Starting over in your 40s isn’t a soft decision… it’s a loud, uncomfortable, deeply personal one. At 43, with over a decade of experience as a flight attendant and currently serving as a purser, I have lived a career that many people dream about. I have led crews, handled emergencies, memorized procedures, and carried the responsibility of hundreds of passengers on every flight.
And yet… here I am, learning cybersecurity from scratch.
There are days I ask myself the hard questions:
Is it worth it?
Can I really start all over again?
Do I have the patience to learn something completely new at this age?
But whenever doubt creeps in, my mind goes back to my very first flight as a flight attendant. I walked into aviation with zero experience. Every law, every procedure, every safety drill was foreign to me. But day after day, repetition turned into confidence. Practice turned into mastery. Eventually, aviation didn’t just become a job; it became an instinct.
That reminder grounds me: I have done the “ground zero” thing before, and I can do it again.
The difference now?
Life has more weight to it. I wasn’t a mother when I started flying. Back then, it felt like I had time to experiment. Now, I have children watching me, absorbing everything, learning resilience not from my words but from my choices.
This time, the motivation isn’t just personal growth it is legacy.
I want my kids to see that it is never too late to start over, never too late to learn a new skill, never too late to build a second career. Cybersecurity challenges me in new ways, but it also excites me in ways I didn’t expect. And even on the hard days, knowing my children are looking up to me gives me the courage to keep going.
Starting over at 43 isn’t easy. But it is powerful.
And it is absolutely worth it.
