I woke up today at 4:00 a.m., rested and ready to start the day. I’m writing this with soft music playing, my three beautiful dogs spread out around the living room, and a lit candle bringing a little more coziness to the quiet.
It took a while to get here, but I’m finding these moments again.
Some of that is because I finally started taking something for my perimenopause symptoms. I don’t have the constant run-down feeling I had for years, and I wish I had done something about it sooner. My head is so much clearer. I hadn’t realized how much energy I was spending simply trying to feel normal until I stopped having to.
And having my head back has allowed me to start actively walking toward a different life.
The number of things I’ve put into motion over the past four months is, admittedly, a little unhinged. I redesigned my flute business site, added more students, overhauled my flute, and started working on new classes. I wrote an entire album of songs and am learning how to produce them in Logic Pro, with plans to release them as a series of storied videos. I started working with a trainer again for my horse, with hopes of competing next year.
I’ve also started taking my health more seriously. After five years, I finally established care with a doctor and started doing the things I know I need to do to stay healthy as I age. I’ve refined my eating habits in an attempt to get the approximately one million grams of protein women are apparently supposed to eat now.
I started this blog. I started another side business offering fractional project management and business services. I’ve worked through some pretty scary health issues with the dogs and am finally in a place where I can be more proactive about the chronic allergy and ear problems one of them has struggled with.
And maybe most significantly, I made the decision to actively look for a different job—one that can financially support the life I want, give me an environment where I can do my best work, and help get me where I want to be by retirement.
I’ve also spent a lot of time thinking about the possibility that I may go through the rest of my life without a partner beside me. That isn’t exactly the life I once pictured for myself, but I’m beginning to understand that it can still be a full life. If that is how things unfold, I’ll be okay.
Honestly, the need to feel financially secure prompted a lot of this. Some of what I’m doing is practical, and some of it is a bet on myself—that I’ll figure it out, keep moving, and somehow end up ahead.
I’m not moving forward without fear. There are still moments of panic. There are days when all of this feels exhausting and a little ridiculous.
And I no longer have the confidence I had in my thirties, when I somehow believed the only possible outcome was success.
At this age, I know better.
Things don’t always work out the way we expect them to. We can make the right decision and still have a hard time. We can take a risk and discover that it was, in fact, risky.
But maybe confidence now looks a little different.
There is a consistent forward motion. One step in hope and the other in uncertainty, but both of them moving me toward the next good thing.
And that’s why this moment at 4:00 a.m. feels precious to me.
Maybe this is what a glimmer looks like in this season of my life. Nothing is completely figured out. There are still big decisions ahead of me and plenty of things that could go differently than I hope.
But right now, there is soft music playing. My dogs are sleeping nearby. A candle is burning. I feel awake. I feel capable.
And for this moment, nothing needs to be resolved for life to feel good.
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