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There’s something about turning forty that makes you take a long, honest look at how you’re spending your days. Not in a crisis-y way, necessarily, but in that quiet, clear-eyed way where you suddenly stop tolerating the things that don’t fit anymore. I’ve been sitting in that feeling for a while now, and I think I’m finally ready to talk about it.
I’ve had Happily Eva After for eleven years. Eleven! That’s longer than some marriages, longer than most TV shows, and honestly longer than I ever imagined when I started this whole thing. It’s been a wild ride in every sense of the word. I’ve experienced the feast and the famine, both in terms of workload and success, and each season has taught me something different about who I am and what I actually want from my work.
What I’ve landed on is this: the next chapter isn’t about quantity. It’s about quality. I want to feel like what I’m doing is creatively fulfilling, personally interesting to me, and helpful in some way to the people who show up here. That trifecta is my new North Star, and I’m not interested in anything that doesn’t hit all three.
Connection has always been my number one “why” when it comes to this job. It’s the thing I loved most about my acting career when it was good, and it’s what keeps me here now. I love storytelling. I love letting people find themselves in what I’m processing through my writing and my content. I truly believe that the only way we can heal collectively is through connection, and through feeling less alone in what we feel, think, and experience. Every time someone sends me a message saying “I needed to hear this today,” it reminds me why I do what I do.
Marketing is another passion that has kept me here for over a decade, and I know that might sound surprising. But hear me out. The best side of marketing is how it brings the human condition into how people relate to products. I’ve been fascinated for years by why people want what they want, what makes them gravitate towards one thing over another. Watching that play out in real time every single day in my job teaches me so much about myself, and how my own desires change and evolve. It’s endlessly interesting to me.
I feel grateful that I’ve chosen a career that is constantly evolving, but I’ll be honest with you: it’s also the most overwhelming aspect. When the goalposts are moving with each passing year, it’s hard to be steadfast in your priorities. It’s hard to even define what success means to you when the metrics keep shifting beneath your feet.
So now I’m putting my energy towards bringing the best parts of my acting career and the best parts of my Content Creator career (with a side specialty in marketing) to the forefront. I have a little show idea up my sleeve, and I cannot wait to tell you guys more about it in due time. (Stay tuned, it’s going to be good!)
Right now, in my forties, I feel like I have both the most focused energy I’ve ever had in my entire career AND the most discerning energy. Those two things together are a powerful combination, and honestly, I don’t think I could have accessed both at the same time even five years ago. I don’t want what I don’t want, and I won’t do anything that feels like it’s wasting the precious time I have in this tender moment with my family. My kids are at ages where everything is changing fast, where the windows of closeness feel finite in a way they didn’t before. That awareness makes me ruthless about protecting my time and my energy for the things that actually matter. While some people might look at Motherhood in the workplace as a disadvantage, I consider it my biggest asset. Mothers know how to triage. We know how to read a room. We know how to make something out of nothing and pivot when the plan falls apart at 7 AM. If you want something done efficiently, with discernment, and with real impact… hire a Mother! She always knows how to find a solution and move through hurdles with as much grace as possible.
The last twelve years of motherhood have led me to this unique position to shape the next version of my career exactly as I need it to be for the happiest version of myself. I can feel it in my bones that all of the chaos, the sleepless years, the identity shifts, the constant recalibration of who I am outside of my kids… all of it was training for this moment. I’m not starting over. I’m building on a foundation that is sturdier and more self-aware than anything I had in my twenties or thirties. People told me that my forties would bring a seismic shift in my identity in all areas of my life. I smiled and nodded when they said it, the way you do when someone gives you advice you can’t possibly be ready to receive. But now? I think I’m finally starting to believe them. I can feel the ground moving, and for the first time, it doesn’t scare me. It excites me.
Here’s to quality over quantity, to creative fulfillment, and to the next chapter being the one we actually designed on purpose. Not the one that happened to us, not the one we fell into because the algorithm demanded it, but the one we chose with both eyes open and our whole hearts in it. I’m so glad you’re here for it.
