To the Real Girls White-Knuckling Your 30s & 40s
If car cries or late-night mom calls hit home, this one's yours.
I’m the big sister to two younger badasses - fierce, smart, hilarious women who are deep in it right now. Juggling kids, work, grief, hormones, identity, expectations, and an endless stream of WTF-is-this-life moments.
And I’ve been hearing from so many of you lately too, Real Girls reaching out with DMs, emails, and raw texts saying, “This is so damn hard.” Asking for advice. Admitting they feel like they’re the only one struggling. Wondering if maybe they’re just... broken.
I get it. I didn’t just visit that phase, I had a permanent address. I actually dreamed up The Real Girls Guide to Over 35 back then because I was desperate for something - anything - to help me make sense of how I was feeling.
That stretch of life (my mid-30s and 40s) was a tornado I didn’t fully process until I was on the other side of it. I was building a family, grinding in my career, trying to hold it all together on the outside while unraveling on the inside.
I lost people I loved, people I leaned on. And when the grief came, it was sneaky and loud at the same time. I was exhausted, moody, wired, foggy, and no one ever said, “Hey, that might be perimenopause.” It wasn’t even on my radar. I thought I was just failing at keeping up.
There were stresses in my marriage, some spoken, some swallowed. We were trying to conceive our third son, and with every negative test, a little more of my hope slipped away. I told myself to be grateful, I was grateful. I already had two beautiful, healthy boys. But underneath that gratitude was a deep ache I didn’t feel allowed to name. I felt selfish for wanting more. Guilty for feeling disappointed. Afraid I was tempting fate, asking for something the universe might take as ungratefulness, and punish me for it.
And then there were the women at work. The ones in my phase of life who looked, somehow, completely put together. Glowing skin. Balanced calendars. Perfectly packed school lunches and presentations with matching fonts. I’d look at them and think: How the hell?
Meanwhile, I was out here surviving on caffeine, dry shampoo, and aching emotion. I compared myself constantly, brutally. I carried the biggest, meanest yardstick, and I used it to measure every inch of where I fell short.
They were sleek, metric system women. I was out here with a crooked, duct-taped ruler from the junk drawer of my life.
I didn’t measure up. Not to them. Not to what I expected of myself. And that shame? That silent self-criticism? It stuck to everything. I was exhausted, resentful, and quietly terrified that the cracks were about to show. That someone, everyone, would see I didn’t have it together. Because I didn’t.
On many, many days, my only outlet was a car ride cry and a messy phone call to my mom, where I’d just try to make sense of all the feelings. The guilt. The sadness. The rage. The loneliness. I wanted her to tell me I wasn’t crazy. I just wanted one damn person to say, “What you’re feeling is real.”
And even though I had girlfriends, I rarely had time (or space) to connect in a way that felt honest. We were all so busy. So stretched. So deep in survival mode that I didn’t know if they felt like I did. I assumed it was just me. That I was the problem.
I wasn’t.
And neither are you.
What I Wish I’d Known in the Middle of the Mess
You are not failing.
Even if the house is a disaster, your emails are unanswered, and your toddler just bit someone at daycare.
You are not behind.
Even if your career paused, your friendships thinned out, your body stopped cooperating, or your timeline blew up.
You are not too much.
Too emotional. Too ambitious. Too loud. Too depleted. You are carrying more than you should with way less support than you need and still managing to feed people and answer texts.
You are allowed to grieve.
The babies that didn’t come. The people you lost. The version of you buried under all the doing. The life you imagined that didn’t go as planned. Grief doesn’t need permission.
You are doing better than you think.
Especially when it feels like you’re drowning in invisible labor and loud self-doubt.
And for the record?
Crying in the car and calling your mom for emotional triage is not weakness, it’s survival. Even if she doesn’t always have the right words, those calls matter. You matter.
You will not stay in this chaos forever. One day you’ll have enough space to exhale. And you’ll use that breath to help someone else feel seen in their mess.
Love,
Me (now decades (woof!) older, with stronger boundaries, better bras, and zero interest in pretending I was ever fine)
The Truth I Wish Someone Had Told Me
Those years weren’t soft. They didn’t unfold like a story; they broke like a storm. They were raw, relentless, and wildly unspoken.
If you’re in them now, barely holding on, second-guessing everything, wondering if you’re the only one feeling this way, please hear me:
You are not alone. You are not broken. You are just carrying too damn much with too little support.
✤ The problem was never you.
✤ It’s the silence.
✤ The pretending.
✤ The way we were told to be strong and grateful - while quietly coming undone.
We deserved more space. More truth. More grace. And a hell of a lot more help.
So let’s stop whispering. Let’s stop performing. Let’s be honest with ourselves and each other. Because the second we speak it out loud, we take the shame out of the shadows.
Let’s be louder. For them. For us. For the version of you that thought she had to do it all and smile while she did.
Your Turn
What do you wish someone had told you in your chaos years?
Want to share your story? Comment here or email me: realgirlsguide55@gmail.com. Know someone who needs this today? Forward it.
And if you’re still crying in your car or holding back tears between meetings and preschool pickup, hear this:
You are not broken. You are not failing. You are carrying more than anyone sees and still showing up.
That’s not weakness. That’s power. You’re doing better than you think. And you’ve already done more than you know.
#Parenting #Culture #HealthandWellness #Humor #PersonalGrowth #RealGirlsGuide #MidlifeIsPower #RadicalSelfPossession
We’ve earned every wrinkle. Might as well make more laugh lines together.
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