Latest / GlowInto / “I’m Not Waiting to Be Chosen Anymore.”
Transcript
- Jennifer Joyner: Welcome to the Glow Into Podcast, real women, real stories, and real wisdom for what's next. Today's story is a little different. It grew out of something I've started noticing again and again in women in their 40s, 50s, and beyond. We spent so much of our time in our younger lives trying to figure out who we are. We worked through the awkward years, the rejection, the times we weren't chosen. And the moments when we wondered if we were pretty enough, talented enough, smart enough, or simply enough. And then we grow up and we build careers, families, relationships, and lives. But what happens when midlife brings some of those old questions back? What if the things we thought we had moved past were never completely gone? And what if this time, instead of waiting for someone else to choose us, we finally decide to choose ourselves? This story is I'm not waiting to be chosen anymore. There's something strange about reaching an age when you thought you would finally know exactly who you were. By your forties and fifties, you've lived long enough to assume some of the uncertainty that you should leave behind you. You have worked, loved, raised families, built careers, survived disappointments, made mistakes, learned what suits you and what does not. You have spent decades becoming. And yet, for some women, midlife can bring back surprisingly familiar questions. Am I good enough? Am I attractive enough? Do I still matter? Where do I fit? Why do I suddenly care about something I thought I had gotten over years ago? Well, perimenopause and menopause may certainly play a part. Hormonal changes, disrupted sleep, your shifting body, changing energy, and the very real feeling of not quite recognizing yourself can make this period emotionally complicated. But perhaps hormones aren't the only story. Maybe midlife also brings back to us the places where our identities were first formed and sometimes first wounded. Think about how much of childhood and adolescence. revolves around being chosen. Chosen for the team, chosen for cheerleading, chosen for the lead in the school play, chosen by the popular group, chosen by the boy you liked, chosen for an award, or chosen to sit at the table. Even chosen by someone who seemed to hold the authority to decide whether you were special enough to belong. And adults understand that those decisions are not always pure measures of talent or worth We know personality, politics, relationships, timing, numbers, and plain old luck can play a role. A child doesn't. A 14-year-old girl who does not make the team may not think there were 60 girls trying out for 12 positions. She thinks they didn't pick me. And somewhere between that thought and the next one, a much more damaging belief can form. Maybe I wasn't pretty enough. Maybe I wasn't talented enough. Maybe I'm not the kind of girl people choose. Those beliefs can become remarkably durable. We like to tell stories about disappointment as though it automatically builds character. Someone gets cut from a team and works twice as hard. Someone gets rejected and becomes determined to prove everyone is wrong. Someone is underestimated and turns that rejection into ambition. And sometimes that absolutely happens. But not every disappointment becomes drive. Sometimes disappointment becomes a wound. Sometimes a girl carries the feeling of not being chosen long after everyone else involved has forgotten it ever happened. She may go on to create a beautiful life, and she may become accomplished, respected, and successful. She may have a strong marriage, raise children, develop friendships, and build a career to become the person everyone else she relies on. And still buried underneath all that evidence of her worth, there may remain a younger version of herself who remembers standing outside the room. Success does not automatically erase an old belief. Sometimes we simply become very good at building around it. Then midlife arrives. Children grow up, relationships shift, careers change, parents age, bodies change. Roles we have carried for decades start loosening their grip, and when the noise of constantly taking care of everyone else becomes a little quieter, we sometimes hear ourselves again. That may be when an old question returns. Why do I still hurt so much? Why do I still remember not being picked? Why does being overlooked today make me feel sixteen again? Perhaps we're not reversing, perhaps we're circling back. There's an important difference. Going backwards suggests that all of the growth was somehow lost. Circling back means we are encountering an old part of ourselves with something we did not have the first time around: perspective, autonomy, and choice. And that may explain something I keep noticing in women in their 40s, 50s, and beyond. They're creating their own stages. Women who once waited for someone else to. To see their talent are starting businesses. They are writing books, launching podcasts, making art, starting organizations, changing careers, performing, building communities, creating publications, putting themselves on camera, wearing the clothes, taking the trip, walking into rooms they once would have been afraid to enter. There is something powerful happening in that. And the girl may have spent years waiting to hear her name called. That woman eventually realizes she can call herself. For much of our younger lives, we are conditioned to audition. Will you pick me? Do you like me? Am I qualified? Can I come in? Can I have a seat? Can I have a turn? Somewhere in midlife, some women stopped auditioning. They stopped waiting for someone else to decide whether they are talented enough, interesting enough, attractive enough. Young enough or important enough, they build their own room, they write their own part, they turn on the lights, they walk on the stage. That does not necessarily mean the old hurt disappeared. Sometimes the women creating something remarkable today, they're still creating a piece of the girl who desperately wanted someone to notice her. The difference is she no longer needs the same people to notice. That may be one of the biggest transformations that's available to us in midlife. When I was young, I wanted you to choose me. Now I choose myself. There is a freedom in that sentence. Because there comes a point when continuing to prove ourselves to people from our past becomes its own kind of prison. The coach who didn't pick me, the friend group that didn't include me, the teacher. Who underestimated me, the person who made me believe that my appearance determined my worth. And they do not want to remain the gatekeepers of your life forever. At some point, we get to ask different questions, not why didn't they choose me, but why do I choose me now? And maybe that is one of the hidden gifts of midlife. It can expose the parts of ourselves we thought we already had dealt with. It can make us uncomfortable. It can shake identities we believe were settled. But it can also give us the opportunity to finally understand those younger versions of ourselves instead of continuing to judge them. Maybe the goal is not to erase the girl who wanted to be chosen. Maybe the goal is to tell her that she does not have to wait anymore. And maybe what we are watching when a woman is in her 40s, 50s, 60s. suddenly decides to do something big is that she doesn't have a crisis, she doesn't need permission, and she's taking the identity that lived quietly inside her for decades and she's giving it space. Maybe she is realizing there's still more to come. Maybe the stage she wanted never existed. So she built one. And now she's walking across it. Some people will understand. Some people won't And some people will think she's changing too much, dreaming too big, starting too late, or making herself too visible. But perhaps one of the most important realizations of midlife is that everybody does not have to approve. They had their chance to decide whether you belonged and you're not asking anymore. Becoming brave enough to go back for the pieces of ourselves we left behind and bringing them with us into whatever comes next. That may be one of the things I'm learning the most from the women of Glow and Two. They're not waiting anymore. They're creating their businesses, their art, their communities, their second careers, and an entirely new version of their own lives. They are building their own stages and stepping into their own spotlight. And I think there is something incredibly powerful in realizing that the people who once overlooked you do not get to decide what happens next. You do. So maybe the question is no longer why wasn't I chosen? Maybe the question is, what am I choosing now? And if there is still a younger version of you somewhere inside who remembers standing on the outside, waiting for her name to be called, maybe it's time to remind her. We aren't waiting anymore. The stage is ours. And I thank you for spending this time with me. This time with me through the Glowin Two podcast and the Glow In Two website. Because these are the women of Glow In Two. And they are still growing, still changing, and still becoming. So until next time, keep glowing into who you were always meant to be.