Midlife Crisis or Transformation? Why It Feels Like a Crisis (But Isn't)

When perimenopause hits, it hits hard.

The first entry in what I never thought I'd be writing

I used to think I had it all figured out.

There I was, in my early forties, ticking boxes I'd been told mattered. Successful business. Beautiful home. Family that looked picture-perfect from the outside. I should have been grateful. I should have been content. I should have been enough.

Instead, I felt like I was drowning in plain sight.

When "Having It All" Feels Like Nothing

You know that feeling when you're standing in your own life, looking around at everything you've built, and thinking:

Is this it?

Not with anger or disappointment, but with a quiet, persistent ache that whispers, "There has to be more."

I had spent decades performing. Performing success, performing happiness, performing the version of myself that everyone expected to see. I was so good at it that I almost convinced myself it was real. But bodies don't lie. And mine started speaking up.

The Uninvited Guest Called Change

It hit me that I was perimenopausal the day my period came back… after just 14 days. Fourteen days.

At first, I thought it was just stress, maybe bad luck. But suddenly, other things started to make sense too.

I had been to the optician a few weeks before because I couldn’t see properly on my left eye – only to be told that my eyesight hadn’t changed.
I kept waking up at 3am, night after night – ghost hour. I even blamed my mom, who had passed away two years earlier. Maybe she was trying to tell me something.

But no. It started to make sense. It was perimenopause.

Perimenopause arrived like an uninvited guest who rearranges your furniture while you sleep. Suddenly, nothing felt familiar. My body, my emotions, my thoughts – everything shifted without asking permission.

Sleep became elusive. Patience grew thin. The things that used to bring me joy felt muted, like someone had turned down the volume on my life.

And then there was the part no one talks about. I lost my libido. The part of me that once felt alive and curious just… vanished.

And the mood swings? They came out of nowhere. I always suffered from PMS, I was always quite moody. But this?…

Some days I was weepy over a forgotten sock on the floor. Other days I snapped like a firecracker over absolutely nothing. It felt like being hijacked by a stranger – except the stranger was me.

My relationship started to feel… off.
I couldn’t explain it. Nothing had really changed on the outside. But I found myself pulling away.
Getting irritated more quickly. Wanting space, but feeling lonely in it.

Sometimes, I sat at dinner with the people I love most and felt completely disconnected. Sometimes I just started to cry.

The woman I thought I was seemed to be dissolving. And I had no idea who was emerging in her place.

Why I'm Writing This

I started this blog because I couldn't find the conversation I needed to have.

Everywhere I looked, midlife was either a crisis to be solved or a phase to be endured. But what if it's neither? What if it's actually an invitation – a chance to stop performing and start listening?

I'm writing this for the woman who feels like she's lost herself somewhere between taking care of everyone else and forgetting to take care of her own soul. For the woman who has everything she thought she wanted but still feels empty. For the woman who's tired of pretending she's fine when she's really just... lost.

I'm writing this because I wish someone had told me: You're not broken. You're not failing. You're not alone.

The Conversation That Changes Everything

Here's what I've learned so far: midlife isn't a crisis. It's a conversation that begins when we stop performing and start listening.

It's the moment we realize that the life we've been living might not be the life we want to keep living. It's when we start asking different questions – not "How do I fix this?" but "What is this trying to tell me?"

This blog is my attempt to have that conversation out loud. To share the messy, beautiful, complicated truth of what it means to be a woman in her forties who's finally ready to stop pretending and start becoming.

I don't have all the answers. I'm not here to tell you how to fix your life or find your purpose in five easy steps. I'm here to sit with you in the questions, to hold space for the uncertainty, and to remind you that feeling lost doesn't mean you're doing it wrong.

It means you're human. It means you're awake. It means you're ready for something real.

You Are Not Alone

If you've found your way here, chances are you're feeling some version of what I've described. Maybe you're lying awake at 3 AM wondering when you stopped recognizing yourself. Maybe you're standing in your kitchen, surrounded by the life you built, feeling like a stranger in your own story.

Maybe you're tired of being strong all the time, of having it all together, of being the one everyone else depends on while you quietly fall apart.

I see you. I am just like you. And I want you to know: there is nothing wrong with us.

This isn't a crisis, even though it feels like one. It's a chrysalis. It's messy and uncomfortable and sometimes it hurts, but something beautiful is trying to emerge.

You don't have to have it figured out. You don't have to be grateful for everything. You don't have to be fine. You just have to be here, in this moment, breathing through the uncertainty and trusting that on the other side of this confusion is a version of yourself you haven't met yet – one who's been waiting patiently for you to stop performing long enough to listen.

Welcome to the conversation. Welcome to the diary of what might be a crisis, but is surely the beginning of something true.

What does your midlife conversation sound like? I'd love to hear from you in the comments below.

If you need a little ritual to reconnect with yourself, I’ve curated a few boxes that might help.