When I approached 40, I had mixed emotions; I believed at that point I would then be officially a “Grown Woman” and all that 40 entails… like gray hair popping up uninvited, being considered “middle age” by folks in their 20’s & 30’s, your body acting all funny style and feeling some kind of strange way for no apparent reason, aches and pains that come out the blue… just a bunch of random nonsense as far as I’m concerned!
And now that I’m 43, you know what I discovered? It’s All True!! Smh! All that goodness and more comes along with being a Woman in your 40’s!
But it’s not all bad mind you. The 40’s do bring about certain gifts that just aren’t apparent til later in life, because the reality is that some insights only become clear once you’ve lived a little and had a variety of life experiences to compare and contrast, and if you’re open, these experiences will definitely unlock and make it possible for you to extract some wisdom from them. As Women, we must trust in our inner strengths and the tools that we were born with and have cultivated over time, and just relax and allow the Universe to work through us.
I think what happens for a lot of us, is that we get stuck in the land of the “what ifs” and “should haves” and “if onlys”, while forgetting that we are all beautifully imperfect beings, all of us operating in an extremely imperfect world. Most Women I know play a lot of different roles in our everyday lives and we all have been conditioned to strive for perfection, but what we must realize is that striving for perfection is in all actuality a rather hollow goal. Instead we should encourage one another to strive for excellence and to maintain high standards, as opposed to completely buying into the “illusion” that society has set for us.
As Women we must vow to build each other up, support female businesses, encourage one another to strive for living a life full of moments of self-discovery, passionate endeavors, standing up for what you believe in, and exploring this world with an open mind and heart…
Dawn M. Edwards 