I’ve dubbed myself a late bloomer because I did just about everything a little later than I expected. I found strength and independence in my late twenties when I started questioning things, stopped substituting the judgment of authority figures for my own, and left the job I’d fought so hard to get. That started a domino effect of discoveries. I found my voice when I moved across the country, I found my greatest ally when I allowed myself to take up space, I found rest when I got married, and I found true power in the vulnerability of rest.

I risk alienating myself from the boss babes and feminists, but I must say it—marriage is the best, hardest, most restful thing I’ve experienced. I was told not to let a man change me, but marriage has done just that.

After decades of hustling and forcing myself into ill-fitting spaces, all to avoid insignificance and escape the person I might be, I’ve found rest. It’s not what I thought rest would be; it brings to mind the New Testament idea of “labour[ing] to enter into that rest” and Lewis’s description of the hero figure as not “safe” but “good.”

By rest, I mean something I’m only beginning to understand. Those who have tasted it know it’s not easily defined. It’s neither laziness nor toil. It’s finding flow. It’s simultaneously strong and vulnerable and always authentic.

Being in an honest relationship with a strong individual who is anything but “safe” but oh so “good” forced me to address the things I was happy to ignore before. My self-sabotaging ego did not go quietly into the night. My fears of falling apart and losing part of myself all came true, but in such a beautiful way.

The safety of marriage allowed me and my body the space to finally confront the physical and emotional healing I had put off for so long. It is just so delicious that the most important work of my life started from a place of rest.

I said during our wedding ceremony that I’ve lived so many lives but they were all small because I was wrapped up in myself. Now, after a lot of work and the love of a resilient man who isn’t threatened by me or any of my struggles, I can say I’m bigger and better and stronger and braver and more creative.

I’m not changing the world like I once strove to, but I work hard everyday to enter into rest and to act from that place of rest. My life is arguably insignificant, save in the eyes of my little family and small circle of friends, but it feels authentic and it fits.

xoxo Your Favorite Late Bloomer