Last updated on March 16th, 2026 at 11:19 pm
“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”
Ecclesiastes 3:1 (KJV)
Solomon was a man who had tried everything, seen everything, and landed on the conclusion that life moves in seasons. Wise man, Solomon. Knew when to build and when to tear down, when to plant and when to walk away from whatever he’d planted.
We’re in a season too. Specifically, the season where we’ve accumulated enough life experience to know what no longer deserves our energy. That’s not bitterness or becoming a woman who scares small children.
That’s discernment, which is actually a fruit of the Spirit if you wanna go look it up. (Galatians 5 doesn’t list it by name, but I believe it’s implied.)
In the spirit of honest conversation, here is what women over 40 are collectively, completely, and without apology finished with.
Being Asked If We’re Okay When We’re Just Thinking
There’s a look we get.
You’re sitting quietly, minding your own business, probably turning something genuinely important over in your mind, and someone leans in with wide, worried eyes. “Are you okay? You look upset.”
Not upset.
Thinking.
My thinking face and my upset face are the same face now because I’ve stopped performing expressions for other people’s comfort. 🤷🏻♀️
That’s not a mood. That’s growth. Please let me grow in peace.
The Word “Anti-Aging”
Anti-aging what, exactly? The very act of continuing to be alive?
I lost the brother I loved dearly before he ever got the chance to go gray. I also watched both of my parents leave this earth. Honestly? Aging isn’t the enemy. Aging is the privilege of people who didn’t leave early.
The next time a product tells me it’s fighting the natural process of my survival, I’m going to need it to mind its own dang business.
My laugh lines are staying. They were earned.
“Just Put Yourself Out There”
Out into WHERE?
Look… I live on forty acres in Arkansas. The closest “out there” is the feed store, and I’ve already confirmed they don’t have a singles mixer or a career fair or whatever “out there” is supposed to contain.
This advice, delivered with such confidence by people who have never had to think about what it means in practice, is so magnificently unhelpful that it deserves its own exhibit at the Museum of Things That Sound Like Good Advice But Aren’t.
Where is out there? How do we find it? Is there parking? Are snacks involved? Do I need to paint my toenails? These are the real questions.
“Don’t You Miss Working?”
NO!!!
Oops! Did I scream that too loudly? 🤨
Not gonna lie… I was going to stop writing this section after I wrote that first word, but…
I need you to understand something about teaching elementary school for decades.
There were days I didn’t get to use the bathroom until 2:30 in the afternoon.
There were texts from parents that I still think about… not fondly, I might add.
There were staff meetings where I watched grown adults discuss the proper way to line up children for lunch for forty-five minutes. Forty-five minutes. I have never fully recovered.
I miss my kiddos. I miss some colleagues. 👀 I miss feeling useful in a way that had a title attached to it.
But the institution of “work” as it existed in my life? We have mutually agreed to part ways and see other people… honestly, we’re both better off.
“You’re Still Young!”
This is always said in a tone that suggests we should feel relieved, like someone checking the expiration date on a carton of milk and reporting back that we’ve still got a few good days left.
Here’s the thing. We’re not still young. We’re exactly as old as we are, which turns out to be a pretty excellent thing to be.
We’re experienced, clear-eyed, and have sat through enough bad decisions — our own and other people’s — to know better now. That’s not young. That’s qualified. Those two things are different, and qualified is better.
Fashion Advice That Assumes We Want to Look 25
I was 25 once. I didn’t know what I was doing. Back then, I was just trying to figure out whether I was too old to eat cereal for dinner. (You’re never too old for cereal for dinner. That’s the one thing 25 got right, and I’m keeping it.)
I want to look like a woman in her late fifties who has her life together enough to leave the house in something that wasn’t pulled off the bedroom floor and sniffed first. That is a completely different goal than looking 25, and the fashion industry hasn’t caught up to this fact. They’re still out here designing sleeveless everything for women who apparently have no opinion about their upper arms.
Some of us are not balancing champagne glasses on our backsides at a rooftop party. Some of us are just trying to find a sleeve. Any sleeve. In a fabric that doesn’t wrinkle when you look at it wrong.
Being Sold the Idea That We’re a Problem to Solve
Here’s what I’ve noticed. Somewhere around forty, the world starts treating us like a renovation project. There’s a product for our face, a program for our purpose, a podcast for our identity crisis, and a retreat where we can go find ourselves for the low, low price of our dignity and a non-refundable deposit.
Nobody is trying to fix men who are figuring out their next chapter too. They’re called visionaries. They get documentaries made about them.
We get a five-step workbook and a suggested daily affirmation.
Look, we’re not broken. We’re in the middle of something hard and real and genuinely worth taking seriously. We’re asking questions we’ve never had time to ask before. We’re figuring out who we are when the roles that defined us for decades have shifted.
That’s not a problem. That’s actually the most interesting thing that’s happened to us in years, if we’re being honest. We just don’t need it packaged and sold back to us with a pastel cover.
What Solomon Was Getting At
He said there’s a time for everything. He didn’t say everything would be fun. He didn’t say you’d feel great about all of it. He just said it has a season, which means it also has an end, which is genuinely the most comforting thing anyone has ever written.
We’re in a season. It’s real, it’s occasionally ridiculous, and it’s absolutely not permanent. The anti-aging creams will keep coming. Someone will keep asking if we’re okay when we’re just thinking. Fashion will continue to miss the point entirely.
But we’ll be here, figuring it out, laughing at the absurdity of it when we can, and being completely honest about it when we can’t.
That’s not bitterness. That’s just being a woman who’s paying attention.
Turns out, that’s exactly what this whole season is for.
With Love,
Mary Kaye 💕
💌 Before You Go
If any of this landed somewhere true for you, pull up a chair. This Sacred Season is for women who are done pretending and ready to do the actual work of figuring out who they are in this chapter. Subscribe below for honest, practical, biblically-grounded conversation delivered to your inbox. No fluff. No fixing. Just real talk for real women.
Drop a comment and tell me what I missed. I have a feeling we’ve got a long list between us.
