Some Honest Truths

I’ve shared a lot of things on this little corner of the internet over the years.

Motherhood. Clothes. Career changes. Raising babies who somehow became big kids. Moving. Marriage. Reinventing myself more times than I can probably count.

But there are some things I haven’t really talked about.

So, some honest truths.

I took some time off from working this year because I needed it.

Not because I had some grand plan for a sabbatical. Not because I wanted to spend my days leisurely drinking coffee and “finding myself.” And definitely not because life suddenly became less expensive and having a paycheck stopped mattering.

I needed to take care of myself.

And I mean actually take care of myself.

Not the kind of self-care that photographs well. Not a facial, a new outfit, a workout class or a glass of wine with girlfriends—although I happen to enjoy all of those things.

I mean the uncomfortable kind.

The weekly therapy kind.

The sitting with things you would rather keep moving fast enough to avoid kind.

The asking yourself why you operate the way you do, what you actually want from the next chapter of your life, and whether the life you’ve built still fits the person you are becoming.

That kind of self-care.

Somewhere Along the Way, I Got Tired

I’m turning 40 next month.

And as much as I have joked about this birthday and talked about embracing it, there has been something about approaching 40 that has forced me to look at my life differently.

I’ve spent so much of my adult life doing.

Working. Mothering. Building. Creating. Providing. Meeting deadlines. Starting businesses. Changing careers. Showing up for everyone. Figuring out what comes next.

And somewhere in all of that, I started asking myself a question that I think a lot of women eventually ask:

Is this really how I want to spend my life?

I don’t mean that in some dramatic, burn-everything-down kind of way.

I love my life.

But I started realizing that I don’t want my career to be the thing my entire life is built around.

I want to work. I want to be successful. I want to create things I’m proud of. I have ideas and ambitions and dreams that I’m nowhere near finished pursuing.

But I also want to live.

I want slow mornings sometimes.

I want to be present with my kids.

I want dinner with my husband without mentally running through tomorrow’s to-do list.

I want trips and girlfriends and really good clothes and books I actually finish.

I want to notice my life while I’m living it.

I don’t want to wake up one day and realize that I spent decades waiting for the weekend, the vacation, the promotion, the next job or some imaginary point in the future when I would finally have permission to enjoy myself.

That realization required some work.

The Kind of Work Nobody Sees

Therapy has become part of my weekly life.

And I’m sharing that because I don’t think we should be embarrassed to say when we need help sorting through our own lives.

There was no single catastrophic moment that sent me there.

Sometimes you simply realize that you don’t feel quite like yourself anymore.

And I didn’t.

So I decided that instead of ignoring that feeling, I was going to figure out why.

There have been uncomfortable conversations. There have been things I’ve had to admit to myself. There have been patterns I’ve had to recognize and things I’ve had to decide whether I wanted to carry with me into this next decade.

And none of that is particularly glamorous.

But it might be some of the most important work I’ve ever done for myself.

Because I’m starting to feel something again that I didn’t realize I had been missing.

My sparkle.

That sounds cheesy as I type it, but I don’t know another way to describe it.

I feel like I’m finding her again.

And Then There Was Fashion

If you’ve been following me on Instagram lately, you’ve probably noticed a change.

I’m talking about fashion again.

A lot.

And very intentionally.

Fashion has always been part of me. Long before Project Motherhood, long before brand campaigns and content calendars and figuring out what performs well on Instagram, there was just a girl who really, really loved clothes.

I studied fashion. I moved to New York. I built parts of my career around it. I could lose hours talking about a beautifully constructed jacket or an incredible pair of shoes.

And somewhere along the way, I stopped making enough room for the things that lit me up simply because they lit me up.

So I’ve been making room again.

I’m getting dressed.

I’m creating.

I’m playing with clothes.

I’m talking about style and turning 40 and what fashion looks like in this season of life.

And it feels so damn good.

It isn’t really about Instagram.

It isn’t even really about clothes.

It’s about remembering that we’re allowed to have things that make us feel alive.

Things that don’t need to make us more productive.

Things that don’t need to make money.

Things that don’t need to make sense to anybody else.

They can simply make us happy.

Maybe This Is What 40 Is Supposed to Feel Like

I used to think turning 40 would make me feel old.

Instead, I think it’s making me feel awake.

I’m becoming much more protective of my time. More aware of where my energy goes. More willing to ask myself whether something is actually making my life better or whether I’m doing it because I’ve convinced myself I’m supposed to.

I’m still figuring things out.

I don’t have a perfectly wrapped-up ending for this post where I tell you I’ve discovered the secret to happiness and everything is wonderful now.

I haven’t.

I’m still going to therapy.

I’m still working through things.

I’m still figuring out what I want this next version of my career—and my life—to look like.

But I feel lighter.

I feel excited again.

I feel creative again.

I feel like I’m coming back to myself.

And if there is anything I want someone reading this to take away, it’s that taking care of yourself sometimes requires more than the things we’ve been taught to call self-care.

Sometimes it means admitting that you’re exhausted.

Sometimes it means asking for help.

Sometimes it means stepping away.

Sometimes it means doing the uncomfortable work of figuring out why you’re unhappy instead of continuing to fill every second of your life so you don’t have to think about it.

And sometimes it means putting on an incredible outfit, taking a picture against a yellow wall and remembering that there’s still a whole lot of life left to live.

I’m not interested in spending the next 40 years living strictly to work.

I want to work hard at things that matter to me.

But I also want to laugh too loudly with my girlfriends. Travel. Get dressed up for absolutely no reason. Be there for my kids. Date my husband. Create things. Change my mind. Try things that scare me. Rest when I need to.

I want to actually be here for my own life.

Maybe that’s the biggest honest truth of all.

I’m not having a crisis about turning 40.

I think I’m finally figuring out how I want to live.