**I am turning 40 this week** and I knew it was coming but it has still knocked the wind out of me. Not because I feel old, although some days I absolutely do, but because it has made me sit here and properly look at my life and go… **how on earth did I end up here?**
At school I was **loud**, you would’ve probably described me as mouthy. I spent half my time in corridors because I had been kicked out of lessons for being **disruptive, talking too much, having opinions, asking questions.** I was always being told I had loads of potential if I could just apply myself, which I knew deep down was true but being diagnosed with ADHD aged 38 helped me forgive that.
I loved a debate. I loved a bit of drama. I loved being right. **I had big energy, a big mouth and a big heart.** I had a sovereign ring, a nike athletic jumper, a nose piercing, basically anything that made me fit in but stand out at the same time. I was also the girl who threw the party of the year at 16. I do not remember much of it except my mum walking in and shouting for people to put out their joints, footprints up the walls, Bacardi Breezer bottle caps turning up for months afterwards and hot rock burns on the dining room table that never went away..
It sounds funny, and it was, but that 16 year old me was not just wild. **She was hurting. She was insecure. She was lonely and she was trying to find something that felt solid in a world that did not feel very safe**. A lot of the noise was me trying to feel seen. A lot of the chaos was me trying to feel chosen.

I made extremely bad choices in the years following 16, some that could’ve landed me in jail if I'm honest and probably shouldn’t be discussed on the internet. but I was also vulnerable and an easy target for those that were looking for young people to exploit. But those bad choices eventually lead me to some good ones, even if they were ‘by accident’.

I found love. I found someone who lets me be me, all of me. I built a family. I created something steady out of something shaky and I am so grateful to that younger version of myself for doing what she needed to do to survive.

I became a mum at 21 and from that point on everything shifted. My life became about making sure my kids felt safe and loved and held. I have taken them to live in many different houses even across continents. They have had adventure and also stability, which feels like a small miracle sometimes. I am really proud of that.

I am also someone who gives a lot. I always have. I go above and beyond for the people I care about. I show up. I overthink. I overcare. I am the one people ring when things are falling apart. I have worked with people who were struggling, who were on the edges of society, who felt forgotten, and I gave everything I had to that work until I burned out.

And somewhere in all of that, I disappeared a bit.

I became the strong one. The capable one. The one who never really asked for help even when I desperately needed it. I look at friends with young kids now and I feel so much admiration for them, but also this sadness for myself because I was so hard on me back then. I expected so much and I did not give myself much kindness.

I kept so much of myself in the background. All the thoughts, all the fire, all the things I wanted to say about the world and how it could be better. I would have the debates. I would rant in kitchens and on sofas. But I did not really step forward in the way I wanted to. I did not use my voice in a way that matched what was inside me.

Turning 40 has made that really hard to ignore. It feels like something in me has woken up and gone, right, that is enough now. You do not get to keep hiding. You do not get to live a half life because it feels safer.

And the big difference between me now and me at 16 is this.

Back then I was loud because I was scared of being invisible.
Now I want to be loud because I finally know I matter.

I want the chaos back.
I want the courage back.

The courage to take up space. To build something that is mine. To actually have the impact I know I am capable of having.

So if you are reading this and you feel that same pull, that same restlessness, that same sense of something waking up inside you, you are not broken and you are not ungrateful. You might just be ready for your next chapter.

You are allowed to outgrow the version of you that kept you safe.
You are allowed to want more.
You are allowed to go back and be kind to the younger you who did their best.

Forty does not feel like an ending to me. It feels like the moment I stop hiding and start living properly.

And that is equal parts terrifying and exciting.