Something happens in your 40s, 50s, and 60s that nobody really prepares you for.
You start to feel... different.
Not broken. Not lost. Just different. Like something is shifting underneath you, and you can’t quite name what it is.
Maybe you’re thinking differently than you used to. Caring about different things. Feeling less willing to keep carrying what you’ve always carried. More drawn to something quieter, something more yours.
And somewhere in the middle of all that, a question surfaces:
Am I becoming someone different? Or is this still me?
I know that question well. I’ve lived it more than once.
My mother died when I was 39. My father died when I was 41.
In the middle of that grief, I did what a lot of capable people do. I kept moving. I used a good portion of my inheritance to open a quilting and knitting store -- something I loved; something that felt like mine.
And then, at 45, I closed it.
So there I was. Parents gone. Store gone. Wondering what on earth came next.
What came next was me going back to school at 46. Finishing my undergraduate degree. Then completing my MBA in 15 months. And right when I finished, I was hired to start teaching college business courses.
Accounting. Management. Finance. Economics. Marketing. Business Communications.
From the outside, it probably looked like a reinvention. A whole new Linda. And honestly? From the inside, it felt that way too. There was this dramatic shift into what felt like a completely different version of myself.
But here’s what I understand now that I didn’t understand then.
I wasn’t becoming someone different.
I was adding a ring to my tree.
Fast forward to 2023. I was 62. I had been teaching for fifteen years, and from the very beginning, I had always said that I would know when it was time to leave.
And I did know. I felt it. Deeply. By the middle of the Spring semester, I deeply felt it. It was impossible to ignore. It was time. And I left.
Another ring. Another significant season. Another moment that could have felt like losing myself – leaving an identity I had held for fifteen years – but was actually something else entirely.
It was the tree, still growing.
Still me. Just more.
One of the most helpful ways I know to understand what happens to us in these significant seasons of life is to think about how a tree grows.
Your core nature, the way you are wired, the way you think, the way you naturally operate in the world, is both the tree and its bark.
It is your species. Your original nature. Your foundational blueprint.
A maple tree does not become an oak tree because it grows older. The bark remains the bark. The tree remains the tree.
What changes is the depth of its growth.
Every year, a tree adds a new ring. That ring doesn’t replace the bark. It doesn’t change what kind of tree it is. It becomes part of the tree’s accumulated experience, another layer of growth, perspective, and maturity added to everything that was already there.
The same is true for you.
The significant seasons of your 40s, 50s, and 60s are like particularly meaningful growth rings of your tree. They add depth. They add wisdom. They bring new experiences, new perspectives, new themes into your life.
But they do not replace who you are. They never have.
Your bark is still your bark. Your tree is still your tree.
This matters more than it might seem at first.
Because a lot of capable women in these seasons of life start to wonder if they are supposed to become someone new. If the discomfort they feel means something is wrong with them. If the shifting they sense means they have somehow lost themselves.
It doesn’t mean any of that.
Nothing is lost. Nothing is replaced. Everything is integrated.
The woman you were at 35 is still in there. So is the woman you were at 25. Every season you have lived through, every hard thing you have carried, every moment of growth and drought and abundance. All of it is still part of the tree.
The rings simply deepen the life of the tree.
And here is what I find most beautiful about this.
Over time, those layers of lived experience allow the tree to stand more firmly in its own nature.
A mature tree is not a confused tree. It is not a lost tree. It is a tree that has grown through enough seasons to know exactly what it is.
That is what is happening to you in these years.
I know because it happened to me. More than once.
You are not becoming someone else.
You are becoming a fuller expression of who you have always been.
The bark remains the same. The tree simply becomes stronger, wiser, and more fully itself.
There was a reason you are the way you are. This is where we start to understand it.
Find your happy. Love what you do. Make a difference.
-- Linda
What a gorgeous, comforting metaphor. The idea that a maple tree never becomes an oak, but simply deepens its own nature, is exactly what so many of us need to hear in the middle years of life. I am in the midst of a major life and career transition myself right now, and your words helped me breathe a little deeper today. Thank you for validating the discomfort of the shift and reframing it as beautiful, necessary growth.
Beautiful! And so accurate. You hit the nail on the head - our blueprint remains the same, while we get stronger, more resilient, and more diverse as we travel through our various seasons of being. Love this, Linda.