Why I Needed to Write a Woman Over Thirty-Five

When I started writing Makayla, I knew one thing for certain: she had to be over thirty-five.

Not because youth is uninteresting. Not because love stops being exciting as we age. But because there is a particular kind of reckoning that happens when a woman has spent decades being capable, reliable, and “the strong one,” and finally has to sit with the question of whether she’s actually living the life she wants.

I wanted to write a woman who had done all the right things. A woman who had shown up. Fixed things. Held people together. Cleaned up messes that weren’t hers. A woman who could function in chaos and call it normal because she had been doing it for so long.

Black women, especially, are praised for this version of strength. We are celebrated for endurance. For sacrifice. For being everything to everyone. Somewhere along the way, that praise turns into a quiet expectation, and then into a habit. And habits, when they’re familiar, can feel safer than the unknown, even when they cost us joy.

Makayla isn’t asking whether she’s successful. She’s asking whether she’s free.

There’s a difference.

What I wanted to explore was the idea that sometimes we tell ourselves we’re “in control” because we’re managing everything. Because we’re holding it all together. Because no one has to worry about us. But control isn’t the same as fulfillment, and independence isn’t the same as intimacy.

Sometimes what we’re really doing is staying comfortable inside our armor.

For many Black women, vulnerability feels risky. It requires excavation. It asks us to clear out old pain, old narratives, old survival strategies that once protected us but now keep us from receiving what we say we want. It’s easier to stay busy. Easier to stay needed. Easier to keep fixing other people’s lives than to sit with the parts of our own that still ache.

Makayla’s story is not about choosing a man.

It’s about choosing herself.

Her relationships matter. They reflect her patterns. They challenge her. They force her to confront truths she’d rather avoid. But ultimately, this is a love story between a woman and her own honesty. Between who she’s been and who she’s willing to become. Between the life she’s mastered and the life she actually desires.

I didn’t want to write a woman chasing a “soft life” as an aesthetic. I wanted to write a woman who understands that softness requires work. Clearing bones. Naming wounds. Letting go of the identity of Superwoman. Learning how to be held instead of always holding everything else.

That kind of love doesn’t come without courage.

And for women over thirty-five, courage looks different. It’s quieter. It’s less performative. It’s choosing truth over familiarity. Peace over proving. Depth over distraction.

Makayla’s journey isn’t about perfection. It’s about discernment. About deciding what, and who, deserves access to her life going forward.

And maybe, in telling her story, I was also giving voice to a question many of us are asking in private:

Am I really living for myself… or just surviving beautifully for everyone else?