What I Know Now

In my twenties, I thought life was waiting for me

wide open, endless, something that would simply arrive.

I believed I could be anything, do anything,

and that one day it would all come together,

never realizing that becoming, is something we grow into slowly, imperfectly, and on purpose.

I was young(er) then.

Vibrant. Playful.

I felt at home in my body,

certain in my possibilities,

unaware that youth itself was a season, not a promise.

In my thirties, life asked more of me.

I became responsible in ways I hadn’t imagined.

I was raising children on my own,

learning how to be strong while still trying to be soft.

I carried the weight of providing, protecting, and holding it all together.

I tried to make space for myself

in the margins of motherhood

between exhaustion and love,

between worry and hope.

Looking back, there are things I wish I had done differently.

But when I look at who my children are now,

I know this truth:

I showed up.

I loved them fiercely.

And somehow, that was enough.

My forties arrived quietly,

and with them the realization that I was no longer “young”

but not yet certain who I was becoming.

I felt suspended between who I had been, and who I thought I should be.

At fifty, I began to find myself

and at the same time, I faced the weight of expectations.

I thought I would be further along. More accomplished. More certain.

When I wasn’t, I mistook disappointment for failure.

But now, in my sixties,

I can see the whole arc of it.

How none of it was wasted.

How every season mattered.

How life was never asking me to become someone else

only to become more honest.

I stand in front of the mirror now

and I don’t ask what’s missing.

I ask what I endured.

I see a woman who kept going.

Who learned.

Who loved.

Who survived and softened.

I see a life that was lived, not perfectly, but truthfully.

Today, I live with gratitude.

With peace.

And most of all, with acceptance.

It was what it was.

It is what it is.

And this moment, right now, is enough.

I am not who I once was.

I am not who I thought I would be.

But, I am exactly who I am meant to be.

And finally, I know this to be true:

I am enough.

And this is a beautiful place to be.

xo

Gabby