If this is a mid-life crisis, may you all enjoy one soon.

The last few months – well years have led to this, but in the last few months – I have felt a much higher level of freedom to be exactly who I am. Utterly, unapologetically just being me.

One friend has been calling this a “transformative period” and another refers to what is happening to me as an “embracing of my true me” while a third said I am merely getting too old to bother with other people’s bullshit.

In the last six months, I have made work decisions which may have seemed reckless to some, but were the right decisions for me; from the jobs I have accepted to the jobs I have rejected.

I transformed a small tattoo on my arm I was unhappy with into a much larger tattoo which there really is no hiding. And while some around me have “tsked” disapproval, I don’t care because I did it for me.

I am keeping my hair very, very short because I like it that way. Sure, it’s not a wildly feminine look, but I like it and it feels more like me than my long, messy curls.

Quite unexpectedly, I purchased a dress and then another and very slowly, I am shaking off the legacy of an assault many years ago that had me feeling vulnerable in dresses. I hadn’t worn a dress in an inordinately long time and would often look wistfully at the dresses more confident and self-assured women wore without angst.

I was always a tomboy. I think that is partly just my personality but also a consequence of having a strong-willed, wildly behaved twin brother I adored.

But after the assault, I hid myself in plain sight. A friend once asked me to describe my style of dress. There was only one answer – camouflage. Secretly I longed to let my femininity out to roam but kept her safe, locked up inside of me.

I let her out now. Not often and still hesitantly, but she does get to dress up a little now; short hair and large-ish tattoo and all.

And I flat out don’t much care how others respond to how I look because what matters to me is how I feel. And increasingly that means being authentic so I can feel authentic; with myself first and foremost and with others in all dealings wherever possible.

I reckon what is happening for me may well look like a mid-life crisis to some. And I’m fine with that because I think maybe that’s what this is.

A crisis where I am no longer prepared to stifle me in a bid to please others or meet other’s expectations.

A crisis where I understand that life is so very short and people aren’t looking at us nearly as closely as we think.

A crisis where I don’t care what other’s opinions of me are because they are entitled to their opinion.

A crisis where I really only want people who are positive and caring and coming from their heart around me.

A crisis where I have the job I always wanted being a storyteller with time to master and enjoy my craft.

A crisis where I have left behind the mental and psychic chaos of the city for a more relaxed lifestyle where I can smell salt water when I wake up.

A crisis where heartache has made way for deep gratitude for having loved so deeply and truly.

A crisis where I have am more present in my interactions than I have been in a long time and where I grab every chance at laughter there is.

A crisis where I embrace who I am, for the first time.

A crisis which is an awakening, at the risk of sounding like a complete hippie.

If this is a midlife crisis, I can see how and why people get to the point where they leave unhappy marriages, buy a Harley and sew wild oats. Or decide it is finally time for that sea change. Or maybe quit a secure job to travel the world or write that novel.

If this is a midlife crisis, I wish it had happened earlier so I could have been able to embrace me for who I am and have the courage to chase my dreams.

But I wasn’t the me of today before today and I like the me of today more than any previous version of me.

For those of you who are yet to have a mid-life crisis, may it come sooner rather than later and may it be as liberating and empowering as mine has been, because this is so very fun.

This getting older isn’t all bad by a very long stretch.