Lately, I’ve begun to broaden my understanding of myself as someone who is not afraid of taking risks. Because I’ve always been one of those people who think twice about hopping on a roller coaster ride, then closing my eyes the entire time until it’s over and in the past, I generally framed myself as risk averse. Chasing thrills was never my thing. I preferred, instead, the security of the shore, knowing that my feet can be held by land. I nurse a sense of awe towards the unknown because it has the power to capsize and immerse you.

This year I am trying to make sense of the elements of my personality that have been continuous, that have held me through from the time I was little until now. I have spent so much time untangling my toxic traits, trying to pin down the moments when I am acting out of defensiveness, sieving through feelings and how they occur within the realm of my body. Sometimes I tend to perceive the second part of my 30s as a total breaking away from patriarchal conditioning; a constant questioning of behaviours that may spring from internalised misogyny. If I was happy between my late 20s and my early 30s, I would now claim for myself an effervescence… Because I am more equipped to handle uncomfortable emotions, all that shapes my shadow self. Where earlier my tendency was to cast off anything negative so I could inhabit a toxic equilibrium, now I more shamelessly caress the queasiness. If I feel resentment, I sit down with it to unearth why that may be instead of acting from that feeling.

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Is this wisdom, I wonder. I think it’s something beyond that because this journey of self-improvement goes beyond me. When I began to conceive about the kind of person I wanted our child to be—kind, forgiving, with a capacity for empathy towards themselves and others, imaginative, curious, generous, but not in a people-pleasing way, clear about their boundaries and assertive about their needs and wants without undertones of arrogance, capable of being independent, but also not afraid to be vulnerable and not apologetic about their fragility—I learned to accept that I had to model all of these behaviours, or else I would be a hypocrite. As I inch closer towards 40 and continue to do the work of de-conditioning myself from patriarchal proclivities, I am still working on being more selfish; part of my effort to undo my people-pleasing conditioning. I am learning to guard my interests and be more precious about my time, so that I do not allow anyone to take it for granted. This has been the greatest gift that motherhood has bequeathed me with; this fierce protectiveness I now feel for every second of ‘child-free’ and child-care time.

In the end, I suppose, it doesn’t matter how old one is turning but how well one is living.

Deliberating on the life and times of Everywoman, Rosalyn D’Mello is a reputable art critic and the author of A Handbook For My Lover. She tweets @RosaParx
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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.