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Learned self-doubt often wears the costume of imposter syndrome, but it isn’t always a failure of confidence. Sometimes it’s the legacy of subtle criticism and years of absorbing other people’s fears about what we should or shouldn’t do.

I’m thrilled to have my essay on reclaiming yourself in midlife on Midstory Magazine!

This essay explores how the beliefs we absorb in childhood and adolescence can shape the lives we think we’re allowed to pursue—and how midlife can become a time of questioning those inherited limitations. Through my own experience of returning to writing after decades in the visual arts, I examine how reinvention is often less about becoming someone new and more about reclaiming a part of ourselves we set aside.

At fifty-five, I applied to two low-residency MFA programs in creative writing despite not having an undergraduate degree. Both accepted me based on my writing, publication record, and lived experience. That moment forced me to reconsider a belief I had carried for decades: that I wasn’t smart enough to be a writer.

I hope you’ll hop on over there to read it. Click the link or image above. Thanks!