Dawson’s Creek was a teenage awakening for me
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I don’t mean “Oh, I liked that show.” I mean, I felt it. Those characters were some of the first people I ever had a parasocial relationship with before I even knew that term existed. I watched them fall in love, get heartbroken, have big feelings on docks and in bedrooms and in classrooms, and it shaped something in me.

It was the first time I remember thinking, this is what longing feels like. This is what love is supposed to feel like. This is what becoming looks like.

So, when news about James Van Der Beek hit my feed recently, and he was suddenly not just “Dawson” frozen in 1998 but a middle-aged man with real-life struggles, it brought a lot to the surface.

Not because I think I know him. I don’t.

But because it forced me to confront something I’ve been quietly circling for a while.

Being in your forties? It kind of sucks...

I really thought this decade was going to feel like I had arrived. Like I’d finally step into that fully-formed version of myself and just exist there confidently. I thought it would feel expansive. Powerful. Settled.

And in some ways, it does. I am clearer. I am less tolerant of bullshit. I trust myself more.

But it also feels like everything is shifting at once.

My son is turning into a preteen. I can feel the tether between us stretching. He still needs me, but differently. His friends have influence over him. His world is widening, and I am not automatically at the center of it anymore. That’s healthy. That’s the goal. And it still hurts in a way I didn’t expect.

My husband’s father died. Friends’ parents are dying. The adults who were the scaffolding of our lives are disappearing. It’s not abstract anymore. It’s happening now. You realize you are the grown-ups. There isn’t the same layer above you anymore.

So. Many. Friends. Getting. Divorced. Long marriages that seemed solid (and some that were never that solid) are falling apart. It makes you look at your own relationship with a new seriousness. It makes me grab my husband's face and tell him I thank my lucky stars I picked him.

And then there’s perimenopause.

The sleep. The mood swings that don’t feel like you. The body that is suddenly playing by different rules. The quiet identity wobble that comes with not recognizing your own operating system some days.

Layer all of that on top of running a business.

Building. Leading. Selling. Creating. Making decisions that impact your family’s financial stability while you’re also navigating grief, hormonal chaos, parenting transitions, and existential recalibration.

It’s... a lot.

I don’t feel like I’m falling apart. I don’t feel ungrateful. I love my life.

But I don’t think anyone prepared us for how layered this decade would be.

The empowerment and the loss show up at the same time.

You can feel more yourself than ever, and also feel like the ground is shifting under your feet.

I thought my forties would feel like a clean “this is me now.”

Instead, it feels like holding strength and grief in the same body.

If you’re here too, quietly navigating this decade while also building something, raising kids, tending a marriage, watching parents age, and wondering why your body is suddenly acting like it has its own agenda, hit me up.