I turned 45 this week, and I keep thinking about how different it feels from turning 44.
Last year, my birthday felt familiar. My husband and I went to Sammy's downtown, which is one of my favorite places, and the day carried the usual rhythm of a birthday I had celebrated many times before. My business was not exactly growing, but it was steady enough, and life felt predictable in the way it can when nothing has forced you to question it yet. That is the part I keep coming back to. How easy it is to move through familiar routines and assume the ground beneath you will stay mostly where it is.
Then everything changed quickly.
The Year That Kept Shifting
In June, my mom died. Even writing that still feels strange. We were already coming off the loss of my husband's parents, and while my mom had not been well, I did not expect to lose her when we did. I am not sure anyone is ever fully prepared for that, no matter how much they know it is possible. There were arrangements to handle, military details to coordinate, family members to support, and my own grief to carry while the world kept moving. Something inside you stops, but everything around you keeps asking you to continue.
A month later, I still took our trip to the Outer Banks. I needed the space and the perspective, and part of me needed to be somewhere familiar for a little while. I wanted my dad to come, but he was not ready, and I understood that. Grief does not move according to anyone else's timeline.
Not long after that, we found out my dad had heart failure. I knew he could not manage on his own, so I started looking for a home that could work for all of us, and at the end of September, I found one. It had in-law quarters, which was exactly what we needed, but buying a house under those circumstances was not just a real estate decision. It was a family decision, a financial decision, and an emotional one all at once. We closed in November, and with that came moving, repairs, planned expenses, unplanned expenses, and the reality of stepping into a much bigger responsibility.
When the Business Followed
The week after we closed, my biggest client told us they were not renewing their contract for the following year.
That one landed differently than the other hard things, maybe because it was the thing I thought I had some control over. In the middle of moving my life and helping my dad prepare for his next chapter, I was also trying to figure out what would happen to my business. I did not know if I could save it, if I wanted to rebuild it, or what stability was supposed to look like anymore. My team was making decisions about their own futures. I was making decisions about mine. For months, I was packing, managing repairs, trying to help my dad, and trying to understand what my work life was becoming after so many years of knowing exactly what role I played.
It was one of the most chaotic stretches of my life.
Loss and New Life in the Same Room
At the same time, my brother and his wife were preparing to welcome their first baby, who arrived April 24. There is something strange and beautiful about that timing. Loss and new life were in the same family, close enough to touch. My mom would have loved meeting baby Alora, and that reality holds sadness and hope at the same time. One does not cancel out the other.
That may be the clearest thing this past year has shown me. Grief does not wait for convenience, and joy does not ask permission to arrive.
What Comfortable Actually Was
I entered 44 thinking life was mostly stable. I entered 45 knowing better, not in a cynical way, but in a clearer one.
I think I walked into 44 with blinders on. Not because I was careless or unaware, but because I was comfortable. I had routines, expectations, and a sense that if I worked hard enough and kept moving, life would mostly cooperate. I do not believe that in the same way now. This year asked me to live with discomfort and a lack of control in ways I would not have chosen, and it forced me to look at parts of myself I may not have noticed when life felt more manageable. My confidence has been shaken, but I do not think it is gone. I think it has been tested.
I understand resilience differently too. It does not always look like strength from the outside. Sometimes it looks like writing because you need somewhere to put your thoughts, or going to therapy because you need help carrying what life handed you, or asking for help even when you would rather not need it. It looks less like certainty and more like continuing anyway, tired or not.
I do not have a clean lesson for 45. I am not sure life works that way. What I do know is that I walked into 44 comfortable, and I am walking into 45 more awake: to how quickly things can change, to how grief and joy can exist in the same room, and to how much can be asked of a single year.
