Hello, 40: What I know for sure 🩵

Plus: an update on the Mexico story. 🌵

This post has been a long time coming, and I suppose I have a bit of explaining to do. You see, I thought I could write about what happened in Mexico, and the weeks leading up to that trip. I thought I was ready. Surely, two years after the fact, I can tell the story, right? But, I now have three different drafts about Mexico sitting in the back end here on Substack, all written in various styles, all quite incomplete.

Each time that I’ve tried to tackle the story I wonder if it will be as laborious to read as it has been to write. The story is complicated, and the various layers and nuances are important to the telling of it, and how one might understand it. The saga involves the pandemic context, our dwindling capacity as parents (during yet another daycare closure), severe sickness, a panic attack, extortion from Mexican police, an extra 10 unplanned days in Mexico, and feeling so out of my body that I didn’t recognize myself. It is also filled with friendship, laughter, warm breezes, sunset hikes, tacos, creative sessions, the first real solo time I’ve had since I became a mother, and some profound experiences that only I was there for. 

My most recent attempt at writing the story for you revealed a startling truth. I always knew the experience to be a traumatizing one. I’ve never before suffered from such a shock to my nervous system that left me wondering what was real. And twice now, when I’ve revisited this story, I’ve suffered some “after-shocks” and symptoms that I know are related to a triggering of those memories. My body remembers, and it sends me right back there as if I was still in it, not writing about it two years later. I’ve never faced a topic I couldn’t write about, until now. 

I do hope to share this story with you one day. I know many of you have been expecting it, but out of kindness to myself, I can’t write about it just yet. But this brings me to the other topic for today’s issue of Field Notes. 

I turn 40 today. 🎈

I’ve had a lot of feelings about 40, less because of the cultural messaging that seems to put a lot of emphasis on 40 being some kind of a high point (“it’s all downhill from here”) and more because it has met me at a natural crossroads in my life. Or, perhaps I’ve used 40 as a target of sorts, an opportunity to rethink some things in my life, to assess where I’ve been and where I’m going. I thought I might be somewhere different right now — perhaps on the same trajectory as before but more established and clearer on my purpose.

Quick pic taken on the plane today. We’re in Vancouver for the Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival.

Instead, I have found myself in a holding pattern without a clear direction on what’s next. I’m trying to take this as a gift. Being self-employed, I hold a lot of power over how and where I spend my energy. You could say I’m doing inventory — taking stock of what brings me joy, what fills my bucket, who I want to spend my time with, what makes me laugh, what play means to me, and also what I want my legacy to be. 

Here’s what I know for sure: 

At 40, I want to “try easier,” laugh more, care less about the things I don’t have control over, and move with love for myself. I know those things might sound cliché, yet the difference for me now is that I know, deep in my bones, why these things are important.

At 40, I now understand what’s at stake when I abandon myself. I thought I knew, but now I know that, before this point, I was on the outside looking in on something that seemed like a treasure trove for others, like a holy grail of self-discovery. I needed to open the lid for myself to see what lay inside. The discovery therein is an awareness that I am a sacred being who communicates with the world around me in a delicate exchange, through every inhale and exhale, each lived experience, both in the flow and with a more attuned consciousness of where things fall out of alignment. 

At 40, I’ve been blessed with a sensitive system that sends me warning bells when things are not OK — whether it’s through an exchange with another human or in taking too much on for myself. This system can also feel like a curse. But now, I listen. I stop and tune in. I go inward to find my next move out there. 

I want more time in nature, even if it looks different than it did at 20 or 30. Image taken this past summer on South Hector in Banff National Park. Photo: Paul Zizka.

At 40, I’m craving a joyful sense of independence in my life and one that doesn’t depend so much on what I can or can’t get from others — or on the kind of validation that lasts only as long as we can carry ourselves over to the next life-affirming thing. 

At 40, I want to let love in more often. I want to explore what it means, what it really means, to love myself. When I need someone in my corner, I want to be the first person to show up — for myself. When others want to join me there, I want to say, heck yes.

At 40, I want to expose myself to the vulnerability that is to lean into joy and savour the moments that are as fleeting as they are fulfilling.

At 40, I want to care less about where I’m going and focus more on being here now. I want to show up as I am; nothing more, nothing less.

At 40, I know it’s a gift, also a privilege, to get older. Not everyone gets this far. I might have decades, weeks, or hours left here on this planet. The wonder, and the torment, is that no one knows. But life is brutiful (to use a word from writer Glennon Doyle) — both beautiful and brutal. For me, this is the very essence of it. It’s what makes life worth living, what brings us so close to the edge that sometimes we can hardly bear it, and what moves us to tears with moments that are both awe-inspiring and impermanent. 

At 40, I want to live in that liminal space without needing to question what the next stage brings to me. I want to stay for as long as I am meant to stand here on this threshold… of what? I’m not sure. But, more and more, I’m convinced I’m not supposed to know.

The next steps will be made clearer when I’m truly ready to take them. 

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Meghan J. Ward is an outdoor, travel and adventure writer based in Banff, Canada, a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, and the author of Lights to Guide Me Home. Meghan has written several books, as well as produced content for films, anthologies, blogs and some of North America’s top outdoor, fitness and adventure publications.

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What’s caught my attention lately… ✨

• This conversation between Ezra Klein and Kyle Chayka about How to Discover Your Own Taste opened my eyes to what’s happening to our personal tastes and choices in the age of the algorithms.

• I’ve mentioned this one before, but it deserves a second round: The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, & Healing in a Toxic Culture by Dr. Gabor Maté (and Daniel Maté) has been rather mind-blowing for me. It’s a thick book, but I haven’t been able to put it down lately. It’s helping me to connect the dots in my own experiences and develop greater empathy for where others are coming from. It has also given me a bit of a shake-down when it comes to taking care of my own health and dealing with past traumas.

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Check these out too… 🙌

Lights to Guide Me Home - my memoir (reviews welcome on Amazon and Goodreads)

The Wonders That I Find - my children’s book

My Email Newsletter - updates about my books, projects, and 1:1 coaching

Find me: Facebook | Instagram

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Related posts:

Your one wild and precious life 🌅

When you don't recognize yourself 🤷🏻

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I am an eight-generation Canadian and a descendent of British, Scottish and German settlers living, working, and recreating outdoors in Treaty 7 Territory — the homelands and gathering place for the Niitsitapi from the Blackfoot Confederacy, including the Siksika, Kainai, and Piikani First Nations; the Îyârhe Nakoda of the Chiniki, Bearspaw, and Goodstoney First Nations; the Tsuut’ina First Nation; the Métis Nation of Alberta, Region III and many others. I am doing my utmost, both personally and professionally, to deepen my understanding of the history of Indigenous peoples and the impacts of colonialism — past and present.