I’m pretty confident in myself now. Growing up I’d always heard that women hit their stride in their 40s because they start feeling more comfortable in their skin.

I didn’t realize at the time that it was just a nice way of saying that by 40 you get to a point where you don’t give a flying flip what other people think. It’s because by then you’ve learned that most things in the world are bullshit anyway.

I wasn’t always confident like I am now; when I was younger I was plagued with so many insecurities. But there was always a part of me with a very strong resolve that would rear its head when necessary.

When I dig back into my memory, and sift through all the things that naturally made me that way – a mom who didn’t take shit from anyone, a dad who treated me with the respect every little girl deserves, an older sister who, by nature, forced me to have to stand up for myself or she would’ve pulverized me – there were also events that took place that made me feel like I could take on the world.

Picture it, Long Island, 1997-ish…

My best friend Danielle and I were driving home late one night. We were most likely listening to Lil’ Kim’s Hardcore, Foxy Brown’s Ill Nana, or any of the Beastie Boys masterpieces, when we hit a pothole and got a flat.

It was around 1am in a bad area on a fairly major road. Did we:

A. Call our parents to come get us?

B. Call triple AAA?

C. Cry like little wussy babies until a knight in shining armor came to rescue us?

Well, none of the above because we’re really old and didn’t have cell phones back then (Danielle had a car phone that I was jealous of, but unfortunately we were in my car).

So we did the only thing we could do – change the tire ourselves.

You’re probably thinking – big whoop who hasn’t changed a tire before?

What made this incident even more precarious was that my tire was held on by some really old lug nuts and screws and one was severely stripped and wouldn’t budge.

We didn’t panic (maybe a few “oh shit, what are we going to do??” comments). Instead, with the car jacked up, we placed the tire iron on the nut and the 2 of us, with all our strength, pushed until we snapped that motherfucker right off.

Believe me when I say we could’ve flown home that night because we were so proud of ourselves. So very proud, in fact, that if you know me or Danielle you’ve probably heard this story at least 3 times already because we told everyone 🤣

So maybe the ‘turning 40 and feeling comfortable in your skin’ thing also means that you look back on your life and realize that the experiences you had with ‘your people’, made you into the person you are today and you embrace that. Luckily my people were some bad ass bitches ♥️