When the Story Stops Fitting
Photo by Dimitri Karastelev on Unsplash
“Maybe I’m too old to start over,” she said.
She said it quietly -as if she didn’t even want to admit it to herself.
We were sitting across from each other in a neighborhood café, with a background hum that makes conversations easier. She wanted to work with me on her story, because something in her life was no longer working.
She wanted to change. More than that, she wanted permission to change.
Permission to stop playing the role she had long outgrown.
To drop the storyline she’d carried for decades.
An opportunity to ask herself What else is possible?
Over the past months, I’ve had the privilege of working with women in their 40s, 50s, even 60s. Women with rich experience, impressive résumés, families and lives that look “complete” on the outside.
But something inside them is stirring.
It isn’t always dramatic. It doesn’t always start with a bang –a major, life changing event that demands reinvention.
Oftentimes, it’s quiet. A certain restlessness that cannot be ignored.
I recognize that feeling, because I’ve been there too. It shows up as fatigue. Lack of creative drive. Futility - a sense that it’s all pointless.
You know, that hollow feeling when you’re doing everything right, but nothing seems quite right.
It can be hard to name what’s wrong when everything looks fine. But deep down, something tells you that you’ve outgrown your own life.
For a long time, my own story was one of striving. Of doing the right thing. Building a career, showing up, keeping up. A story with structure and discipline, but not always room for doubt.
It served me well for years. It allowed me to recover after failure and the sadness that followed. To change careers. To present myself anew to the world. To keep going, no matter what.
Until it didn’t anymore.
Until the day when it looked good to others, but no longer to me.
You see, every story, even a good one, has a season. And when the season changes, the narrative must change, too.
I’ve been thinking lately about the stories we no longer tell. The ones we let go. The stories we grieve and the ones we outgrow.
Stories like: “I must always be productive to be valuable.” Or “It’s too late for me to change.” Or “If I stop pushing, I’ll fall behind.” Or “Stability is more important than joy.”
We don’t say them out loud, but we carry them. They shape our choices, define our sense of possibility.
These aren’t just passing thoughts. They’re old scripts, passed down to us, picked up, performed meticulously over the years. Slowly, imperceptibly, they start to define us.
Then, one day we pause. And in that pause, we notice that this isn’t true anymore. Maybe it never was.
Letting go of a story is hard -especially when we’ve lived inside it for so long it feels like home. But what I’ve learned -through my own life, and through the work I now do with other women- is that we’re allowed to rewrite the script.
We are allowed to want more ease. More clarity. More meaning in our days on earth.
We’re allowed to say “this chapter is over,” even without knowing exactly what the next one looks like.
Most importantly, we aren’t too old to change the narrative. We’re old enough to know which stories are worth telling.
These days I let go of my old stories. And I’m making space for new ones. Stories about purpose and fulfilment. About balance and becoming whole again. Stories where midlife isn’t a crisis, but a crossroads.
It’s the perfect time to begin again. With intention, with clarity and with the wisdom only time can offer.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. Sharing these stories isn’t always easy, but knowing it might inspire or comfort someone out there makes it worth it. Feel free to reply. I’d love to hear your thoughts.