Starting Over at Forty

A free verse poem about starting life over at age forty

Forty arrived quickly Without fireworks and without a map With unanswered questions folded inside a birthday card It came carrying a broom sweeping away the dust From corners I had avoided for years I thought life would be settled by now A house of certainty A calendar full of events A heart immune to storms Instead, I found myself standing In the rubble of old expectations Holding pieces that no longer fit There was grief in letting go Dreams that expired without warning Relationships that became photographs Versions of myself I could no longer carry But there was freedom too A strange, beautiful freedom The freedom of knowing what survival had already taught me At twenty, I chased who I thought I should be At thirty, I fought to keep everything together At forty, I finally learned not everything is meant to stay Some things leave to make room for breathing To make room for truth To make room for the person waiting beneath all the noise So here I am Not at the finish line Not behind schedule Simply at a new beginning Planting seeds with older hands and a wiser heart Learning that reinvention isn’t a failure of the story And each morning I rise with the sun Carrying scars instead of shame Hope instead of certainty And the quiet understanding that life does not end When the path disappears Sometimes, that is exactly where it begins