The Wildflower Within

Lately, much of my writing has centered on work and leadership because that is where this season of my life has required most of my attention. The beginning of a school year brings decisions to make, systems to build, people to support, and challenges that need to be addressed.

But now that the year is in motion, I can feel a little space beginning to open again—space to turn my attention inward and think about where I am, how far I have come, and what I want next for myself, not only as a principal, but as a woman.

I cannot say that I have everything figured out after 40.

There are still parts of my life I want to understand more deeply. There are places where my choices, relationships, and hopes are not yet completely aligned. I am still learning what I want, what I need, and what I am no longer willing to carry.

But I can say this with certainty:

I feel more like myself today than I ever have before.

The truth is, I do not think I became disconnected from myself somewhere along the way. Disconnection would mean that I once knew who I was and then lost her.

I am not sure I ever had the opportunity to know her.

For most of my life, I knew who I was supposed to be. I knew how to meet expectations. I knew how to be responsible, dependable, successful, faithful, strong, and productive. I knew how to keep moving, even when I was exhausted. I knew how to take care of what needed to be handled and how to become the person each situation required me to be.

My life did not leave much room to ask who I was apart from those expectations.

From the outside, much of my life probably looked aligned. I earned degrees, built a career, became a principal, raised a family, and continued accomplishing the next thing placed in front of me.

But a life can look right without ever feeling like your own.

For many years, I measured myself against expectations—some spoken and others simply understood. I believed there was a right way to live, a right way to respond, and a right version of myself that I needed to become.

Those expectations were not entirely bad. They taught me discipline, commitment, resilience, and responsibility. They helped shape many of the qualities I value in myself today. They taught me how to work hard, care for others, persevere through difficult circumstances, and lead with conviction.

But they also came at a cost.

I became so focused on measuring up that I rarely stopped to ask whether the life I was building actually felt like mine.

Perfectionism became part of my identity. I believed that if I could work hard enough, prepare enough, anticipate every possibility, and hold everything together, I could remain in control. I did not recognize perfectionism as anxiety. I saw it as evidence that I was responsible and capable.

And in many ways, it worked.

Until it didn’t.

Control can make you feel safe, but it can also make your world incredibly small. When you believe everything depends on you getting it right, every mistake feels threatening. Every unexpected change feels personal. Every disappointment feels like evidence that you should have tried harder, known better, or somehow prevented it.

I did not understand how much anxiety was influencing my life. I did not recognize it because my anxiety did not always look like fear. Sometimes it looked like overthinking. Sometimes it looked like perfectionism. Sometimes it looked like control.

And sometimes it looked like anger.

I could have strong reactions to situations without understanding why they felt so overwhelming. I could become defensive, frustrated, or harsh when underneath those reactions, I was anxious, afraid, hurt, or feeling unsafe.

At the time, I did not have the language to explain what was happening inside me. I only knew that I often felt unsettled, even when I was doing everything I thought I was supposed to do.

It took loss, grief, therapy, difficult relationships, physical illness, and a great deal of honest reflection for me to begin understanding myself differently.

Healing did not happen through one breakthrough. It happened in layers.

Each experience uncovered something else I needed to confront. Each relationship revealed something about how I responded to fear, rejection, uncertainty, or disappointment. Therapy helped me understand where some of those reactions began. Medication helped me experience a level of calm that I had never been able to create through willpower alone.

Eventually, I began to understand that I was not failing because I could not think, pray, work, or discipline my way out of anxiety. I needed support. I needed appropriate treatment. I needed coping skills. I needed to understand the experiences that had shaped me.

Most importantly, I needed to stop treating myself like a problem that could be perfected into submission.

That realization has changed me.

I am calmer today. I am more self-aware. I can recognize what I am feeling without always allowing that feeling to control what happens next. I can pause. I can reconsider. I can apologize. I can decide that something is not mine to carry.

I am also learning that alignment does not mean creating another perfect version of myself.

It does not mean that I never become anxious, make mistakes, react emotionally, or fall into an old pattern. It does not mean that every part of my life is resolved. It means I am finally paying attention to what is true for me.

I am allowing myself to experience joy without needing to justify it. I am embracing parts of myself I was never given much space to explore. I am more willing to try something new, change my mind, establish a boundary, wear the color, take the picture, go dancing, speak honestly, and let myself be seen.

I am learning that I can be both accomplished and unfinished.

I can be a strong leader and still need support. I can be grateful for the person my past shaped me into while acknowledging that parts of that past caused harm. I can appreciate what certain expectations taught me without continuing to live beneath the weight of them.

This healing has also changed the way I lead.

I still believe in high expectations. I still believe in accountability, preparation, and doing what is best for the people we serve. But I understand more clearly that behavior rarely tells the entire story. I know what it is like to appear capable while struggling internally. I know that a person can be trying very hard and still need a different kind of help.

Healing has not made me expect less from people. It has taught me that accountability and compassion must exist together.

Perhaps that is what life after 40 has given me: the courage to hold more than one truth at a time.

I can be proud of who I have been and still recognize what needed to change.

I can honor the expectations that shaped me without allowing them to define me.

I can be grateful for my strength while admitting that strength sometimes became a disguise for pain.

I can love the life I have built and still choose to build parts of it differently.

I am not starting over. I am not erasing the woman I used to be. She survived things I am only now learning how to name. She carried responsibilities before she understood how heavily they were affecting her. She kept moving because, for a long time, moving was the only way she knew how to survive.

I have compassion for her now.

But I no longer want survival to be the measure of my life.

I want peace. I want joy. I want relationships that feel safe and reciprocal. I want work that reflects my values without consuming my entire identity. I want to make choices because they feel true—not simply because they meet someone else’s expectations.

I am still becoming. There is still more to heal, more to understand, and more to bring into alignment.

But for the first time, becoming does not feel like trying to transform myself into someone more worthy.

It feels like finally meeting the woman I was never given enough space to know.

And I think I am going to love getting to know her.

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Keep Becoming.

Julie | The Wildflower Within 🖤