You Weren’t Lost. You Were Buried.

The weirdest part of starting over isn’t the paperwork, the empty house, or even the massive life change.

It’s the moment you realise you don’t actually know who you are without the old roles holding everything together.

After last week’s trip through Victim Town, I’ve been thinking about what comes next… when you’ve decided you’re done living in the old story, but still have to work out who the hell you are without the marriage, the crisis, or being needed by everybody.

This episode is about midlife identity, people-pleasing, and the quiet disconnection that can hide underneath a life that looks perfectly functional. It’s about grieving the years you stayed silent, accepted less and kept the peace at your own expense.

And it’s about why maybe you weren’t lost at all.

Maybe you were buried.

We also talk about the part nobody warns you about: freedom can feel fucking terrifying when you don’t know what you want. So we start small—with honest choices, tiny experiments, boundaries and learning to trust yourself through evidence, not affirmations.

If you’re somewhere in the messy middle, covered in dirt and wondering where the hell you went…

Keep digging.

Some of her is already in there.

And some of her is still becoming.

 Follow Unfinished & Unapologetic wherever you listen so you don’t miss what comes next. 

Transcript

Welcome And The Next Chapter

Speaker 0:04

Welcome to Unfinished and Unapologetic, the podcast where we get into the nitty-gritty of real life, starting over and figuring out who the hell we are now. No filter, no shame, a little messy, still not done. I'm your host Paige, and if you're a woman over 40 who's ready to embrace the chaos, unpack the bullshit, and navigate the next chapter of your life without pretending you've got it all together, you're in the right place. Let's dive in together. Hey beautiful people. So I've been thinking a lot about what comes next. After you finally decide you're done living in the old story. Because last week we talked about packing our bags and leaving Victim Town, about not allowing things that happen to us to become the place we live forever. But leaving is only the

Who Am I Without It

Speaker 1:05

first part. Because once you've decided that you're not going to live there anymore, there's another question waiting for you. And it's a really fucking uncomfortable one. Okay, so who am I without it? Who am I without the marriage? Without the relationship, without the role I played, without constantly trying to fix everything, without being needed by everybody, without surviving one crisis after another. Who the hell am I underneath all of that? And honestly, I think it can be one of the hardest parts of rebuilding. Because for years I thought I was trying to get my life back in my mid-20s after my divorce and when my dad died. In my late 20s, when I escaped a toxic relationship, bundled up my kids and moved states. In my 30s, when I was raising three kids, building another relationship and got hit with my first mental health diagnosis. In my 40s, when the chronic pain started, the kids had moved out, and I was desperately trying to save my marriage. And then in my late 40s, after my second divorce, starting from scratch again, single after nearly 20 years and being alone for the first time in my entire life at 47. Honestly, nothing says character development quite like standing in the middle of your life thinking, well, this is not how I thought this shit was going to go. But through every one of those stages, I thought the goal was to somehow get back to who I used to be, back before the divorces, back before the heartbreak, back before the diagnosis, back before the chronic pain, back before life got complicated, back when I was more confident, more fun, more spontaneous, more me. But now at 51, I've realized that getting back was never actually the goal. Because if I'm completely honest, even the younger version of me wasn't fully me. Not really. She was still people pleasing, still seeking approval, still shrinking herself, still trying to earn love, still measuring her worth by whether other people wanted her, needed her, or approved of her. She was still trying to become what everybody else needed, and calling that a personality. So maybe I wasn't trying to get back to myself. Maybe I was trying to meet myself properly for the first time. Because somewhere along the way, I had definitely started telling myself that I'd lost who I was, that I'd lost my confidence, my voice, my spark, my personality, that I'd lost myself. But the more I've thought about it, the more I think lost is the wrong word. Because lost implies

Lost Versus Buried

Speaker 4:20

gone. It implies she disappeared, that I didn't know where to find her. And I don't think she disappeared at all. I think she got buried. Buried underneath responsibility, buried underneath motherhood, underneath relationships, buried underneath people pleasing, underneath the diagnosis, buried underneath keeping the peace, buried underneath survival mode, buried underneath being what everybody else needed me to be. And maybe that's why becoming yourself again doesn't really feel like inventing somebody completely new. It feels more like excavation, like you're standing there with this tiny fucking teaspoon, looking at 40 years of emotional rubble, thinking, Rideo, where do I even start? Because when you've spent decades focused on what everybody else needs, you rarely stop to ask yourself the really important question. Who am I underneath all of this? Not what do I do? Who needs me? What problem am I solving? What role am I playing? Who am I? And one of the things I've realized over the last few years is that it's entirely possible to build a life that looks successful from the outside while feeling completely disconnected from yourself on the inside. You can raise kids, build a career, pay the bills, keep the house going, support everybody, remember all the birthdays, book the appointments, hold the family together, make sure everybody else is okay, and still have absolutely no fucking clue who you are outside of being useful. And honestly, I think that's where a lot of women our age are finding themselves now. Not broken or failing, not necessarily having some dramatic midlife crisis, just disconnected, disconnected from their voice, their needs, their body, their dreams, their preferences, their identity. And maybe this is why midlife gets labeled as a crisis so often. Because the kids start needing us differently. Relationships change, marriages change, our bodies change, careers stop distracting us in quite the same way. Some of the roles that kept us busy for twenty or thirty years start shifting. And suddenly there's enough quiet to finally hear ourselves. And after so many years of noise, that quiet can be bloody deafening. And maybe it isn't a crisis. Maybe it's the first honest conversation you've had with yourself in years. Maybe you didn't suddenly become unhappy, difficult, or selfish. Maybe you just finally had enough space to notice how disconnected you'd become. And maybe that's why so many women wake up somewhere in their 40s or 50s thinking, how the hell did I get here? Not necessarily because life went completely wrong, but because somewhere along the way we disappeared from it. I know I did. Not all at once though, because nobody wakes up one morning and suddenly loses themselves. It happens quietly. It's saying yes when you want to say no. It's swallowing your opinion because you don't want to have another argument. It's staying longer than you should have. Accepting less than you deserve. It's making yourself smaller so somebody else can stay comfortable. It's telling yourself it's easier not to say anything. It's delaying what you want because somebody else needs something first. It's choosing approval over authenticity over and over again until it becomes automatic. And before you know it, you're functioning. You're surviving. You're doing all the things. But you don't recognize the woman who's doing them anymore. And here's the thing: I don't think I

Grieving The Self You Left

Speaker 9:05

fully realized how much of myself I had buried until pieces of me started coming back. Because there was something I wasn't expecting when I started rebuilding. Something nobody really talks about. The grief. Not grieving the relationship, not grieving the marriage, not even grieving the life I thought I'd have. Grieving myself. That hit me so much harder than I expected. There were times when I'd be driving somewhere, walking the dog or sitting quietly at home, and this thought would just appear. God, what the hell was I thinking? Where the fuck was I? Not physically. I mean, I knew where I'd been. I was raising kids, working, paying the bills, holding everything together, trying to survive and doing what needed to be done. But where was I? Because when I look back, honestly, there were entire years where everybody else's needs came before mine. Everybody else's feelings came before mine. Everybody else's dreams came before mine. Everybody else's comfort mattered more than my truth. And before anyone misunderstands me, I'm not saying all of that was bad, okay? Some of it was love. Some of it was motherhood. Some of it was responsibility. Some of it was just the reality of raising a family and doing what needed to be done. But some of it, if I'm really honest, it was fear. Fear of conflict, fear of rejection, fear of disappointing people, fear of being judged, fear of being too much, fear of being alone, fear that if I finally said what I really felt, somebody would leave. And when you realize how many decisions you've made from fear instead of self-respect, there's grief in that. Not because we're moving back to victim town, we've already covered that. We're not forwarding the mail and applying for permanent residency again. But because telling our truth matters. And the truth is, it's sad to realize how many years you spent abandoning yourself while calling up love. It's sad to realize how often you accepted less than you deserved. It's sad to realize how many times you stayed silent when you had something important to say. It's sad to realize how often you were so busy making sure nobody else felt uncomfortable that you never stop to ask what it's costing you. And I think before we can become somebody we recognize again, we have to let ourselves acknowledge that. We have to sit with it for a minute. Not to fix it like I know you want to, not to explain it away like you've probably done a million times before. Not to immediately turn it into a life lesson and make everybody else feel better about it. Just sit with it. Not forever. We're not unpacking the tent again. Just long enough to be honest. And when I was finally honest with myself, I had to admit something else.

Freedom Without Knowing What You Want

Speaker 12:49

One of the strangest parts about becoming single after nearly 20 years was suddenly having all this freedom and absolutely no idea what to do with some of it. And you'd think that that kind of freedom would feel instantly exciting because you don't have anyone else's moods to consider. No one else's plans. No one asking where you're going. No one affecting the kind of day you're allowed to have. You can do what you want, eat what you want, watch what you want, spend the weekend however you want. Amazing, right? Except there's one tiny problem. You actually have to know what you want. And that can be surprisingly difficult when your entire life has been built around taking everybody else into account. Because suddenly nobody is making the decision for you. Nobody is telling you what they prefer. Nobody else's opinion has to come first. And there I was with all this freedom I'd supposedly wanted, realizing I had no idea what to do with some of it. Because when you've spent your entire adult life being a mother, a wife, a partner, a worker, a fixer, a peacekeeper, what do I want? Can feel like a bloody enormous question. It should feel exciting, but at first it was fucking terrifying. It's like somebody handed you a completely blank page and you realized that you'd forgotten how to write without asking everybody else what they think first. And I think that was the point where I started understanding that finding myself again wasn't going to be one huge breakthrough. There wasn't going to be some dramatic moment where music started playing, the sun broke through the clouds, and I suddenly knew exactly who I was. There was no eat pre-love montage, no spiritual awakening in Bali, and no mysterious stranger teaching me the meaning of life. Frankly, I could barely decide what I wanted for dinner some days. It happened through tiny moments. You laugh at something and think, oh fuck, there you are. You speak up in a conversation instead of swallowing your opinion and think, huh, there you are. You say no without writing a five-page explanation, submitting supporting evidence, and calling a witness and think, well, look at his back. That's how it happened for me. How it's still happening. Not through one huge breakthrough, through hundreds of tiny moments where I stopped betraying myself. One of the first things that started coming back was my personality. And I know how ridiculous that sounds because obviously I've always had a personality. But the women listening to this will know exactly what I mean. My sense of humor came back. My sarcasm started creeping in. Well, okay, the sarcasm may never have fully left, to be fair, but it got louder. I started becoming curious about things again. My opinions came back. At first they were just louder in my head, and then gradually, more often in my voice. I started creating again, writing, painting, building this podcast, making content, having ideas, getting excited about projects and dreaming about what could come next. Because for a long time, I wasn't really planning a future. I was surviving the present. And when you're spending all of your energy just getting through the day, there isn't much left over for joy or creativity or spontaneity or fun. You become extremely functional, but not necessarily alive. And I think that's why so many women struggle to answer what sounds like a really simple question. What do you actually enjoy? Not what are you good at, what are you responsible for, what's productive, what can you make money from, what helps everybody else? What do you enjoy? My therapist asked me this once, and I was stuffed if I knew how to answer her. It's amazing how difficult that question becomes after you've spent years putting yourself last. And I don't think the answer has to be some massive life purpose. We put way too much pressure on ourselves with that shit. Like we're supposed to wake up one morning and announce, I have discovered my purpose. I will now move to Italy, make pottery, and become deeply fulfilled. Meanwhile, most of us are just trying to remember why we walked into the fucking kitchen. Maybe you don't need to know your life's purpose. Maybe you just need to notice what makes you feel a little more alive. What makes you curious? What do you miss doing that had nothing to do with another person? What did you stop doing because somebody made you feel stupid for enjoying it? What have you always wanted to try? What gives you energy instead of draining it? What would you choose if nobody else got a say in it? And that last one, that can sting because it can show you how many of your choices were built around what other people might think. But here's what I've learned you don't have to figure out exactly who you are before you start making different choices. You make different choices, and those choices introduce you to yourself. Every time you try something because you're curious, you learn something. Every time you say what you really think, you learn something. Every time you wear the thing, go to the place, change your mind, set the boundary, or stop pretending to enjoy something you actually fucking hate. You learn something. You don't discover yourself through thinking alone. At some point, you have to experiment. And yes, some of those experiments may include throwing out an entire wardrobe more than once.

Tiny Experiments That Bring You Back

Speaker 20:06

Believe me, I know. I completely changed how I dressed between 47 and 50. I threw things out, I replaced them. I changed my mind and replaced them again. And honestly, I'm just about ready to throw out half my current wardrobe and start all over again. Apparently, personal growth is very expensive. And I think clothes are often the first place that women start experimenting with change. But I don't think it's ever only about the clothes. I think it's about permission. Permission to have preferences, permission to be visible, permission to stop asking everybody else what they think before deciding what you think. Permission to wear something because you like how you feel in it. Not because it makes you look smaller, younger, more appropriate, or less likely to attract somebody's opinion. Because they're gonna have one anyway. So you may as well wear the fucking boots. And I think the same thing happens socially. You stop performing. You stop trying quite so hard to be liked. You stop editing every sentence before it leaves your mouth. You stop apologizing for taking up space. You stop trying to control how everybody experiences you. Not because you suddenly don't care about anyone else, but because you finally realize that no matter what you do, somebody is gonna misunderstand you. Somebody is gonna judge you. Somebody's gonna think you're too loud, too emotional, too independent, too fucking something. So you may as well be yourself.

Confidence Built On Self Trust

Speaker 22:04

And speaking of being yourself, let's talk about confidence. Because the confidence I'm building now is nothing like the confidence I thought I had when I was younger. I think a lot of what we called confidence when we were young was actually built on validation. Being attractive, being wanted, being chosen, being included, being liked. At 25, I wanted everyone to like me. At 51, I'd rather like myself. And that's a completely different kind of confidence. It's quieter, stronger, less performative, less dependent on applause and more dependent on trust. Trusting that if something goes wrong, I'll handle it. Trusting that if somebody leaves, I'll survive it. Trusting that if I make the wrong decision, I'll correct it. Trusting that I no longer have to abandon myself to stop somebody else from abandoning me. Because by this stage of life, we've survived some shit. We've survived heartbreak, disappointment, loss, failure, embarrassment, divorce, diagnosis, starting over. We've sat on the bathroom floor crying. We've driven around in the car because we needed five fucking minutes when nobody asked us for anything. We've signed papers we never imagined signing, packed boxes we never thought we'd pack. Walked away from lives we thought we'd keep forever. We've survived things we were convinced would destroy us. And eventually, you stop asking whether you're strong enough because the evidence is sitting right there. You already are. And with that confidence comes boundaries. Now I know we've talked about boundaries before, but here's what nobody tells you. Boundaries don't only protect your peace, they help you rediscover yourself. Because every time you stop saying yes when you mean no, you're telling yourself your needs matter. Every time you stop tolerating behavior that isn't okay, you're telling yourself your feelings matter. Every time you stop explaining yourself to somebody who's committed to misunderstanding you, you're telling yourself your voice matters. Every time you stop shrinking yourself for somebody else's comfort, you're telling yourself that you matter. And those messages add up. That's how self-worth gets rebuilt. Not from repeating affirmations in the mirror while secretly continuing to accept the same old shit. From evidence, from the way you treat yourself, from the promises you keep to yourself, from the things you no longer negotiate. Of course, not everybody likes that version of you. Let's be honest. Some people preferred you without boundaries. Some people benefited from your people pleasing. Some people like the version of you who stayed quiet, who tolerated everything, who carried all the responsibility, who fixed every problem, who never challenged them, who made herself smaller so they could feel bigger.

When Boundaries Change Relationships

Speaker 25:51

And when you start becoming yourself again, some relationships get uncomfortable. Because growth doesn't just change the way you look at your past relationships, it changes the dynamics of the relationships you still have. Not everybody wants the healthier version of you. Some people want the convenient version. And when you stop being convenient, some of them may disappear altogether. They may call you selfish, difficult, or say you've changed. And you know what? They're right. You have changed. Thank God. Because the people who need you to betray yourself in order to keep them happy were never your people anyway. And dating, oh dating will show you exactly how much you've changed. Trust me on that one. Because the biggest shift for me wasn't learning how to find healthier people, it was becoming healthier myself. Because when you're desperate to be chosen, you will negotiate things you should never negotiate. A lot of women confuse being chosen with being loved, and they're not the same thing. Believe me, I know that now. You ignore red flags because the chemistry feels good. I did that. You explain away behavior that hurts you. You accept crumbs and call it connection. Huh. Yep. You fall in love with potential while reality is standing right in front of you, waving a giant red flag and yelling, hello, I'm literally showing you who I am. And you're like, oh, no, no, I can see his inner goodness. Oh that's a whole bloody episode by itself. But these days, I'm much more interested in consistency than chemistry. More interested in character than charm. More interested in reality than potential. Because loneliness is not an emergency. And somebody liking me is not enough reason to give them access to my life. These days, I'd genuinely rather be alone, which is something I never in a million years thought I'd hear myself say. But that doesn't mean I'm closed off. It doesn't mean that I've become hard. It means I finally understand that being chosen isn't the prize. Being treated well is, being respected is, feeling safe enough to remain yourself is. Because any relationship that requires you to disappear is costing you way too much. And this brings me to maybe one of the biggest things I've learned so far.

Letting Joy Feel Safe Again

Speaker 29:00

Joy feels weird when you've spent years surviving it. It really does. For a long time, peace felt unfamiliar to me. Happiness felt suspicious. Rest felt lazy. Enjoyment felt selfish. I kept waiting for something to go wrong. Waiting for the next crisis, the next phone call, waiting for the mood to change, or waiting for the other shooter drop. Because when chaos has been normal for such a long time, peace can feel like the warning sign before the next disaster. And I know a lot of women listening will understand exactly what I mean. You finally have a quiet day, and instead of enjoying it, every part of you is pacing around like, yeah, no, this is wrong. What have we forgotten? But learning to enjoy your life again is part of healing. It isn't the reward you receive once you've finished all the work. It's part of the work. Resting without earning it, laughing without feeling guilty for it. Doing something pointless just because it brings you joy. Letting a good moment be a good moment without preparing for its ending. That is part of coming back to yourself. So maybe we need another little self-audit here. And don't worry, I'm not about to suggest you create a vision board, wake up at four in the morning and reinvent your entire personality before breakfast. We've established last week that we're not those people. But maybe start here. Where do you still disappear? Where are you saying yes when your whole body is screaming no? Where are you editing yourself because you're scared of somebody's reaction? Where are you waiting for permission? What part of your life feels like it belongs to everybody except you? And then ask yourself, what's one small thing I can choose differently? Not 20 things, not a complete personality transplant. One thing. Maybe it's you tell the truth instead of saying it's fine. Maybe you decline something without inventing a medical emergency. Maybe you wear the thing, book the class, start the project, make the appointment, go somewhere alone, change your mind, say what you actually think. Or maybe you simply stop asking somebody else what they think long enough to hear your own answer. That's how you begin. One honest choice at a time, one boundary at a time, one promise kept to yourself at a time. Because every time you choose yourself in a small way, you uncover a little more of who you are. And that's pretty much where I've landed these days. Not healed, not finished, definitely not enlightened, still a hot mess most days and still learning, still figuring things out, still fucking up things more often than I'd like to admit. But when I look in the mirror now, I'm starting to recognize her. Not because she's perfect, but because she's real. And the woman I recognize today isn't the woman I was at 21. Thank God. Honestly, she was doing her best, but her decision making was seriously fucking questionable. The woman I recognize now is different. She's wiser, stronger, funnier, less willing to settle, less interested in being chosen, more willing to choose herself, more comfortable with being disliked, more honest about what she needs, more herself. But here's the thing, I didn't create her from nothing. Some parts of her were always there, buried underneath everything everybody else needed, buried underneath the fear, buried under survival, buried under responsibility. But some parts of her are new. They were built through every boundary, every heartbreak, every time I chose differently, every time I told myself the truth, every time I kept a promise to myself, every time I stopped fighting for something that required me to disappear. So maybe becoming yourself again isn't about going backwards. It's about returning to the woman you were before life happened. Because life did happen and it changed you. Some of it hurt, some of it nearly broke you, some of it built you. You don't need to become who you used to be. You get to uncover what was always yours and give yourself the permission to become everything you never had the chance to be. And that's exciting. Because the goal was never to become some polished, perfect, completely healed woman who always knew what she was doing. Shit, how fucking exhausting would she be? The goal is to become someone you can trust, someone you don't have to abandon, someone you actually recognize. So if you're in that season right now, keep going. The woman you're looking for isn't gone. She never was. Some of her is underneath the layers. And some of her is still becoming. Every boundary, every brave decision, every uncomfortable conversation, every time you say no when you mean no, every time you choose reality over potential, every time you stop asking permission to be who you are, you're uncovering a little more of her. And if you're still somewhere in the middle of it all, covered in dirt, tired, confused, wondering where the hell she went, keep digging. Some of her is already in there, and some of her is waiting to see what you choose next. Either way, every honest choice brings you a little closer to her.

One Honest Choice At A Time

Speaker 35:58

And that wraps up this week's episode, and I want you to know that I really do appreciate the time you spend with me. If this episode made you think of another woman who's spent so long being everything to everybody else that she's forgotten who she is underneath it all, please send it to her. Because I have a feeling there are a lot of women quietly wondering where the hell they went and thinking that they're the only ones. If you're interested in connecting with me, have any questions or just want to drop me a line, clink the link in the show description to send me a text or a voice note. And as always, I'm right here figuring this shit out with you in real time. I'll be back next week, and I hope you'll be here too. Remember, we're doing this side by side. Every chapter we explore together, I've bought some version of it too. So if today's episode gave you even one thing to think about, feel, question, or try, I'd love to hear how you use it. Until next time, keep embracing the messy, unfinished, and unapologetic you.