My youngest has an extraordinary ability to shift from nervous to fearless. Even when she stumbles, she pushes through the embarrassment and shares her feelings with a vulnerability so unguarded, it overwhelms me. I think it moves me most because, in adulthood, I often find myself surrounded by the performance of composure—peers who, out of fear of judgment or the absence of permission to fail, force themselves to pretend.
It makes me reflect on the ways I, too, protect myself.
Quietly, I carry a kind of Peter Pan syndrome—clinging to the comforts of youth and skirting the demands of adulthood, as though growing up required the forfeiture of something essential. I rise, willingly, to the responsibilities of marriage and motherhood. But when it comes to professional ambition, I hesitate. I excuse. Worse, I often use the very responsibilities I cherish as the excuse.
I’m not sure when it started—when I began using busyness not just as a burden, but as a shield. A reason why I couldn’t do something I wanted, but felt ill-equipped to face. Sometimes, I fear I’ve become a fragile heap of cowardice, buried beneath layers of denial. And I know it.
Life is wild. I’ve spent years navigating the publishing industry. My rejections far outnumber my acceptances. And yet, I’m still here.
A few years ago, I started making a list of things I wanted to do in my forties. The list is long and embarrassingly untouched. But something has shifted. Something small but undeniable. I’ve started moving. Documenting. Or, as I more creatively say, painting stories.
Maybe this is what growing up looks like for me—not a surrender, but a return. A return to the part of myself I’ve been excusing away. I thought it might be helpful, humorous, and deeply resonant to explore how dreaming and doing in your forties can still feel as magical and meaningful as it did in childhood—especially when captured through the right mediums.
So here I am, not reinvented, but reclaimed—shaking the dust off dormant dreams and letting them speak again, however imperfectly. Watching my daughter embrace both fear and failure with such unfiltered courage reminds me that growing up doesn’t mean growing out of wonder; it means growing into ourselves, again and again. And maybe the most honest way to move forward is not with a polished plan or a perfect performance, but with the quiet conviction that it’s not too late. Not too late to start, to share, to show up. Even if the first step is just writing it down.
The Forty Files 