Finding Forty

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about

I’m Jane Elliott—wife, teacher, writer, mother, former foster parent, and a woman learning to navigate the beautiful and brutal in-between. Raised in chaos and shaped by the question, “What would my 40-year-old self say?”—I write to make sense of the past and to carve gentleness into the present. This blog is part reflection, part becoming—a space for grief, grace, and growth. One birthday, one breath, one brave word at a time.

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  • Guilty Lunch

    Guilty Lunch

    Our youngest son recently had a procedure at Arkansas Children’s Hospital. My husband grabbed us lunch while we were there, and we sat down to eat near another young couple with a baby even smaller than ours. And for reasons that made absolutely no sense in the present moment, I felt guilty. I wondered if…

  • Love Without a Guarantee

    Love Without a Guarantee

    I have been relieved by pregnancies ending. I have felt guilty for that relief. And I have been so afraid of losing a baby that I was afraid to completely surrender myself to loving him. Then, when I carried Elias, my prayer changed: No matter how long he lives inside of me, I am going…

  • The Hush of Fears

    For years, stiff-person syndrome has just been part of the landscape of our family. It means IVIG. It means Tuesdays planned around infusions. It means knowing there is a treatment that helps my husband while also carrying around the quiet knowledge that it manages the disease—it doesn’t cure it. And there have always been fears.…

  • Thirteen Years

    This year marks thirteen years since I divorced my first husband. Thirteen years. When I signed those papers, I wasn’t walking away with no idea what I wanted. Actually, I had a pretty good idea. I wanted a healthy marriage. I wanted children. I wanted a home filled with laughter, chaos, love, and purpose. I…

  • Down.

    Down.

    Sometimes healing doesn’t arrive as a retreat or a spa day. Sometimes it arrives like a collapse and says, Sit down. Stop carrying everything.

  • Not Montessori. Not Minimalist. Just Tired.

    Not Montessori. Not Minimalist. Just Tired.

    We all sleep in one room right now. 🤍 Toddler got upgraded to a toddler bed.Baby got upgraded from the mini crib to a full crib. Is it traditional? Nope. But neither is sprinting through the house half asleep while tiny people roam the halls at 2am. Families have slept communally for most of human…

  • Soft Light, Heavy Things

    Soft Light, Heavy Things

    I am raising childrenand meeting every version of myself along the way some days feel like growthsome days feel like barely holding it together in soft lighting my life is loudfull of small hands, scattered toys, and needs that come before my own I am the one who remembersthe one who anticipatesthe one who keeps…

  • Chosen

    Chosen

    In a life that began unchosen, I am learning—slowly, quietly— that I was always held.

  • Butts, Not Booties: How Addiction Trains a Child’s Eyes

    Butts, Not Booties: How Addiction Trains a Child’s Eyes

    I saw a cigarette butt on the ground today. As I do many times in public…. Not just saw it—locked onto it. As I do everytime. The filter still clean.The paper barely burned down.A “good one.” And before I could even think, my brain did what it was trained to do: That’s going to waste.…

  • Subtle Instincts

    Subtle Instincts

    As spring break began, we went against every instinct I have as a mother. We let my child be exposed to peanuts. On purpose. In a clinic. With a team watching closely. This is part of a clinical study designed to better understand and treat peanut allergies in a controlled setting. I understood the why.…