Yesterday, on my Instagram, I posted one of my favorite cos-bound outfits from this year: Lady Danbury from Bridgerton in one of my favorite color palettes of peony pink and plum. I noticed, with some measure of joy, that my silver streak at the front of my hair is becoming even more noticeable, too, which one thing that I adore about Lady Danbury’s style. In the caption for my post, I noted that I am still very much in my Bridgerton/Lady Danbury era and that has stuck with me over the last 24 hours. The way I described Lady Danbury was classy, smart, sharp, and heart for days. She is undoubtedly my favorite character in the Bridgerton series and that may easily be attributed to my own “advancing age”. As I have entered my forties, I have been finding myself less and less concerned with outside forces, as it were.

I want to look and feel good, but I care less about how my body and personal style stack up against social beauty standards.

I want to be respected, but I care less about pleasing people just so they will like me, even my students.

I want to be around people who feel like home to me, so I care less about being seen as “antisocial” because I get to pick with whom I expend my energy.

I want to live my life in a way that is true to my faith, and I don’t care if my love for and welcoming of others make people uncomfortable. (I mean, when was the establishment ever comfortable with Jesus, after all?)

The older I get the more I realize that I want to be a combination of Lady Agatha Danbury and Lady Violet Bridgerton: sharp, smart, classy, and heart-full. I want to be fierce in my defense of those who need it, gentle and generous when souls are weary or hurting, sharp in my dress and comfortable in my own beauty, and strong to shore up loved and dear ones when they need it.

As a former people-pleaser, this personal transformation is proving to be nothing short of foundation-rocking. Growing up, I cared so much about what people thought of me and how that reflected on my family that I drove myself to distraction to be perfect, to live up to expectations…to be the diamond of my community as it were. It has taken me the majority of my life to reach a point where I am now concerned with my own happiness with my life and the truth and integrity of my own being. Am I being true to God and what I feel He is saying to me? Am I being true to myself and the woman in whose skin I always want to feel desperately at home? Am I doing what is not only good for others but good for myself?

In my 41 years, I have won, I have lost, I have worked, I have achieved, I have loved, and I have been hurt and disappointed, just like everyone else around me. But, as Lady Danbury says, the benefit of having lived a life is that “I have earned the right to do whatever I please, whenever I please and however I please to do it.” I know that I am far from done with living my life, but I do like the fact that I am getting to this point of doing what I enjoy and what is good for me without the same debilitating fear that was my companion in my first few decades. Are there things that I still need to be mindful of? Of course! But I am enjoying solidifying my core while still softening my edges.