We change as we age. Not just physically, but who we are changes—what feels important, meaningful, and interesting, what we want, and what we need all evolve along the life journey. For many women, there’s a time in life when domesticity is what we want, and our role in the family is who we are. There’s also a time for many women when it’s as if the page turns and we’ve moved out of that chapter.

This process of becoming and re-becoming who we are is exciting, but it can also be disorienting. We wake up, and it’s as if the person we once were no longer lives in our body. Making it even stranger is the fact that it happens without our realizing it. We find ourselves in a conversation about something that used to be important to us and realize that it just isn’t anymore. And, we find that it’s harder to stay in the conversation or pretend. What provided meaning no longer does. The roles we used to play are, suddenly (or so it seems), not where we want to put our energy.

A moment arrives (often in a woman’s fifties) when taking care of everyone else’s needs, being who everybody needs us to be, doesn’t hold the same punch, reward, or necessity it once did. In women’s groups, this particular decade is often referred to as the “f*ck-it fifties,” which aptly conveys the sentiment of this shift.

I experienced this moment inside myself when I discovered that I didn’t feel the need (or desire) to make dinner for my family anymore. Or, for that matter, to be the........

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