I recently interviewed to teach at a new corporately owned fusion-fitness studio coming to town.
On paper, it felt like it could make sense. I have more than 20 years of experience in the fitness world. I've taught, managed studios, written curriculum, led teacher trainings, supported new instructors, created programming, and spent a lot of time in rooms with people who were trying to feel stronger in their bodies and more at home in themselves.
I wasn't looking for a new identity. I wasn't hoping someone would finally validate me as a fitness professional. I was not sitting around waiting for a corporate studio teaching job to tell me I was worthy.
Honestly, I just thought it could be fun to teach a couple of in-person classes a few days a week near where I live and meet some new people.
The interview seemed to go well. Or, at least, it seemed like it went well enough that I expected an authentic conversation about next steps afterward.
But instead, the next day, I got the dreaded canned email response: "After careful consideration, blah blah, we have decided to move forward with other candidates, blah blah, best of luck in your future endeavors."
No feedback. No specifics. Just the saccharine-polite, generic corporate version of "Thanks, but actually no thanks."
The surprise of it
I was surprised by how much it got under my skin.
After my rapid-fire, emotionally reactive rage-text venting outburst to my saint of a husband ended, I was finally able to relax and see things for what they were.
I realized that, though it may have seemed like I was, I wasn't devastated. I wasn't spiraling. I wasn't going to question every choice I have ever made while lying awake at 2:00 a.m. doomscrolling.
I was just simply confused.
Like, really confused.
Sometimes rejection is painful because you wanted the thing so, so badly. But other times, it's painful because things just don't make any logical or reasonable sense.
The second one? That's what happened to me.
The quiet question underneath
I found myself thinking: Who are these people, exactly? And who are they to tell me no?
Not in an arrogant way. More in the way of knowing I have spent years developing a skill, mastering a craft, showing up professionally, and becoming someone with actual, unfakeable experience (and the receipts to back it up) only to realize that, in this situation, all of those things appeared to carry zero weight.
Was this my first real invisible-midlife-woman moment?
Gasp and dramatically clutch pearls here.
I don't know.
That's the most frustrating part.
No one said, "We chose someone younger." No one said, "We prefer a more homogeneous look for our brand." No one said, "Your résumé is quite impressive, but we want someone who photographs better in our logo-branded tops and will obsessively post fifteen Instagram Reels a day about being an instructor here."
They just sent me a canned email and left me to make sense of it on my own.
Maybe it had nothing to do with my age, my looks, or my lack of love for posting selfies. Maybe it was simply scheduling conflicts. Or maybe they knew someone with my experience level would command a higher pay rate. Maybe they thought I wouldn't adapt to their "style" as quickly or easily as someone with less experience. Maybe they already had all the candidates they needed lined up before they ever spoke to me and just gave me an interview to be polite.
Or maybe it was one of those moments that women in midlife know too well: the subtle feeling that your knowledge, power, wisdom, grace, and professionalism are somehow considered less valuable than youth, conventional beauty, or a more social-media-ready and easily marketable version of what fitness is, who gets to teach it, and therefore who should have access.
The truth is, I do not know what happened.
But I do know that entering midlife means navigating more than the physical and hormonal changes nobody really prepared us for. There are emotional and mental changes too. There is the strange dance of learning where you stand with people, systems, workplaces, and industries that may once have felt more open and accepting.
You start noticing the difference between being experienced and being perceived as relevant.
And that can be confusing.
You start to walk the line between not caring and caring a lot. Between not giving a fuck and giving all the fucks. And it's super weird.
Some days, I'm very solidly in the "this does not define me" camp. I know who I am. I know what I have done. I know the value I bring to a class, a training, a studio, and a conversation.
Other days, I feel disrespected and want to know why.
I just want honesty. I want a real person to speak to me, not a copied-and-pasted email template presented as a reason. I want to know what they were looking for, what I did not have, and why 20-plus years of experience was apparently not enough.
I want to know whether it was about my qualifications, my availability, my age, my energy, my appearance, or something else entirely. Because I can handle that.
What is harder for me to handle is a door being abruptly slammed in my face and expecting me to consider that closure.
Rejection is protection, but not always
The real work is allowing myself to be confused without turning that confusion into a narrative about my worth.
We often hear that "rejection is protection."
But that does not always mean something better is immediately waiting around the corner with a big red bow on top. Sometimes it just means you do not have to make yourself smaller, younger, shinier, or more palatable to belong in a room that did not want you there, or did not know what to do with you anyway.
Back to creating my own opportunities
I wanted to teach a couple of classes in my neighborhood. That was it.
I really didn't expect the situation to affect me as much as it did. But it did, and I am not embarrassed to admit it.
At the end of the day, I still have my life. I still have work I care deeply about. I still have great ideas, a deep well of experience, inspiring stories, people I can help, and opportunities I can continue to create for myself.
I know who I am.
I do not need to be a member of every club. I do not need to be chosen to know that I belong.
Maybe that is the thing nobody tells you about this phase of life: sometimes you have to hold both truths at once.
You can be just fine.
And you can still wonder what the hell just happened.
♥