Back in 2019, I wrote a reflective piece about all the things I would do if I was younger. If I had less responsibility in my life. I honestly forgot I had written it.

It read a bit morose.

My goal was to encourage young women to go do all the things while they were young. To take on every opportunity. As a woman who had felt so much obligation and responsibility in her youth, I hoped just one person would read it and take control of their own priorities before the ‘heavier’ responsibilities of later adulthood kicked in.

Reprise: You Are Never Too Old

Stumbling upon this piece again was quite the surprise. In the years that followed, we’d all live through an exhausting course of ‘unprecedented’ events. For me, these events served as a catalyst. Things got really difficult during the early pandemic years, but I harnessed those difficulties to achieve impossible things – financially and otherwise. Eventually, after some time of struggle, hope showed up again. My story was rewritten.

As I sit here seven years later, my life looks completely different than it did in 2019. Don’t get me wrong – 2019 wasn’t necessarily all doom and gloom.

But relying on the ghosts of my own words, I had a lot of unfulfilled dreams. Apparently, I also felt the very real weight of my responsibilities meant that these dreams were lost to me. My nontraditional path in life left me feeling some remorse for opportunities that had skipped me over.

Apparently.

As I reread these words, I was shocked to see that many of the things that I had on my 2019 list – that list I had forgotten about with the passage of the million words I had written since – had come true. In one way or another.

Seven years later, I have received opportunities to newly study things that excite me. To contribute to the world in new realms. To see places I had only dreamed of.

In that spirit, I’m rewriting this piece with a new message. Not to younger women, but to women of any age:

You are never too old.

White Whales & Albatrosses

The me of 2019 had accepted certain limitations on my life. My plate was full, and I was grateful for the abundance – if not exhausted by certain aspects of it at times. There simply wasn’t any give for the things I thought were reserved for the young.

Goodness gracious, my plate got fuller when the world shut down. Much as so many other women, I became the embodiment of the safety net my country was lacking. I wasn’t happy about it. But I did learn that I was capable of handling more.

If I was to handle more, then, why not attempt to restructure my life in radical ways? So that the ‘more’ was actually serving me rather than crushing me?

It was this act of allowing myself to imagine radical change that enabled everything that came next. I was no longer putting limitations on myself because I thought certain aspects of life had simply passed me by. My age was no longer an albatross. My dreams no longer a white whale.

No matter your age, no matter your responsibilities, this act of imagining is hopeful. Things don’t always turn out exactly how we dream them. They don’t always happen exactly when we want them to.

I am, afterall, sitting here seven whole years later. None of this happened overnight.

But, with the support of others, it did happen.

Along the way, I’ve had the privilege of meeting other women who have made radical shifts well into their lives’ journeys. They’ve set goals and not let anything stop them from achieving success – least of all their age.

Which makes me think that my experience isn’t an isolated phenomenon. Starting something new can be intimidating. There will be financials to figure out. But if it’s something you truly want for yourself and those around you, you are never too old.

Relearning Old Lessons

If I dig back further into the archives of my writing, I realize that this is not the first time I’ve learned this lesson. One of the first reflective pieces I wrote was on this very topic. It’s one that got audiences talking, and helped cement this writing thing into a career.

THE PIECE: Regrets In Life

We are never too old to reach for new dreams. But we are also never too old to learn the same lesson twice.