An American Midlife feminine revolution—in stages.

PHASE 1–THE AWAKENING

This life that you’re living, it’s just not it.

It’s a state of shock—looking around at the checked boxes, questioning yourself—but I checked these?!

• Job
• House
• Chosen by a partner
• Kids
• Education
• Higher education
• Beauty standards
• Cars, bags, clothes, hobbies, vacations—check, check, check, check, check
• Etc.

In the search for the next checkbox, you realize the promised land is just an overtaxed version of overconsumption, and overcommitment—none of it making you happy. All of them together, crushing you.

You can’t breathe or rest. Too tired to cry—or too scared that once you start, you won’t stop. Your fuse is short, to-do list long, and in fleeting moments between commitments and demands, you realize you’re dying inside.

Now you’re angry—and no one is helping. That’s what you need, help. But cries of desperation are answered with stares of confusion. The life you’ve built is plugged into you as its power source. The benefactors reluctant or refusing to change their energy flow, leaving you quite aware of your isolation and depletion.

PHASE 2–THE QUIET PROTEST

The awakening quickly brings acknowledgement. Fine, a new problem to solve. I see it now, so I can fix it. Besides, if I’m the one running this ship, I’ll just start directing it differently. They won’t even know it’s coming.

You start with a silent protest—a dirty glass left out, or the laundry sits for a few extra days. No movement. So you set a boundary—tonight’s meal gets delegated or a chore gets assigned. Maybe you firmly declare that one type of joke isn’t okay with you anymore. Maybe you hold the line on a deadline or a late meeting. Small lines in the sand are drawn.

Soon, the system feels the pressure and there’s backlash. It comes as an attack, threat, complaint, or (gasp) criticism. The cracks burst open. Decades of silent resentment and exhaustion explode.

You’re pissed, you’re tired, and now you’re done. All you ever wanted was to be met with a finish line. Maybe only a heartfelt thank you. Maybe a promotion, a surprise trip or gift. Maybe it ended with unconditional love and acknowledgment from your family. Maybe it was the ability to afford some rest—some time off, an easier station. Maybe you never knew, but imagined a threshold you’d cross one day where all of your effort repaid you with the energy back it took to get there.

But you realize that’s never coming. You’re there, tired, and unseen. All you’ve become is the place everyone takes from, and you’re unhappy, unsatisfied, and unwilling to keep going this way.

You stand stunned, because you’ve done everything right. Met every expectation ever set for you, even the conflicting ones. You’re exceptional, because you had to be. The “have it all” generation—with access and aspirations—we were taught we had a responsibility for work/life balance, to lean in, climb the ladder, make it nice. Just a few steps behind the trailblazers—we were grateful and inspired.

But the ceilings didn’t shatter, the systems didn’t change, the game was still rigged. We worked our asses off, performed while slowly giving our identities away—isolating and tolerating the misery because we thought we had to. We had to adapt to keep going. So we adapted right out of ourselves.

As you try to redirect the ship, you realize: this isn’t a problem you can fix by working harder.

PHASE 3–THE ACTUALIZATION

So here we are—accolades and accomplishments a mile long. A social media feed to die for—but for what? We are burnt, and its no surprise.

It’s tiring to always show up the most prepared, to be doubly qualified to get into the room, to tolerate constantly being interrupted, minimized, patronized, and mansplained. It’s tiring to constantly be touched, to be the default parent, to manage the emotional labor of a household. The mental load is terminal.

It’s tiring to constantly strive, improve, adapt, and evolve while waiting, and pleading to be acknowledged. Someone validate me. Someone save me. Someone see me.

But it’s not built for us to be seen. No matter how much we do—it’ll never be enough. This. System. Is. Not. Built. For. Us. We fought to exist in it, and we do—barely. But this? This is as good as it gets. And it sucks.

Look around, no prince, no parents. There is no happily ever after. No amount of hard work, effort, efficiency, organization, eduction. It doesn’t matter how much of anything we are or how much we do—hear me say this—it’ll never be enough. It’s built by men, for men, on the labor, love, and divinity of women. The system wasn’t built to save you—it thrives on your labor while hoarding power and money.

And until now, we have (mostly) unknowingly given ourselves away, piece by piece, until there is nothing left.

PHASE 4–THE RECKONING

We’re stuck. We’re invisible. We’re exhausted. We wish for injury just to rest. I once had a friend articulate the exact type of minor car accident she wished to be in so she would be hospitalized for a few days to have a break. That was a real thought she had.

We are waking up everywhere. Divorce rates, a wave of quiet quitting corporate by mid-life women, movements like 4B, the fact that men aren’t being settled for annoyingly labeled a “loneliness epidemic.” It’s happening.

We are awakening and organizing. But it’s important to recognize that for some women, these burdens are amplified by systemic inequities—by the intersection of race, culture, economics, and identity. For many, the expectations are compounded, the opportunities fewer, and the systemic pressures far more insidious. Yet, the awakening is universal. The collective exhaustion and realization bind us together, even as our lived experiences vary.

But there’s a hidden hurdle to be faced. One that comes when you decenter men while still inside of the patriarchy. And for so many of us that grew up in the “women against women” version of society, competing for men and the attention of men—because that’s what you did to exist in the patriarchy—we are now faced with a fear.

The fear of being seen.

It takes courage to know this just isn’t it. It takes audacity to change it. Moving from unseen and unfulfilled to something else—something that celebrates who you truly are; your individuality, creativity, and wildness—takes love.

Loving yourself inside this system is brave.

Trained as martyrs, one sacrifice at a time, we give away our strength, resilience, and potential and pour it into others’ until midlife forces us to ask, “Why don’t I love myself as much as I love everyone else?” A moment of crushing realization.

But we can all feel it—millions of women saying, “It’s not good enough to just survive.” You can see it in the patriarchy and those most served by it digging in their heels. But today, we’re educated, we have access, we have decades left, and we have children raised in the emotionally intelligent homes we weren’t—calling us onto our own carpet.

We are exhausted, yes. But we are also waking up—and that is the first step toward freedom. Once you’ve reckoned with this truth, what comes next? The unknown.

PHASE 5–THE UNKNOWN

So we ask:

– What happens if I put myself first?

– What happens if I open myself up to self-love?

– What happens if I listen to my gut instead of drowning it out?

– What happens if I decide I deserve a life that does more than let me survive?

And then, the worlds we’ve created on the backs of our sacrifice begin to crumble—making space for something new. The people who feed off our energy start to starve. The performance we’ve been living in sheds off our bodies, leaving us raw, exposed, and disoriented. But determined.

Determined to love. Determined to see ourselves again.

That’s when it happens—in the silence, the glory of our own intuition.

When self-love, permission to self-center, and intuition come together, creativity is unleashed. Alignment is achieved, and magic happens.

Only then can you truly be seen. Only then can you craft a life you don’t need a break from. Only then can you taste the sweetness of true, aligned joy. Only then can you be free.

What if we stopped showing up? What if we let the systems stumble without us? What if instead of waiting for them to step in and step up, we just stepped out and built something wild, beautiful, and free—starting with ourselves?

What if we shared the ways we shed limiting beliefs, re-centered ourselves, and gained back our creative freedom? What if we dug so deep that we stared our own core wounds in the face, hugged them, and set them free? What if we built ourselves back with regulated nervous systems, and rock solid self-worth?

For me, that feels like invincibility. This is where I am, and this is where I hope to see us go together. Not a checkbox in sight, for the good of everyone.