It Is Time to Own My Identity.

OCTOBER 2026

THE EDITORIAL

At 45, I'm beginning to ask myself a question I should have asked much sooner: Who am I beyond the roles I play for everyone else?

FROM THE EDITOR

I turned 45 this year, and lately I've been thinking about everything I've lived through.

Looking back, I realize I've had many different versions of myself.

I was a young woman trying to figure out adulthood. Then I became a wife. Then a mother. I spent many years as a stay-at-home mom, taking care of my children and my home. Later, I went back to school, worked, started businesses, and tried different things.

I've made mistakes along the way. Plenty of them, but I've also learned a lot.

I think I'm finally at a point where I can say, with some confidence, that I have enough life experience to share with other women. Not because I know better than anyone else.

I don't.

But because there are things I know now that I wish someone had told me when I was younger.

I wish someone had told me that becoming a mother doesn't mean you stop being a woman.

That taking care of your family doesn't mean you have to completely forget about yourself.

That having your own interests, skills, money, or goals isn't selfish.

And that it's okay if the person you become at 40 or 45 isn't the person you thought you would be at 25.

For a long time, I didn't think much about my own identity. I was busy being a mother and doing what needed to be done.

Even something as simple as getting dressed became about practicality. What can I wear while taking care of the kids? What shoes can I actually walk in? What bag can hold everything I need?

It sounds small, but those little things were part of something bigger.

I got used to putting myself in the background. And I'm still figuring out how to change that.

That's one of the reasons I created Mom Seasons.

I don't want it to be a place where I tell women how they should live their lives. I don't have a perfect formula, and honestly, I don't think one exists.

I want it to be a place where women can talk about motherhood, marriage, money, work, identity, style, starting over. The things we don't always say out loud.

I also want women of different ages and life stages to learn from each other.

At 45, I can look at a woman in her twenties and remember what I didn't understand back then. I can look at a woman in her thirties and remember what it felt like to be in the middle of raising young children.

And I can look at women older than me and know that there is still so much I haven't experienced yet.

That's what I love about women's stories.

There is always something to learn from someone else's season.

So this month, I'm thinking about identity.

Not the identity that comes from being someone's wife or someone's mother.

I'm talking about me. Who am I now? What do I like? What do I want? What have I put aside? What do I still want to try?

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Maybe at 45, it's enough to finally start asking the questions.

And this time, actually listen to the answers.

It is time for me to own my identity.