They Said I Have More Years Behind Me Than in Front — I Beg to Differ

Here's something people love to say once you pass a certain age: "You know, you have more years behind you than in front of you."

I hear it and I think — do you, though? Do you actually know that? Because I don't.

What I do know is this: my mother passed at 36. And the year I turned 40, I realized I had officially lived longer than she ever got to. Let that sit for a second.

That moment didn't break me. It cracked me open. Because standing on the other side of the age my mother never reached, I had to ask myself a question I'd been too busy — too convenient — to ask before:

Shatica, what are you actually doing with this?

Shirlene. 1978. Before systemic scleroderma changed her identity.

Convenient Isn't the Same as a Calling

The career I had made sense. Good insurance. Steady paycheck. It checked every box I was taught to check — stability for my kids, bills handled, responsible adult stuff. Nobody tells you that "responsible" can quietly become a cage.

I wasn't living a purpose. I was living a schedule.

Here's the thing — I knew it. But knowing something and being ready to move on it are two entirely different things. Life has a way of forcing the conversation when you're not ready to start it yourself.

The Big C Changed Everything

When the big C came into my life, everything shifted. I started working from home. Plus, really thinking about the more years behind me talks. What felt like a silver lining became something more complicated than I expected — because somewhere in the quiet, anxiety moved in too. Leaving my home became hard in ways I'm still working through.

I say that plainly because I think a lot of people in their 40s and approaching 50 are dealing with something similar and not saying it out loud. Life handed you something heavy, you adjusted, and now the adjustment has its own set of consequences.

I'm getting better. Slowly, intentionally, on my own terms.

But I'll tell you what hasn't left me — the memory of who I was before. A woman who loved to travel. Who moved through the world with curiosity. Who wanted to be amongst people, out in it, collecting experiences.

That woman is still here. She's just been building in the background.

Two Years in the Middle

For two years now I've been doing the work that nobody really sees. Not worried about more years behind me. I have been building, planning and laying the foundation for something that's actually mine! Not convenient, not inherited by default, but chosen.

Approaching 50 faster than I can blink has put things in perspective in a way that 40 never quite did. At 40 I was still figuring out what questions to ask. Now I know the questions. Now it's about making the moves.

My circle has evolved. I look around at friends who are making things happen and I think — I know what I know now. What's the move?

That's not competition. That's activation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI8mfUR2y4U

What I Want — For Real Beyond More Years Behind Me

I want to live freely. I want to get outside. I want to travel again, sit in places I've never been, be around people living their lives fully and add mine to that picture.

I want every project I'm building to work — not as a hustle grind but as a foundation for the kind of life I actually want to wake up to.

That's it. That's the whole mission.

No motivational poster version of it. No "live, laugh, love" framing. Just a woman who has been through enough to know exactly what she's building toward and why it matters.

If you're somewhere in this season — past 40, approaching 50, somewhere in the middle of your own two-year build — I see you. This isn't the beginning of the end. Not even close.

We're just getting to the part where it gets real.