Can you reinvent yourself at 40?

“I was absolutely petrified that perhaps I’d already reached my life’s pinnacle and yet I still wasn’t satisfied.” Sound familiar?

“I always thought that by the time I hit 40, I’d have my shit together. You know?”

My friend delivered these words to me over a hastily organised coffee date a few weeks back.

To a casual observer, my friend does have it together. She is a supportive and supported wife, a mother of three, helps her husband run a successful building company, is relatively financially stable and generally, seems happy.

Yet here she was confiding in me. Telling me that she felt suddenly, very empty, very lost and as if she had gotten all this way in life and seemingly achieved nothing she could be proud of. She was suddenly terrified that she didn’t know who she was anymore.

The thing is though, I could totally relate to what she was saying.

In fact, I myself have found myself at that very same juncture; I’d just gotten there a little earlier. I just knew that I wanted more in life and I was absolutely petrified that perhaps I’d already reached my life’s pinnacle and yet I still wasn’t satisfied.

I had always worked in Accounting, something I had, I guess, fallen into and felt secure with. My passion for writing never went away, it just always felt far too dangerous to undertake as a career. There was “no job security” my mother had said. A school guidance counselor literally patted me on the head and told me to perhaps choose a more “realistic option” when I dared to share my aspirations of becoming a writer with him.

So I took the safe route.

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I guess, I thought if I could tick off all of the boxes of life’s socially acceptable checklist by the time I hit certain ages, then I’d be doing okay. That if I went to University, met a partner, got married, had a career, bought a house and had kids that I’d simply go on to live happily ever after. And that this would be enough.

There is also this expectation that you will reach all of these milestones in that exact order. An assumption that you will be at a good place in your career, with your children, your love life and your life in general. And if you don’t, well, you’re doing it wrong. Which of course, is both invalid and completely untrue.

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What happens though, as a woman, when you get to tick all those boxes and then you suddenly find yourself unfulfilled? Sure, you may be working, sure you might have produced 2.5 challenging yet beautiful children and perhaps your house is just as you always imagined. Or, maybe you haven’t done anything of the sort. The same question can be asked of any woman, regardless of status:

Can you, at 40, reinvent yourself and change your life’s direction?

Sure you can.

At some point, not long after I turned 35, I looked around and realised that in the fog of raising kids and working and renovating and doing the fucking never-ending laundry, I’d lost me. I’d forgotten that I once had wants, desires, passions and dreams of my own. Although my accounting job wasn’t terrible, it certainly wasn’t stimulating or satisfying. I wanted to feel passionate again. I wanted to feel fulfilled. No matter how wanky that sounded, even to my own ears.

So I started to write. And the beautiful thing about it was that I was doing it for no one but myself. I didn’t care if people read it or enjoyed it or even if they hated it. I really just needed to get stuff out of my brain and onto the page.

Before long, it was part of my daily routine and slowly, I was able to have things published in larger spaces. And then, in time, over time, I was able to finally move into and financially support myself entirely from writing.

The career change diary: Is this the boldest career move ever?

The thing is, at this age, I wasn’t able to make grand sweeping changes all at once. I couldn’t simply give up my job and pursue a change of career with no guarantees that it would work out. I was far too relied upon financially so I couldn’t just drop everything to go out and “follow” my dreams. The transition had to happen slowly.

In fact, for a long time, I was juggling almost two fulltime, completely different jobs and then, to be closer to the action, even moved entire states to harness the opportunities.

The thing is, I didn’t grow up with wealth. Hell, some would even say I grew up positively poor. I did however grow up with the support of a loving family and the belief that if I worked hard, I could achieve it. The choice to consciously change careers however, had to come with age and the confidence that comes with that.

Was it easy? No, at times, it put an enormous amount of strain on not only my marriage, but my health and also, my conscience. Was I just selfish for wanting more? Was the struggle worth it?

Well, yeah. It was. It is. I was many things, a daughter, a sister, a mother, an employee and a partner. Most importantly though, I needed to remember I was also, me. And I owed to myself to do something that made me happy. Even if it meant doing it in reverse.

My beautiful friend is only now just setting off on her adventure, trying to find out what it is she’s meant to be now she’s all grown up. And I’ll be here supporting her all the way.

Are you in your dream job or do you think when you hit 40, you’ll be looking to reinvent your career?