My 40s are ending, not with a bang. Always grateful for my May birthday, I imagine turning 50 in February could be depressing. Spring green cheers me as the actual day rolls in like the tide. I see the years like waves in the sea; they don’t amount to much, except in their entirety.

Remember those childhood birthdays? Everything felt fresh and the world had a heightened clarity. Colors were stronger, the air was cleansed and the sun shone. A new outfit was always pressed and ready. There were clean white socks to wear and presents to open. Anything was possible and once, there was a new blue bike that brought with it a sense of my own seemingly limitless potential.

At a Girl Scout Council dinner recently, my daughter participated in the color guard and got to meet some women who are at the top of their professions. They ranged from network TV personalities to corporate bankers to CEO’s in advertising. The experience let her see herself in a larger context and grow her personal goals accordingly. It was everything I hoped, for her. I didn’t anticipate the effect it would have on me.

As I listened to these women talk about their lives and their work, I thought about my own pursuit of balance in life, between enjoyment and fulfillment. I am lucky that survival has not been a factor for me, although I know it has for other women, my mother included. They didn’t have the luxury of self-analysis.

At the dinner Shelly Lazarus, the head of Ogilvy Partners Worldwide, an advertising goliath, talked zealously about her work. As she spoke I remembered the exhilaration I once felt about my own career in that business. But I also recalled the gnawing discomfort that I was working to a goal I did not value—the corporate struggle to make money.

Turning 40, I considered that my life had not amounted to much. Beyond the accomplishment of motherhood, I questioned my contribution to society and my realization of personal goals. I had yet to pursue writing on anything but a private level.

As an ad exec, my everyday accomplishments seemed ephemeral, lacking in substance. I was valued for my contributions in client meetings, long cajoling phone calls, sales force presentations. I did not haul furniture from one end of the country to the other, or produce an automobile from sheet metal. Those concrete tasks seemed clear, while my job was a mystery of wit, sophistication and intellect. That it paid more than other jobs was another mystery.

Leaving my 40s, my values are straighter, my goals clearer. In the past decade, my work with children has been more valuable to me emotionally than financially. I have guided nearly a hundred families through the formative toddler years. Then there is my own family; my best work. My contribution has been made and now it’s my turn.

Writing is the gift I give myself every day. Although I don’t do it flawlessly, nor even skillfully always, it is my soul. That I get to do it publicly gives my life that childhood birthday feeling every day.