FORTY. FIRE. FULLY GROWN.
Turning Forty Was My Metanoia
The Last Dance With Youth, Red-Hot Women—and Why the Ballot Is Black Women’s Anti-Kryptonite
When I turned forty, I celebrated at Disney.
I called the trip The Last Dance.
Not because I believed my best years were behind me. Not because I was mourning youth or frightened by the number.
I went to honor the girl I had been—and release the idea that I still had to live as her.
Turning forty was my metanoia.
It was the moment my thinking shifted so deeply that I could no longer see myself, my life or my future in quite the same way.
My priorities changed.
My relationship with time changed.
The way I understood womanhood changed.
I stopped measuring my life by youth, expectation and somebody else’s calendar. I began seeing myself through the eyes of a fully grown woman—one who had earned the right to decide what stayed, what left and what came next.
Forty was not simply another birthday.
It was a turning.
A release.
A new direction.
At Epcot, celebrating forty—the birthday that became my Last Dance with youth and my first full step into authority.
THE LAST DANCE
Disney made perfect sense.
It was playful, nostalgic and filled with wonder. It gave the girl I had been one final twirl before I stepped fully into the woman I had become.
I wanted to acknowledge her.
The girl who sketched clothes.
The cheerleader who understood that presence mattered.
The young woman who believed fashion could change the way someone entered a room.
The buyer, stylist, merchandiser and creative who learned to keep moving, even when the fashion industry did not always make room for women who looked like her—or for the women she was determined to serve.
I did not want to abandon that younger version of myself.
I wanted to thank her.
Then I wanted to take the wheel.
That was the real Last Dance: not saying goodbye to joy, curiosity or possibility, but releasing the belief that those things belonged only to the young.
“It’s a small world after all”—and at forty, the world was still wide open.
Before forty, I still carried some of the old questions:
Was I on time?
Had I done enough?
Was I still allowed to begin again?
Could I still wear that?
Had I somehow missed my moment?
Turning forty changed the questions.
What do I want now?
What still fits the woman I have become?
What am I finally ready to release?
What deserves my time, body, energy and attention?
That was my metanoia.
Not a makeover.
Not a crisis.
A complete change in how I understood myself.
FORTY: FIRE — STORIED. RECEIPTS.
There is a fire that comes with being fully grown.
Not the uncontrolled fire that destroys everything in its path.
This is the fire that transforms.
The fire that brings light.
The fire that warms what is worth protecting and burns away what can no longer remain.
That is the spirit behind:
FORTY: FIRE
STORIED. RECEIPTS.
Storied because I have lived.
Because there are chapters behind the woman standing here.
Because confidence did not arrive without disappointment, work, mistakes, recovery, laughter, loss and the courage to begin again.
Receipts because experience leaves evidence.
I do not need to explain every lesson I earned.
I do not need to diminish what I know so someone else can feel like the expert in the room.
I do not have to cool myself down to make other people comfortable.
At forty, I stopped treating my history as baggage.
I recognized it as proof.
The face of a woman not losing herself—but finally meeting herself again.
STYLE AFTER THE SHIFT
My style changed because I changed.
I became less interested in proving I could still wear something and more interested in deciding whether it deserved to be worn by me.
That is a very different way of getting dressed.
I no longer wanted clothes that punished my body, required constant adjusting or asked me to disappear.
I wanted ease without surrender.
Comfort without invisibility.
Polish without performance.
I could wear sequins at noon, a statement suit to dinner, a bold tee beneath a blazer or a dress that entered the room before I spoke.
Not because I was trying to look younger.
Because I finally understood that style did not belong to youth.
It belonged to the woman wearing it.
I stopped dressing to correct myself.
I began dressing to express myself.
There is power in red for the same reason.
Red does not enter quietly.
It signals heat, courage, danger, love, urgency and presence.
It does not apologize for being seen.
Power begins in red.
And sometimes, a grown woman must remind the room that she did not come to disappear.
Red can be polished. Red can be practical. And sometimes red is a high-gloss maxi trench that makes the entrance before you say a word.
RED HOT AT 45
JASMINE CROCKETT: WE SEE YOU
Jasmine Felicia Crockett turned forty-five on March 29, 2026.
Born in St. Louis, she earned a bachelor’s degree from Rhodes College and a law degree from the University of Houston Law Center. She worked in private practice and as a Bowie County public defender before serving in the Texas House of Representatives from 2021 to 2023. She has represented Texas’s 30th Congressional District in the United States House since January 2023.
Attorney.
Former public defender.
Former state representative.
United States congresswoman.
Earlier this year, Crockett sought the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate in Texas. James Talarico won the primary and became the party’s nominee.
But an election result does not erase the courage required to enter the arena.
It does not erase the preparation behind the run.
It does not erase the people who felt represented by the willingness of a Black woman to reach for greater power in a state where the path was never guaranteed to be easy.
At forty-five, Jasmine Crockett is not whispering.
She is not waiting to become less direct, less visible or more comfortable for the people watching.
She is a grown Black woman using her education, legal training, political experience and public voice without pretending that authority requires her to become invisible.
Red hot.
Not because every Black woman must agree with every position, strategy or word.
Red hot because she is prepared to stand in the room.
Because she understands that visibility carries a cost—and chooses to remain visible.
Because she reached beyond the security of what she already held.
Because a woman can lose a race without losing her relevance, purpose or fire.
Jasmine Crockett, at forty-five:
We see you.
RED KRYPTONITE
Red kryptonite is the visual metaphor for everything designed to weaken our power.
Exhaustion.
Disinformation.
Cynicism.
Disappointment.
The belief that one vote cannot matter.
The feeling that politics has become too ugly to touch.
The temptation to withdraw because no candidate is perfect and no election can repair everything at once.
That is how political power is surrendered—not always through one dramatic act, but through a slow draining of hope.
A woman becomes tired.
She stops paying attention.
She assumes someone else will show up.
She decides her absence will not be noticed.
But absence is counted.
Silence creates space for somebody else to make the decision.
Red kryptonite says: You are too tired. Your voice is too small. Nothing will change.
Black women’s anti-kryptonite answers:
We are still here.
THE BALLOT IS BLACK WOMEN’S ANTI-KRYPTONITE
Voting is not magic.
It is not the only work.
It cannot replace organizing, advocacy, education, community care or holding elected officials accountable after they win.
And a ballot is not a love letter to a politician or a promise of blind loyalty to any party.
It is a tool.
A declaration.
A record of our continued presence.
The 2026 midterm elections will be held on November 3, 2026. Every seat in the United States House of Representatives and approximately one-third of the Senate will be decided.
That means the ballot is not merely about who occupies the White House.
It reaches Congress.
Governors.
State legislatures.
Judges.
Mayors.
School boards.
County officials.
Ballot questions.
And decisions that will affect our neighborhoods, businesses, schools, healthcare, safety, rights and families long after Election Day.
That is why I call the ballot Black women’s anti-kryptonite.
Our anti-kryptonite is information.
It is checking our registration before the deadline.
It is reading beyond the viral clip.
It is reviewing the entire ballot, not only the most famous race.
It is knowing what candidates have done—not only what they promise to do.
It is making a voting plan and helping someone else make hers.
It is refusing to let disappointment become permanent disengagement.
We have every right to question politicians.
Every right to demand more.
Every right to change our minds.
Every right to withhold automatic loyalty and require candidates to earn our support.
But we should not confuse political discernment with surrendering our voice.
The ballot does not require us to pretend the system is perfect.
It allows us to remain present while demanding that it become better.
Registered.
Informed.
Prepared.
Present.
That is anti-kryptonite.
FULLY GROWN MEANS FULLY ENGAGED
Turning forty changed the way I understood power.
I stopped believing power was something held only by the person with the biggest title,
the loudest voice or the most impressive room.
Power also lives in daily choices.
What we purchase.
What we refuse.
What we teach.
What we wear.
What we support.
What we say aloud.
And whether we participate in the decisions that govern our lives.
Being fully grown means understanding that no institution, candidate or political party gets unlimited access to our loyalty without accountability.
It means remaining curious enough to learn, clear enough to question and confident enough to make our own choices.
It means refusing to surrender because the work is imperfect.
At forty, I stopped dancing for approval.
As a voter, I refuse to disappear because politics is uncomfortable.
Both decisions come from the same place:
Authority.
ON MY TIME
Some things came later than I expected.
Some things left earlier than I wanted.
Some dreams changed shape completely.
But late according to whose clock?
A fully grown woman understands that her life is not behind schedule simply because it does not resemble the timeline she was handed.
The younger version of me carried the dream.
The fully grown woman developed the discernment to build it.
Turning forty was my metanoia because I stopped believing that power belonged somewhere outside of me.
I began choosing my clothes, my time, my direction and my voice with greater intention.
The girl at Disney was releasing youth.
The woman walking away was claiming authority.
And today, as another midterm approaches, I understand that being fully grown also means remaining fully engaged.
I am not late.
I am living.
I am choosing.
I am moving in alignment.
I am arriving on my own time.
FORTY. FIRE. FULLY GROWN.
STORIED. RECEIPTS.
Red hot.
Registered.
Ready.
Still becoming.
Still voting.
Still beautifully, boldly and unapologetically SEEN.
THE VSG RED REIGN EDIT
WEAR THE FIRE
VANGUARD
AT 44, THE BALLOT WAS NEVER SMALL
Fannie Lou Hamer was forty-four when she learned that she had the constitutional right to register to vote.
In 1962, she traveled with seventeen neighbors to the courthouse in Indianola, Mississippi. After attempting to register, she was threatened by the plantation owner where she lived and worked.
She refused to withdraw her application—and lost her home and livelihood.
The following year, Hamer was arrested and brutally beaten after attending a voter-education program. The injuries remained with her for life.
Still, she continued.
She organized voters, helped form the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and challenged the exclusion of Black citizens at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. Her televised testimony forced the nation to confront the violence Black people endured simply for trying to vote.
Fannie Lou Hamer understood what we must never forget:
The ballot is not a favor.
It is not a love letter to a political party.
It is power.
Power she was willing to risk her safety, home and body to claim—not only for herself, but for generations she would never meet.
She left us the receipt:
The ballot was never small.The cost was never imaginary.And the work was never meant to end with her.
Fannie Lou Hamer—Vanguard.We remember. We vote. We carry it forward.
Personal Disney photographs: Kimberly D. Suggs archive.
Red crystal background: PublicDomainPictures.net, CC0 Public Domain.
Jasmine Crockett photograph: Public-domain image; retain the original source and credit information with the image record.
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