This birthday feels different.
Usually, birthdays make me reflective. I think about where I’ve been, what I’ve accomplished, what I still want to do, and what the next year might hold.
But 49 feels less like a starting line. For the first time in a long time, I don’t know what’s ahead.
The last several months have stretched me in ways I never expected. There have been health challenges, hard decisions, big transitions I didn’t actually want but knew I needed, and some endings I never imagined would come when they did.
For a long time, I have been very good at holding things together. At work, at home, for other people, and in difficult seasons. I know how to step in, solve the problem, carry the weight, find the words, make the plan, and keep things moving.
Somewhere along the way, I think I started to believe that being valued was tied to how much I was doing for other people.
A few months ago, I wrote something for someone else about that very thing. I wrote that being part of a team doesn’t mean you always have to be the one carrying everything. I wrote about Selah — those sacred pauses where we stop long enough to notice God, to breath, to receive, and to allow ourselves to be carried for a while.
Turns out, I may have needed those words more than anyone.
This season has forced me to confront how uncomfortable I can be with stillness. When something hurts, I want to solve it. When something changes, I want to understand why. When there is silence, I want to fill it. When I don’t know what comes next, I want to make a plan.
But maybe not every pause needs to be filled, fixed, or figured out.
That is what this year between 49 and 50 is beginning to mean to me. It is not about giving up, becoming less ambitious, or disappearing from the world. I still have things I want to build, places I want to go, and ideas I want to chase.
What I am trying to unlearn is the belief that my worth is measured by how much I produce for other people, how many problems I solve, or how many people depend on me.
I want to get better at receiving. At letting people love me without feeling like I need to earn it. At noticing beauty in ordinary moments. At building something for myself. At being more present with my children and paying better attention to what my body is telling me.
And maybe most of all, I want to trust that God is still working even when I am not.
There is grief in this season. I am not pretending otherwise. But there is also so much gratitude for my family, for friends who have checked in, and for the people who have prayed for me, encouraged me, made me laugh, let me cry, carried some of the weight, and reminded me that I am not walking through this season alone.
For the first time in a long time, I am trying to be okay with not knowing exactly what comes next.
Maybe 49 doesn’t need to begin with a grand plan. Maybe it can begin with a good meal, the people I love, a little more silence, a little more trust, and permission to pause.
Selah.
