Today I turned 40+2…42. It feels strange typing that. I don’t feel 42. Or at least not what I thought 42 would feel like. I still feel young and ready to tackle the world. Being 42 doesn’t change that, but it makes me sort of see age in a much different way than I did 20 years ago.

I remember the first time someone called my husband and I middle-aged. I nearly gasped. Actually, I think I did gasp. And then I pulled my husband aside and whispered to him, “are we really middle-aged?” It was a day that I will never forget.

Since that day, I have been hyper-aware of the fact that I am indeed middle-aged. I think about it often and let it invade my thoughts more than I should. Not because it bothers me. I wear that #42 proudly. I have been through so much. Overcome so much. Achieved more than I ever thought possible and built a life that I am ever so proud to call my own. The reason I tend to dwell over this middle-aged revelation is that I often find myself questioning whether I can still pursue my dreams at 40+. And y’all I know, without a doubt, wholeheartedly the answer is YES. Yes, I can. I just think I need that constant inner affirmation that I can.

Pursuing My Dreams At Forty

So here I am, 42 years old and pursuing my dreams. I am holding nothing back and moving forward at full speed. Racing to my destination. Not because I am running out of time. But because these dreams have lived solely in my heart and soul for over a decade while I raised babies. And now that the babies are all in school, I’m ready, now more than ever, to make my dreams, my reality.

Part of that is this little blog. I have been a blogger, on and off again, for quite a few years. I started as a mom blogger, blogging about my family and our experiences, but life has taken me on a much different journey and through that my message has shifted as well. My life looks a whole lot different than it did 5, 3, even one year ago. And so, while blogging about my family is still something I do, I am ready to branch out and start something new.

I am now pursuing passions that have been growing in intensity for more years than I can count. Why did I put it off until now? In all honesty, I didn’t exactly put it off for the entirety of a decade. I have been a self-made entrepreneur for several of those years. But during that time, I often felt so depleted and as if nothing I was doing was enough. I found myself on this downward spiral of self-deprecation. I was sad, lonely, depressed and stretched entirely too thin. A little over six years ago, after my youngest son was born, I decided to just stop. I sold one of my thriving businesses, quit another, exhaled a huge sigh of relief and made the conscious decision to take a few years to focus on my family and myself.

With the birth of my third son, I felt that gaping hole suddenly begin to close (one that was created from three years of often sorrow filled infertility and pregnancy loss). And finally, I was able to focus more on what had been hiding behind all of the years of growing and raising babies.

During those pivotal years, I grew so much. I began a wellness journey and started to become the version of myself that I had always hoped to be. I took online courses, learned photography, taught myself graphic design, started to write and found passions within myself that I never knew existed.

So here I am, pursuing my passions and chasing my dreams. 42 and excited to see where this next chapter in my life will take me. It’s never too late, y’all. If you have a dream, then by all means, get out there and make that dream your reality.

How about you? Do you have any big dreams that you haven’t yet had the opportunity to tackle? If so, when do you see yourself taking that leap and finally making it a priority?

Holly Paul

Holly is a 42 year old wife and mom to 3 boys, from Nashville, Tennessee. She is a hot tea lover, book reader, journal keeper, Pinterest pinner, podcast listener, y’all sayer, self-taught graphic designer, hobbyist photographer, writer and dreamer of all things big and small. You can find all of her ramblings here at Blu Nest Bloom.