Permission Slips We Never Got

Nobody ever sat me down and handed me a permission slip.

Not for changing careers. Not for wanting more than what I had. Not for being ambitious and soft at the same time. Not for crying in a bathroom at work, not for building something new when the old thing still sort of worked.

We spend a lot of our lives waiting for permission we were never going to receive. From parents. From managers. From the version of ourselves we thought we were supposed to be by now.

So here. I’m writing us some.

Permission to want something different without being able to fully explain why.

Permission to be tired. Actually tired. Without qualifying it or making it a productivity problem.

Permission to leave a room, a job, a relationship, a version of yourself — without a perfect explanation or a better option already lined up.

Permission to not have it figured out at the age you thought you would.

Permission to be proud of yourself in a year that also broke you.

Permission to love your work and still be allowed to rest from it.

Permission to be a good mother and a complicated woman at the same time.

Permission to change your mind. Again.

Permission to be exactly as uncertain as you actually are, without performing confidence you don’t feel.

Permission to take up space — in conversations, in rooms, in your own life — without pre-apologizing for it.

You don’t need someone’s signature on any of this. But in case you’ve been waiting anyway: here it is.

You’re allowed.