I am what you call a late bloomer.

I didn’t enter university until I was thirty-eight—that is how long it took to conquer my insecurity. I didn’t find my soulmate until forty-five, following two failed marriages and an unbroken chain of relationships stretching back to age sixteen.

Turning seventy-two this year, I face a demanding question: Did I finally bloom?

At an age when most women are balancing grandchildren on their knees, I never had children. There were brief, soft moments when the idea of motherhood appealed to me—usually in the initial rush of falling in love, when the romance made me want his baby. But like those relationships, the desire for motherhood soon fizzled. I am grateful it did. Instead, I have lived in a perpetual state of pregnancy, eagerly anticipating the birth of myself.

These false alarms are exhausting for pregnant women. My mother endured many of them with me, travelling back and forth to the hospital for weeks, wondering if I was ready to arrive. Ultimately, I just wasn't prepared to show myself to the world yet.

My own journey has been no less draining. Throughout the years, I have experienced countless false alarms of my own—moments of absolute certainty that I had found my "thing," only to discover it wasn't right. I used to accuse myself of being fickle and lacking commitment. The truth (or my excuse) is that my interests are wide, and I have a low threshold for boredom. But when life tempts you with endless choices, and you are obsessed with realising your potential, the search becomes exhausting.

I often think I could have saved myself immense trouble if I had simply settled for something... anything. There would be no more second-guessing, no more agonizing over identity, and no more wondering what I am meant to do. I could have skipped the purging of what disagrees with me, the anxiety of leaving secure, well-paying jobs, and the drifting from one thing to the next. I wouldn't have spent years whining and wondering why I couldn't be like other people and just figure it out.

When you reach my age, you naturally look back and measure your life. Was it successful? Did I find my purpose? What does it truly mean to bloom, and how do you know when it happens?

I could measure blooming by my career, finding my voice, building confidence, or earning money. But there were many years when I possessed all of those things, yet still felt entirely unbudded.

As a late bloomer, it has taken a lifetime to reach this point. I realize now that the destination I was searching for all along—the version of myself I wanted to bloom into—is a truer, more authentic season of life - when you become exquisitely precise about what matters and what does not.

It took a lifetime to recognise the high cost of keeping the wrong company. It took decades to stop trying to please everyone, to remain untroubled by criticism, and to stop waiting for a permission slip that was never going to come. I had to find the courage to tell the truth and refuse to let past traumas dictate my future. I had to learn to love who I am.

I have spent years navigating and excavating what matters, separating the right from the wrong. That is why I am a late bloomer. At seventy-two, I may have less time left to live, but I am finally living a truer time.

This is what it cost me to get here—to bloom.

This is what I was trying to bloom into all along.