A Different Question

At 49, that question feels more urgent than it did at 29 or even 39. Not because I believe I'm running out of time, but because I understand the value of it differently now. And I am far less interested in living according to an invisible timeline that tells women when we're supposed to arrive, settle down, slow down, or stop wanting more.

For me, that realization has become an act of radical self-regard.

Radical Self-Regard

Women are often taught to associate choosing ourselves with neglecting someone else. I don't believe that anymore. I can love my husband, raise my children, show up for my career, care about my family, and still make room for Jennifer.

There is a difference between taking care of yourself and truly regarding yourself. It is believing that your ideas deserve your effort. It is deciding that your dreams are worthy of space on the calendar. And sometimes, it is allowing yourself to want more without explaining or apologizing for it.

Building While Becoming

Entrepreneurship has been one of the clearest expressions of that shift for me. I built my candle company while maintaining a demanding professional career and raising a family. What began with candles has grown into something much larger in my mind: a brand built around fragrance, ritual, and products that make ordinary moments feel intentional.

The work is not glamorous most days. There have been products that didn't sell the way I expected, money I would have spent differently in hindsight, and ideas I've had to abandon or completely rework. I've learned by doing. I've also learned that building a business requires a willingness to be a beginner over and over again. That can be uncomfortable when you're an accomplished adult.

I'm also building a second brand — an apparel company rooted in an idea I have increasingly come to believe: we are allowed to open ourselves to more — more possibility, more creativity, more purpose, and more of ourselves.

What Maturity Gives You That Youth Can't

Starting something new at this stage of life is different from doing it when you're 25. These days, I understand risk differently.

But maturity has given me something youth couldn't: perspective. I understand that excitement isn't a business plan. I also understand that mistakes aren't necessarily evidence that I shouldn't be doing something. Sometimes they're simply the cost of learning how to do it better.

I've made plenty of them, and I expect I'll make more. The difference is that I no longer interpret every setback as a sign to stop.

Beyond Motherhood

Being a mother of four is one of the most important parts of my life, but it isn't the only part. That distinction has become increasingly important to me as my children grow older.

Motherhood requires enormous amounts of giving. For years, your life is organized around what someone else needs from you. Then the children who once needed you for everything begin building lives of their own. Watching that happen has made me think about my own evolution.

I want my daughters to know that becoming a mother doesn't require them to stop becoming themselves. I want my sons to understand that the women in their lives have ambitions and identities beyond the roles they occupy for other people. And I want all four of them to see what it looks like to begin again when beginning again would be easier to postpone.

No Longer Waiting for Permission

I don't want to be 29 again. I have experience, discernment, resilience, and a clearer sense of what matters to me and, perhaps just as importantly, what doesn't.

At 49, I am more comfortable saying no. More aware that being busy and moving forward aren't necessarily the same thing. I'm also learning not to minimize what I want simply because pursuing it may be inconvenient.

Fifty as an Opening

Next year, I turn 50. I don't see that number as a finish line. If anything, it feels like an opening.

There are still businesses I want to grow, places I want to travel, things I want to create, and versions of myself I haven't met yet. I don't know exactly what all of it will look like, and that is part of what makes this chapter exciting.

Radical self-regard, for me, isn't standing in front of a mirror and declaring that I am enough. It is building a life that demonstrates that I believe it. It is giving my own dreams some of the same care, attention, and effort I have spent years giving everything and everyone else. It is recognizing that gratitude for the life I've built and hunger for what comes next can exist at the same time.