When the life you built no longer feels like yours.
A reflection on success, disconnection, and the quiet voice calling you home.
I recently had coffee with a friend whose energy seemed low. She leaned in, her voice quiet in that way that means something important is coming.
"I was standing in my kitchen," she said, "glass of wine in hand, looking out at this life I've built. Beautiful house in a decent neighborhood. Career that pays well and gets respect. Family photos covering the refrigerator. Everything I worked toward for decades is right here in front of me."
She paused. "So why do I feel like I'm living someone else's life?"
This isn’t verbatim, but it’s close. My friend’s question has stayed with me because I hear variations of it constantly. From clients, from friends, from women who've done everything 'right' and still feel something's missing.
It's not a breakdown—though sometimes it feels like one. It's not a midlife crisis either. It's something quieter but just as profound.
The silent drift
Change doesn’t always start with a big moment.
Sometimes, it comes quietly as a gentle itch, that gradually gets stronger. No amount of ignoring it or scratching makes it go away. As the saying goes, “What you resist persists.”
And so you glance around at the life you’ve created and realize it no longer feels like home. You’re grateful. You still love parts of it. But it’s not quite you anymore.
Here’s something no one often talks about:
You don’t have to be falling apart to sense that something’s missing. This quiet discomfort is something many high-achieving women in midlife experience but rarely voice aloud, because outwardly, everything seems to be going perfectly. Yet inside, it’s quietly shifting.
And you might find yourself wondering, “I have it all, so why do I feel this way?”
(Cue Once in a Lifetime by Talking Heads)
And you may ask yourself, "How do I work this?"
And you may ask yourself, "Where is that large automobile?"
And you may tell yourself, "This is not my beautiful house"
And you may tell yourself, "This is not my beautiful wife"
You’re not crazy, you’re evolving.
This isn’t dysfunction, it’s development.
There’s a reason this feeling often appears in your 40s and 50s. Your role in the world is shifting, and so are you.
Maybe the kids are grown.
Maybe your career no longer interests you.
Maybe your marriage feels more like a partnership than a passion.
Or the business you once loved feels like a burden.
Love all versions of you, past, present, future
You’ve outgrown an old version of yourself, but the new one hasn’t fully emerged yet.
No one tells you how disorienting that in-between stage can be, especially after decades of becoming everything you thought you should be.
A quick astrology lesson
In astrology, this is the Chiron Return — a time between ages 46 and 52 when we’re invited to heal old wounds and step into new wisdom. Long before I learned about it, I remember wondering: Why do we call it a ‘midlife crisis’ instead of a midlife awakening? That restlessness you feel might be the beginning of something new. A crisis signals that change is underway and that a part of you is awakening.
What got you here won’t get you there
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself, "Well, how did I get here?"
You built this life with the tools you had: discipline, overachieving, proving yourself, and holding it all together.
You did what was expected but also what you needed to do for your family. I see it in my friends. I see it manifest as tension in marriages.
As I said above, your role in the world is shifting.
Discipline, proving yourself, holding it together at work and at home were meant for survival, not reinvention.
It all works until it doesn’t.
The second half of life is different.
I know there were plenty of times when I had to hold it together. A few years ago, I tried to hold it together so tightly that the tension built to a point that it started to manifest as anxiety, paranoia and suicide ideation (not all at the same time - different times over a few years).
So now, in this stage of your life, something different is being asked of you. Something deeper. What if this discomfort is an invitation? Not a problem to fix, but a turning point to honour?
You’re not behind. You’re just arriving at a new edge.
It’s okay to want more (or different)
In a recent episode of the Man Talks podcast, host Connor Beaton explained that women often cheat to leave, while men cheat to stay — not to excuse it, but to illustrate a pattern. That line stayed with me. It’s not just about relationships. It’s about restlessness. The hard-to-identify yearning for something more. A need we’re not always taught to name.
Instead, we feel guilty about it.
You’re allowed to evolve.
You’re allowed to want different things now.
You don’t have to hustle for the life you used to want. You get to choose a new path.
Sometimes growth looks like stillness. Sometimes success means slowing down long enough to hear yourself again.
There’s no prize for staying in a version of your life that no longer fits.
The deeper part of you — the one you’ve been silencing for years — is ready to be heard.
A quiet invitation
If this speaks to you, let it.
You don’t need to figure it all out today, but you can start by asking:
What part of my life no longer feels like mine? What part of me wants to return?
Maybe it's the part of you that used to paint on weekends. Or the woman who dreamed of traveling solo. Or the version of yourself who spoke up in meetings before you learned to be 'agreeable.'
This isn’t the end, it’s a recalibration.
And the version of you on the other side?
She’s not lost, she’s waiting.
You’re not alone in this.
If you're sitting in your own version of this in-between space, I see you. I work with women navigating exactly this transition—not because they're broken, but because they're ready to honor who they're becoming.
Contact me or explore more reflections like this on the blog.
And in the upcoming weeks I’ll publish more about identity and reinvention.
