The Uncomfortable Art of Becoming
On turning 37, growing through the growing pains, and learning to recognize how far I've come.
There is something strange about growing.
While it's happening, it rarely feels like growth. It feels like discomfort. Like outgrowing a life you once fit so comfortably inside. Like questioning things you used to know with certainty. Like standing in the middle of a version of yourself you no longer recognize, without quite knowing who you're becoming instead. Maybe that's the part nobody talks about enough.
Growth is uncomfortable. Sometimes it's lonely. Sometimes it looks less like becoming a better version of yourself and more like falling apart at the seams. Sometimes, when you're in the thick of it, you wonder if you're making progress at all.
Then a birthday comes around and you look back.
On November 1, I turned thirty-seven. Another year older, another trip around the sun, another opportunity to take stock of the person I've been and the person I'm slowly, imperfectly becoming.
And when I look back at the woman I was a year ago, I realize just how much can change in twelve months. Not necessarily in the ways other people can see. Not in the big, easily explainable milestones that make for tidy little life updates. But in the quieter places. In the way I think. In the things I'm willing to accept. In the boundaries I'm learning to hold. In the things that no longer feel like mine to carry.
In the ways I've learned to choose myself, even when doing it feels so uncomfortable I have to talk myself through it.
I think we have a tendency to romanticize personal growth. We talk about healing, becoming, stepping into our power, and finding ourselves as though these things happen in a beautiful, linear progression. As though one day we wake up, have a revelation over our morning coffee, and suddenly know exactly who we are and what we want. There are books, courses, podcasts. So many ways to optimize your life.
But that's rarely how it happens. Sometimes growth is realizing that a relationship you've spent years nurturing no longer feels good for you. Sometimes it's acknowledging that a belief you once held doesn't align with the person you are today. Sometimes it's recognizing the ways you've abandoned yourself to keep other people comfortable, and deciding that you don't want to do that anymore. I used to hate the thought of things changing or changing my mind. Looking at this last year, thank gosh I am allowed to change my mind.
Sometimes it's simply admitting that the way you've been living isn't working, even if you can't yet imagine what comes next.There is pain in these realizations. There is grief in letting go of things that once mattered to you, even when you know letting go is the right thing to do. There is uncertainty in choosing a different path when the old one is familiar, even if it has stopped feeling like home.
We don't talk enough about the in-between.
The space between knowing you need to change and knowing how to change. Between releasing what no longer fits and finding your footing in the life that comes after. Between the person you were and the person you're still learning to be.
That space can feel impossibly uncomfortable.
But I'm beginning to wonder if that discomfort is sometimes the point.
There is a particular kind of discomfort that comes with getting older. Not the number itself, but the growing awareness that comes with it. You start to understand yourself differently. You notice the patterns you've repeated, the things you've tolerated, the expectations you've carried without ever questioning whether they belonged to you in the first place. You begin to recognize that being a good person doesn't mean being endlessly available. That loving someone doesn't mean you have to make room for every version of their behaviour. That you can be grateful for the life you've built and still want to change parts of it.
You learn that boundaries can feel terrible before they feel freeing. That disappointing someone doesn't automatically mean you've done something wrong. That sometimes the most loving thing you can do for yourself is stop trying to make something work simply because you've invested so much of yourself in it.
These lessons don't always arrive gently.
Sometimes they arrive through heartbreak, disappointment, exhaustion, or the slow realization that you cannot keep showing up for everyone else while leaving yourself behind. Sometimes you have to learn the same lesson more than once.
I'm trying to give myself grace for that, too.
Because becoming yourself isn't about getting everything right. It's about becoming a little more honest with yourself each time. It's about noticing when you've slipped back into old habits and choosing, when you can, to do something different. It's about understanding that growth isn't a destination you reach. It's a relationship you keep building with yourself.
A year can change more than you think.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about growth is that we rarely notice it in real time.We are too busy living through the difficult conversations, the uncertain decisions, the ordinary Tuesdays, the disappointments we didn't anticipate, and the little moments when we choose differently than we would have before.
We don't always recognize those moments as progress. We just get through them. And then, one day, we look back.
We realize that something that would have completely unravelled us a year ago doesn't hold the same power anymore. That we're able to sit with discomfort instead of immediately trying to escape it. That we can acknowledge a disappointment without allowing it to define us. That we're getting better at recognizing what we need, what we value, and what we're no longer willing to compromise. Maybe we haven't figured everything out. Maybe we're still learning some of the same lessons. Maybe there are things we thought we'd have accomplished by now that remain unfinished.
But we're different.
As I start thirty-seven, I don't think I want to spend as much time trying to make every part of my life feel comfortable. I want to make room for the kind of discomfort that means I'm learning something. The kind that asks me to be honest, to reconsider, to release, to begin again.
We can give ourselves permission to be unfinished. And we can look back with tenderness at the versions of ourselves who were doing the best they could with what they knew at the time.
I think that is its own kind of growth.
If there's one thing I want to carry into this next year, it's the understanding that I don't need to have everything figured out to appreciate how far I've come.
I can be proud of myself and still have work to do. I can be happy with my life and still want things to change. I can recognize my growth without pretending the growing pains weren't real.
I can honour the woman I was a year ago without needing to be her anymore.
And perhaps most importantly, I can stop rushing through the uncomfortable middle just because I'm eager to reach the other side.
Because when I look back at the past year, I don't just see the things that happened. I see the ways I've changed because of them. I see the things I've learned to question, the things I've learned to release, and the ways I'm learning to show up for myself. I see a person who is still figuring it out, but who knows herself a little better than she did before.
And that feels worth celebrating.
So here's to thirty-seven.
To the growing pains. To the uncomfortable middles. To the endings we didn't expect and the beginnings we haven't quite figured out yet. To learning, unlearning, and learning again.
To giving ourselves credit for the growth that nobody else can see.
And to remembering that just because becoming feels uncomfortable doesn't mean we're not becoming something beautiful.