I'm forty and I don't have it all together
And that's okay
The biggest lie a child will ever believe is that adults of any age have their sh*t together. I’ve spoken to friends who feel and think similarly and have seen memes floating around the web that let me know I’m not the only one who once believed being an adult was knowing it all and achieving perfection.
I can remember looking at my mom when she was thirty, at my dad when he was forty, at uncles, aunts, teachers all at various different ages, and I don’t remember thinking “damn, they’re old.” But I do remember feeling a certain awe and admiration — someday I would be as powerful as them. This power — in my baby eyes — boiled down to wearing slacks and button-down shirts, carrying briefcases, going to a job, being able to kiss someone on the lips, drinking beer, and being able to buy whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted.
Then I became an adult myself, and I haven’t stopped cry-laughing since.
The illusion was, needless to say, broken. I spent a good chunk of my twenties constantly self-critiquing myself for falling behind. I looked at my peers and thought something must be inherently wrong with me. Nearing thirty, I nearly lost all my faculties from the pressure I put on myself to measure up to everyone else.
I don’t know when it happened, but as I grappled to stay in the rat race, I looked around and realized that the world was on fire and no one was doing anything about it. I wasn’t just falling behind in the rat race, others were too, and the ones at the front were slowly going mad and/or had lost their humanity.
I saw it then and I’ve never unseen it since and no one can ever convince me otherwise: No one, not a single soul has their sh*t together. We’re all wading through water — thrown in here to the sharks without knowing how to swim and told to figure it out.
There’s no manual. And even if we wrote one, the world changes so quickly and without warning, that no human-written manual would ever suffice. Just when you think you’ve got one thing figured out, another one comes along just to make things “interesting” again. A life manual written in the Regency era would never have prepared us for how to deal with the development of AI in 2024.
My thirties were a transformational time. So much of what I believed life to be came apart at this time — a veil lifted from my eyes. I felt tossed to the elements with little to help me, but I made it through stronger and, I’d like to think, much wiser. I began to see that these rules someone long ago made up about how we’re supposed to live, the checkpoints we’re to meet, were nonsense, and so much of it didn’t apply to me.
For the last ten years I’ve been stripping away these ideals I’d been conditioned to believe. I’ve jumped out of the rat race, and though my heart sometimes still races thinking I’ve made a mistake by stepping out, I remind myself of how grim and dark the world actually was when I was in it. The view’s much better from the sidelines. I have better control of my mental state here. I can find peace inside myself here. And maybe I won’t ever reach the type of accolades that make some of us immortal, I remind myself that we each have to find what works for us. Our center. To tap in with that thing that lives in our chests that tells us whether we are getting colder or warmer to a life that makes us happy.
Yes, aging still makes me sad and nostalgic. I still have so much of my youth to grieve. I still get the breathless desperation to grab on to every little bit of life now while I can…
But I’m proud of my growth and how far I’ve come. I hope the transformation continues in my forties. I believe that we never get to a point in life where the lessons stop, and I’ve always enjoyed being a student. I hope to keep learning, to keep breaking through limiting beliefs.
Ten years ago when I turned thirty I was terrified. Now, as I turn forty, I’m walking away from my thirties like an action hero walks away from a burning building — not turning back. Let’s f*cking do this.
Advice, truths, and forty other things I’ve learned in my forty years
Holding various truths at once may be the key to finding inner peace and calm.
The aromatics need to be sauteed first to bring out their flavor.
So much of life needs to be lived like the advice flight attendants give us at the start of a flight: Put your mask on first before you try to help anyone else. Yes, even when you have children.
No one owes you anything. Even if you help them. Even if you save them. Do things out of the goodness of your heart not because you expect something in return, especially when you want that thing to be love.
On the other side of that same coin, you don’t owe anyone anything. Even if they helped you. Even if they saved you. Even if they did it out of the goodness of their heart. Show gratitude not servitude. You owe them a “thank you,” not your time, not your opinions, not your values, not your energy, or anything else that you cannot or are not willing to give.
You don’t have to forgive. You don’t have to forget.
You should, however, learn to process your emotions. Carrying unprocessed sh*t gets heavy fast, and it’ll make you sick.
Work on your self-worth. This could easily be number one. Actually, this could be a list of forty times this advice. Work on your self-worth. Learn to understand that you have value outside of everything you’ve been told. This is key.
Some friendships end. Some friendships burn out. It happens. And that’s okay.
Losing a friend hurts a million times more than losing a romantic partner, and I will die on this hill.
Making friends as an adult is so much harder than making friends as children.
However, when you make a friend as an adult — a true friend who is willing to be sincere with you and show up unmasked — there’s something undeniably solid about that relationship. The purity of people finding each other in friendship because they’re tired of the bullshit of the world is unmatched.
Family is not everything. Blood is not thicker than water.
Double-check the recipe before hand to see if anything needs to be at room temperature first.
My parents disappointed me, but JK Rowling’s betrayal hurt worse.
You don’t have to finish books you’re not enjoying.
Learning to say “no” is one of the most powerful lessons you’ll ever learn.
You don’t need to reply to that text or email instantly.
You don’t need to be nice to be kind.
Holding space for people when they’re going through something can be so much more powerful and useful than trying to fix their problems for them.
The only way to grow is to step out of your comfort zone. I actually hate this one, but every time I’ve stepped out of my comfort zone, it’s been the most rewarding experience. Everything amazing has come to me from having taken a chance at something unusual and out of the ordinary.
If you’re on a journey of self-improvement read self-help books far and wide. A lot of them are full of the same nonsense, but every once in a while, one of them will have that ONE line that resonates with you and shifts your whole perspective. For the sake of that one line, read as many books as you can get your hands on.
The idea of being loved can be just as terrifying or more as the idea of loving someone.
Yeah, working out sucks, but damn if it doesn’t feel amazing right after having done it.
You should heat your pan first, then pour the oil, let that heat through, then put your food in.
You cannot cook everything on high heat.
Take your time, with everything, take your time.
Our intuition is our inner magic. Do everything you can to get in touch with it.
We need to make mistakes. We need to. It’s part of the process. Life can’t function properly without them.
Rest isn’t something that is earned. Rest is something we all inherently deserve.
Setting boundaries is key to maintaining your mental health.
There are few things more nourishing than time spent in nature, creating art, or with good company.
No one gets to tell you how something made you feel.
You aren’t just born with a sense of self. Many of us have a more solid foundation on which to build one when we come into this earth. Some of us will have to work harder to figure it out.
Stripping someone of their sense of self and their self-worth is one of the worst, most unforgivable acts anyone can do.
Everyone has a voice — whether that voice comes from their chest or the things they create — and they all deserve a chance to be heard.
Despite several warnings that I would change my mind, I’m forty and still have no desire to birth or raise a child. I still don’t foresee this changing.
We need more sensitive people in the world.
We are all connected. We are all separate. We all need to work together. We all need to stand in the light of our own individual truth. This is the most magical paradox of life and it is perfect.
Life is beautiful. But terrifying. But beautiful.
This month on the blog
I’ve been putting out a series this month that delves into the different stages of editing and what they entail. From Developmental Editing right down to Proofreading, I go into what each type of edit looks at, at what point these should happen, and any other information that’s necessary for the first-time author to know. Check them out!
What Is A Developmental Edit and When Do You Need One
What Is A Manuscript Critique and When Do You Need One
What Is A Line Edit and When Do You Need One
What Is A Copyedit and When Do You Need One
*Note: The post detailing information about proofreading will be out on October 29th — two days after this newsletter is scheduled to be delivered. So feel free to check back on the blog if you’re interested in learning more about what proofreading can do for you!
Book club announcement
My friend Brittani from My Untitled Thoughts and I have finally settled on using the Fable app to host our book club which we’ve named the No Pressure Crew book club! The name is a homage to an inside joke we tell each other whenever we need to remind each other to slow down and take it easy and to remember that with each other there’s no pressure to do things!
For the months of November and December, we’ll be reading The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina by Zoraida Córdova. The kickoff will be on Oct. 26th. Fable helps us break the book down into checkpoint sections so that we can all work our way through the book slowly and at our own pace. That way we can all meet others safely at different stages of the book without having to worry about spoilers!
Feel free to join us over on Fable! You should also receive a $5 credit when you join to purchase books via the app!
What I’ve been into this month
This month I’ve been reading Nicole LePera’s How To Be the Love You Seek, and I can honestly say this woman has been reading me to filth. As I said above, a lot of self-help books are full of old rehashed stuff, but I read as many as call my attention in search of those nuggets that will speak to me. LePera’s book happens to be one of those books that’s just full of those nuggets. She speaks with confidence and clarity and in a way that makes the situations she speaks about easy to understand. She gives helpful advice and helps us bring awareness and compassion to those parts of ourselves that we’ve shoved into the shadows, so that we may be less afraid of facing them and become better versions of ourselves.
I’m also almost all the way through Babel by R.F. Kuang, and oh man, has this book been a journey. I would’ve finished already, but it’s gotten so intense towards the end that my sister and I needed a break to recalibrate. And mourn. But I just want to say that as an immigrant, who was brought into a foreign country where the culture and language were different, who had to assimilate to fit in, to lose the fluidity of her own native tongue, who has never felt at home anywhere, this book has touched parts of me I never believed could be so clearly seen and understood.
I also picked up Book Lovers by Emily Henry because word on the street has it Henry is the queen of romcoms, but my previous attempt to read People We Meet On Vacation and consequentially DNFing it left me questioning what the fuss was all about. I said if I found a secondhand copy of Book Lovers (her highest-rated book) I’d give her a try again. While I did enjoy this enough to get through the whole book, I still didn’t find it the poignant read everyone claims it to be. I thought it made for a passing, fluffy read — something to pick up in between stressful books or on a weekend when one is bored. But it’s definitely not something that will stay with me for a long time.
I also listened to the audiobook Over the Influence by Joanna “JoJo” Levesque who some might remember was a powerhouse vocalist when she popped into the music scene at the tender age of twelve. I’ve wondered all these years what happened to Jojo and why her career seemed to have come to such an abrupt stop when she seemed overflowing with talent and opportunity. In her memoir, Johanna gets candid about what happened all those years, the roadblocks she’s had to face among many other hardships to get to where she is today — finally making decisions for herself and being in charge of her own life and music.
I’ve made much progress on the romance WIP that I work on when I get stuck on my historical fiction (I wrote four chapters in the span of two weeks!). So much so that it’s beginning to take shape as a real thing that could actually, really come to life in the shape of a book. I hope the quiet of the months to come will feed into this wave of inspiration I’ve been recently riding.
October has been a pretty busy month for me. So much so that I’m looking forward to the quiet that the sleepy (read: dim and frigid) days of November will bring.
Until next time,
Hi there, I’m Maria! I’m a freelance fiction editor assisting women writers in amplifying their voices through their writing. You can find me on Instagram and Threads under the handle @theintuitivedesk and on Pinterest. Or visit my site www. theintuitivedesk.com to find out more about editing services.
I second the room temperature situation. The butter and eggs get me every time 🤣
"To tap in with that thing that lives in our chests that tells us whether we are getting colder or warmer to a life that makes us happy." <-- This, plus every single one of your list hit me. Yes, yes, yes.