When Fine Stops Being Good Enough
There comes a time, especially in midlife, when “fine” isn’t good enough anymore.
Maybe you’re burned out in your career, semi-empty nesting, considering a total life change like moving abroad, or your changing hormones have made it harder to keep people-pleasing and smoothing everything over. Whatever the reason, there comes a point when you can’t keep pretending this is enough.
It can feel like exasperation, frustration, overwhelm, or just plain exhaustion. It can leave you wondering why something that used to feel manageable suddenly doesn’t and thinking, “What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I decide? Why can’t I just be grateful?”
It’s confusing because so often there isn’t one obvious thing wrong. And if you’re not surrounded by people going through something similar, you can feel misunderstood, unseen, or ungrateful for even questioning things.
Trying to Figure Out What Comes Next
I’ve had a run of conversations lately with women who are not exactly lost but are trying to figure out what comes next for them.
These women are not lacking skills or experience. They may have worked, raised kids, moved countries, supported partners, adapted, and kept a lot of things moving, but that does not make it easy to answer the question of what comes next.
By midlife, most of them are not looking for work just to stay busy. They’re trying to build a life that fits who they are now, not who they were ten or twenty years ago. That can be uncomfortable because there is rarely a simple path from the life you had before to the one you want now.
What Envy Might Be Trying to Show You
Sometimes the people we envy are pointing us toward something important.
I’ve been thinking about the people who expand my sense of what’s possible. What grabs my attention is rarely just their success. It is usually something more human than that: a sense of ease in who they are and the feeling that they trust themselves and the life they are building.
Envy can be useful. It can show us where we want to grow, what we want more of, and what feels possible for us too.
Introversion vs Extroversion: It’s About Energy
I can see why people sometimes think I’m an extrovert. I enjoy people, meaningful conversation, and genuine connection.
At the same time, I think people sometimes read openness or social activity level as extroversion, when what matters more is how someone recharges.
You can love people, enjoy community, laugh a lot, host gatherings, and still need a good amount of quiet to feel like yourself again.
Not From Here, Not From There
There’s a song my son sings that has stayed with me.
“No soy de aquí, no soy de allá.”
I’m not from here, I’m not from there.
We all tear up every time he sings it. There’s something in those lyrics that captures a feeling a lot of people carry, especially when life has stretched across countries and cultures.
