The Birthday Mirror
What Turning 41 Taught Me About Power, Place, and Persistence
Some years are candles. Others are floodlights.
I turned 41 today. Which means I’m officially too old to be called “young” in politics but still young enough to be underestimated.
There’s something about birthdays that holds up a mirror—not just to your face, which is always a little older than you remember, but to the last twelve months. It asks, what did you fight for? Who stood beside you? Where did the fault lines form?
My mother has a saying she pulls out when someone is behaving badly or dressed with… let’s call it unearned confidence:
“That person has no mirror, no mother, and no friends.”
At 41, I’ve realized that quote isn’t just about fashion. It’s about accountability. About what happens when people insulate themselves from truth, from critique, from friendship. Because having a mirror, a mother, and friends—means you’ve always got someone who tells you the truth before the world has to.
This past year I’ve learned how much of public life is theater, how much of it is silence, and how much still depends on who’s willing to read the fine print when no one else wants to. I’ve seen how power works in small towns. How people weaponize kindness. How too often women are expected to smile through disrespect while the real decisions get made in back rooms.
But I’ve also learned that the mirror doesn’t just reflect what's broken—it shows you who’s still standing. And why.
What the Campaign Taught Me About the Mirror
When I ran for office this past year, I thought the hardest part would be convincing people I was qualified. It wasn’t. The hardest part was realizing how many people already knew I was qualified—and found that threatening.
The campaign became a kind of x-ray. It didn’t just show me what people said they wanted from their government. It showed me what they feared, what they clung to, and what they were willing to overlook for the sake of maintaining control.
I learned that some people would rather lose a town than see it evolve.
But I also met neighbors who hadn’t given up. Strong women who held the line, with their quiet power. Teenagers who followed the issues during the campaign for fun. Retirees who showed up to every meeting, even when they knew the vote was already decided. And I saw how, even in a town divided by party lines, someone with the rare gift of knowing everyone’s name—and meaning it—can build bridges the rest of us are too bruised to cross.
They reminded me that local politics isn’t small. It’s just close enough to see the details.
History Has a Birthday, Too
History doesn’t move in straight lines. It loops, it echoes, it circles back in ways we only recognize in hindsight. And just like us, it has filler years—the ones that don’t end in zeroes or fives but still leave a mark. The 41s.
Turning 41 doesn’t come with fanfare. It’s not a milestone. It’s a mirror year—where reflection replaces celebration. But look closely, and you’ll find other 41s in the record: quiet pivots that didn’t announce themselves with fireworks but shifted everything.
In 1941, while authoritarianism swept across Europe, Franklin D. Roosevelt stood before Congress and gave his Four Freedoms speech. He outlined not just a foreign policy, but a moral vision—freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. It was a moment of clarity before global escalation, a reminder that values aren’t just declared—they're defended.
In 1971, the Pentagon Papers exposed decades of deception about the Vietnam War. Americans watched their government’s credibility crumble in real time. That wasn’t a revolution—it was a realization. A mirror held up to the American experiment that forced people to stop giving the benefit of the doubt and start demanding accountability.
And by 1991, the Cold War had quietly ended, and the Soviet Union dissolved. Maps were redrawn, alliances reshaped, and the balance of power shifted—without a single defining moment. Instead, the world blinked and found itself in a new era. The drama wasn’t in the noise. It was in the stillness that followed.
These “41s” aren’t the years we celebrate. They’re the ones we grow through. The ones that test our memory, our integrity, and our willingness to see clearly—even when we’d rather not.
Here’s What I See at 41
I see a country inching toward something dangerous—but not gone yet.
I see towns like mine where the people in charge have stopped listening—not out of malice, but out of fear. And in that silence, something essential has gone missing: trust.
I see brilliant, exhausted women biting their tongues in meetings where they should be running the show.
But I also see a path forward.
One rooted in civic participation, public accountability, and good old-fashioned neighborliness. One where people aren’t afraid to call out the emperor’s new clothes—and aren’t afraid to knock on doors when no one else will.
If there’s one birthday candle I want to blow out this year, it’s the lie that we’re powerless.
We’re not.
We’re just taught to forget our own strength.
What Comes Next
Birthdays always ask the same question: Now what?
For me, it’s continuing the work. Not from a podium, but from a place of purpose. Writing. Organizing. Teaching people how to read the ordinance before it passes. Helping them ask better questions. Reminding them that political power doesn’t trickle down—it builds up.
So, here’s my invitation, if you’ve read this far: Take a moment today to stand in front of your own mirror. Not just to check your reflection, but to ask what you’re still here to fight for? What still lights your fire? What you refuse to look away from?
Because if there’s one thing 41 has taught me, it’s this:
The mirror doesn’t lie.
But it doesn’t tell the whole story, either.
You do.