texts that come out of the blue.
You’re the quiet anchor as they learn how to stand on their own.

At the same time, you’re walking alongside ageing parents whose needs are growing.
Medical appointments, check-ins, designated driver, small but important acts of care that remind you time is moving in both directions.
Some days you feel stretched thin—part of you facing forward, part of you looking back, and somehow trying to keep yourself steady in the middle.

And then there’s your own life.
Your own career shifts, the questions about what comes next, the quiet wondering about whether there’s still time for the dreams you’ve put on the back burner.
Some days it feels like you’re moving through your own transition with barely a moment to catch your breath.

From the outside, you might look like you’re managing it all.
But inside, there’s a constant hum—thinking ahead for everyone else, trying to be present for your own life, and wondering where your energy will come from tomorrow.

It’s not wrong to feel tired.
It’s not selfish to want space that’s only yours.
You are holding multiple generations together in your own quiet way, and it’s okay to admit it takes something from you.

This isn’t about being everything to everyone.
It’s about finding the smallest pockets of rest and the gentlest ways to refill yourself, so you can keep showing up for the people you love—and for you.

With heart,

Me
To the Woman Who Feels Like She’s One Emotion Away from Falling Apart

August 4th, 2025

Dear Me,

You don’t always recognise yourself lately.

The way your heart races at the smallest thing. The quick snap of irritation that surprises even you. The way tears rise without warning. How noise, decisions, and other people’s needs feel like too much—even when nothing is technically wrong.

It’s not weakness.
It’s not overreacting.
It’s a nervous system asking for relief.

There’s an undercurrent running beneath everything right now—an anxiety that hums even in stillness. Some days, it feels like you’re bracing yourself for… something. You’re not sure what. You just know your body is on alert and your heart is always two steps ahead, anticipating the next thing you’ll need to hold together.

And it’s exhausting.

You don’t want to be irritable. You don’t want to feel edgy or snappy or distant. But you do. And then comes the guilt. The quiet questioning: Why can’t I just hold it together? Why does everything feel so hard?

Here’s the truth:
You’re doing your best.
And your best is not measured by how well you keep it together.

You are not too emotional.
You are not broken.
You are not alone.

What you’re feeling is valid. Hormones, life transitions, the weight of everyone’s expectations—including your own—can wear down even the most resilient woman. Add a dash of perfectionism, a pinch of overstimulation, and a lifetime of being the one who “handles things,” and it makes sense that you feel fragile.

But you don’t have to push through it all in silence.

What if you let yourself slow down?
What if you met your irritability with kindness instead of shame?
What if you gave your anxiety a name and your tears a place to land?

You are allowed to ask for help.
You are allowed to take up space.
You are allowed to not be okay.

This is not a sign of weakness.
This is the sacred whisper of your inner world asking to be tended to.

Gently now. One breath at a time.
Let softness meet the sharp edges.

With heart,
Me
To the Woman Afraid of What Comes After This

July 27th, 2025

Dear Me,

You’ve always had something to move toward.
A next chapter already outlined in the margins of your life—school schedules, career goals, milestones that gave shape and meaning to the years. You were never standing still, always in motion, always sure of where the road would lead.

But now? The map you’ve been following for so long has faded. The signposts have disappeared. And the silence of that uncertainty feels louder than anything you’ve known.

You find yourself wondering:
What happens after this? Who am I when the roles I’ve worn so well no longer fit? Will there be enough left of me to build something new?

It’s unsettling, isn’t it?
This space where everything feels undone, where the future is a blank page and your pen hovers in the air, unsure what to write.

You keep searching for a plan, as if certainty will calm the ache.
You make lists, dream up ideas, try on possibilities in your mind—only to feel the weight of fear pull them apart. What if none of it works? What if I’ve missed my chance? What if it’s too late?

Here’s what I need you to hear:
It’s not too late.
You are not too late.

This fear you’re feeling? It isn’t a sign you’re failing. It’s proof of something tender, something alive—the quiet hope that there is still more for you. If you were truly finished, you wouldn’t be afraid. You’d be numb. You’d be empty.

But you’re not empty—you’re longing.
And longing is sacred.

What if you stopped trying to outrun this fear, and instead sat with it?
What if you trusted that you don’t have to see the entire road before taking one small step?

The truth is, the next chapter rarely arrives fully written. It begins with whispers, nudges, small stirrings in the quiet moments—when you stop forcing answers and allow curiosity to breathe.

Maybe the question isn’t What comes next?
Maybe it’s What feels right now?
What brings even the smallest flicker of light, of ease, of joy?

Start there.
You’ve reinvented yourself before. You’ve stepped into the unknown before. You can do it again—not by leaping into a perfect plan, but by leaning into the gentle truth that your life isn’t over. It’s unfolding.

So, take the pressure off.
Let yourself not know.
Let yourself rest in the mystery for a while, trusting that the road will reveal itself one quiet step at a time.

The horizon isn’t empty. It’s open.
And so are you.

With heart,

Me
To the Woman Who Wants More Without Breaking Everything

July 19th, 2025

Dear me,

You keep whispering to yourself, “I should be grateful.” And you are. For the roof over your head, the people you love, the life you’ve built brick by steady brick. You remind yourself that you’ve worked so hard for this—so why does it feel like something’s missing?

The truth is, you’ve been taught that wanting more is selfish. That longing means you’re ungrateful. And so you tuck those thoughts away, hiding them under the layers of your “shoulds.”

But lately, those whispers are louder, aren’t they? They come in the quiet moments—the empty rooms, the slow mornings, the long exhale when no one needs you. They arrive with questions you don’t have neat answers for: Is this it? Is there something else? Am I allowed to want more without breaking what I’ve built?

This is where the mental tug-of-war begins. One part of you clings to gratitude like a lifeline—because you know how lucky you are. The other part aches for a different rhythm, one that feels more like you. And in the space between those two truths, guilt settles in like a heavy blanket.

Guilt says you’re selfish. Anxiety whispers that you’ll regret it. Shame tries to convince you that you should just stay where you are. And yet, underneath all of it, something in you keeps stirring. A quiet longing for more space, more meaning, more ease.

Here’s the truth you need to hold close: Wanting more does not erase your gratitude. It does not make you unkind or unworthy. It makes you human. It makes you alive. It means you’re still unfolding, still becoming—even here, in the middle of everything you thought was already decided.

You don’t need all the answers today. You just need to give yourself permission to ask the questions. To let yourself imagine without guilt. To loosen the grip of expectation and allow curiosity to take your hand.

Because life isn’t about settling for “fine.” It’s about finding what feels real and right for the person you are now—not the one you were twenty years ago.

So, dear me, release the shame. Let go of the shoulds. Wanting more isn’t wrong. It’s brave.

With heart,
Me
To the Woman Wondering Why She Feels So Tired (All the Time)

July 14th, 2025

Dear Me

I get it.

It’s a tiredness that goes beyond sleep.
Beyond busy days or long to-do lists.
It’s something deeper—harder to explain.

You tell yourself it’s just stress, or hormones, or work, or parenting, or age. And maybe it is. But maybe it’s also something else—something quieter you’ve been carrying for far too long.

The emotional weight.

The pressure to hold everything together.
The years of keeping yourself “fine” for everyone else.
The way you’ve pushed through, even when your heart was heavy.

Sometimes, we don’t notice how much we’ve been holding until it shows up in our body—
in the tension in our chest,
the tightness in our jaw,
the constant fatigue that lingers, no matter how much we rest.

And maybe you’ve started to wonder—like I did—
Is this just life now?
Or is my heart asking for something more?

I didn’t used to think about emotional wellbeing very much. I thought if I stayed busy enough, kept moving forward, and ticked all the boxes, I’d feel better.

But eventually, the tiredness caught up with me.
And beneath it, I found something I wasn’t expecting:
grief.
Disappointment.
Resentment.
Loneliness.
The quiet ache of outgrowing the life I thought I wanted.

This wasn’t the dramatic kind of exhaustion. It was a slow, steady depletion—emotional burnout, I’ve since learned.

And it’s more common than we realise—especially for women in this season of life, when we’ve spent so many years looking after others and putting ourselves last.

If this letter feels familiar to you, please know this:
You’re not broken. You’re not weak.
You’re just human.

And maybe it’s time to listen to what your tiredness is trying to tell you.

Not to push through.
Not to “fix” it immediately.

But to pause.
To soften.
To ask yourself gently:

What am I really carrying right now?
And what would it feel like to finally set some of it down?

You deserve rest—the real kind.
The emotional kind.
The deep, nourishing kind that comes when you stop pretending you’re fine.

You don’t have to carry it all alone.

With heart,

Me
The Quiet Stirring

July 7th, 2025

Dear Me,

Something has shifted.

Not in a dramatic, life-upending kind of way. But quietly—like the way a curtain moves when a breeze sneaks in. Small, almost unnoticeable… but undeniable once you feel it.

At first, I thought it was just restlessness. A season, perhaps. A side effect of hormones, empty rooms, changing routines. But now I know better. It’s something older and wiser, something that’s been buried under years of doing, serving, striving. It’s a voice I once knew well, before I learned to prioritise everyone else’s needs above my own.

That voice is stirring again. And it wants my attention.

It isn’t asking for anything grand. Not a reinvention overnight, or a big leap into something brave. Just a little space. A little slowness. A moment to breathe. It whispers things like, ‘You don’t need to be everything. You just need to be honest’. It urges me to sit with the discomfort instead of running from it, to stop editing myself in rooms that don’t feel safe, and to finally tell the truth—first to myself.

The truth is: I’ve outgrown the version of me that knew all the answers. I’m softer now, more uncertain in the best way. I’m learning to be okay with not knowing. To say, I don’t have it figured out, without shame. That’s what mid-life is teaching me—how to unlearn the masks I wore for approval and learn to meet myself with compassion.

There’s grief in this process. Real grief. Not just for the passing of youth, but for the parts of me I abandoned along the way. The dreams I shelved. The feelings I numbed. The creativity I starved. I mourn the years I didn’t know I could want more.

But there is also something else. Something gentler. A sense of returning—not to who I used to be, but to something more true. I’m beginning to ask better questions now: ‘What feels like peace? What am I no longer willing to carry? What do I want from this next chapter—not just for others, but for me?’

The answers don’t come in a rush. They rise slowly. In quiet mornings. In journals scribbled with half-thoughts. In long walks where the rhythm of my steps feels like prayer. In pauses where I resist the urge to fix or perform.

This isn’t a reinvention. It’s a remembering.

A remembering that I’m allowed to want softness. That joy doesn’t have to be loud to be real. That living slowly is not wasting time—it’s honouring it.

To the woman I was: Thank you for carrying so much.

To the woman I’m becoming: I see you trying. Keep listening. Keep returning. The life you’ve longed for isn’t behind you. It’s unfolding with every quiet, deliberate choice you make now.

With heart,
Me
A Letter to the Woman I Was (and the One I’m Becoming)

June 29th, 2025

Dear Me,

You didn’t expect it to feel like this, did you?

You thought by now, things would have settled. The house is quieter, the lists are shorter, and for the first time in years, you’re not rushing between everyone else’s needs. But instead of peace, what arrived was a strange, empty ache. A kind of disorientation. You stood still for the first time in decades and realised you didn’t quite recognise yourself.

You’ve spent so many years caring, helping, holding space for others—through jobs that asked for your heart, your time, your energy. You earned pieces of paper that told the world you were capable. You built routines, identities, roles. But somewhere in the giving, you forgot to ask yourself what you wanted.

You were too busy to listen to the whispers.

Until now.

Now there’s space. Not just in the calendar, but in your mind. In your body. There’s the soft light of early mornings, and a quieter voice inside that says: It’s okay to want something more. Or less. Or different. And that voice, once buried, is getting louder.

You’ve felt the physical shifts, too—the way your body is changing, asking to be treated with more care, more gentleness. You’ve stood in front of the mirror and searched your own eyes for the girl who used to dream. You’ve cried without knowing exactly why, and then laughed the next minute at the absurdity of it all. You’re learning that this is what transformation feels like—messy, hormonal, holy.

You’ve begun the tender work of looking inward. Questioning the pace you’ve kept. Unpacking the old stories. Asking: What do I need now? What truly matters?

You don’t want noise anymore. Or chaos, or busyness for the sake of it. You want slowness. Honesty. Maybe even space to create something just for you. You’re learning to stop performing and start listening. To stop proving and start becoming.

And you’re beginning to see that there’s no right way to do this next chapter. There’s just your way.

This space—this letter, really—is a witness to that unfolding. A way of saying: I see you. Not the polished version, but the real one. The woman in mid-life who is still learning, still softening, still uncovering what feels true.

And though you haven’t figured it all out—and probably never will—you’re closer now than you’ve ever been.

To the woman I was: thank you for holding everything together, even when it was heavy.

To the woman I’m becoming: keep going. Keep asking. Keep choosing yourself.

And to the quiet voice inside me—the one I ignored for far too long—I’m listening now.

With heart,
Me