Four People Just Flew to the Moon. The Youngest Was 47.

Two weeks ago, four astronauts flew around the Moon for the first time in over fifty years. Reid Wiseman, 50. Jeremy Hansen, 50. Victor Glover, 49. Christina Koch, 47.

Not one of them was alive when Apollo last made the trip.

I keep coming back to their ages. Not because 47 to 50 is old — it’s not — but because somewhere in their twenties and thirties, none of them knew this was where they’d end up. Hansen was flying fighter jets. Koch was working at a NASA research station in Antarctica. Wiseman was deployed overseas. They were deep in one chapter of their lives, with no guarantee that the next chapter would look anything like this.

And then it did.

The thing about “too late”

There’s a quiet voice that shows up around your mid-thirties and gets louder from there. It says: the window is closing. You should have started by now. The people who do that thing you want to do — they’ve been doing it since they were twenty-two.

I know that voice well. I’ve listened to it more than I’d like to admit.

I’m a mom of two boys, ages 4 and 6. I work in tech. I have a to-do list that regenerates like a hydra. Exactly a year ago this week, I started building something I had absolutely no business building — a platform that turns a child’s favorite toy into the hero of a personalized storybook, with original illustrations and stories that actually land. I called it LoveJoy Books. Then I realized that SEO challenges are real and spent 60 hours finding a new name, not sleeping for days. And then it came — Enchantably.

Here’s the part I didn’t expect: building it made me realize I’m creative.

That probably sounds like a small revelation. It wasn’t. For most of my adult life, I sorted myself into the “strategic thinker” box. Analytical. Organized. Good at data. Not the person who makes the thing — the person who figures out how to sell it. Creativity was for other people. People with art degrees and Moleskine journals and a certain effortlessness I didn’t have.

What perfectionism looks like when it finally finds the right home

I’ve always been a perfectionist. I always thought that was a useful tool — this relentless need to tweak, adjust, question whether something is quite right. But it also slows you down. It makes you second-guess. It makes you lose sleep. Every mentor I’ve ever had has told me to let things go at 80%.

Perfectionism in the wrong context is paralyzing. Perfectionism in the right context is a superpower.

Enchantably has these story arcs — pre-made frameworks, ready for you to drop characters in — and I will tweak every single one until it delights. Until the plot turn is unpredictable. Until there’s an “aha!” moment the child doesn’t see coming. Until a seed of real learning is woven into the adventure so naturally that it just feels like fun.

That obsessive attention to detail? The thing I spent years apologizing for? It turns out that’s what makes a children’s story magical. It’s what makes a parent read the last page and think oh, that was actually good.

I didn’t learn this at 22. I learned it at the age when most people assume their creative identity is already settled.

Your kids are watching you reach

Here’s what I think about when I think about those four astronauts and their kids watching from the ground.

Reid Wiseman is a single dad. His wife passed away in 2020. He has two daughters. He could have stayed home. He said as much — that it would have been easier to sit on the couch on a Saturday. But he also said something that stuck: that these four humans were given a rare position, and the right thing to do was go.

Christina Koch left a 10-year-old behind during her previous mission and spent nearly a year on the International Space Station. Victor Glover brought his Bible and his wedding rings and heirlooms for his four daughters. Jeremy Hansen carried a moon pendant engraved with “moon and back” and his family’s birthstones.

They didn’t reach for the Moon despite being parents. They reached for it as parents.

I think about that with my own boys. They don’t care about my marketing strategy or my product roadmap. But they see me building something. They see me up at night, not because I have to be, but because I’m excited. They see me read a story I made and laugh at the part that surprised even me.

They’re learning that their mom makes things. That she didn’t stop dreaming just because the laundry needs folding. And oh so much laundry there is.

That might be the most important story I ever tell them.

You don’t have to go to the Moon

Not everyone’s “thing” is flying to the Moon. Not everyone’s “thing” is building a company. Maybe yours is finally writing that cookbook. Learning ceramics. Starting a garden. Coaching your kid’s team even though you’ve never coached anything. Going back to school. Picking up a paintbrush for the first time since college.

The Artemis II crew didn’t discover spaceflight at 47. They’d been working toward it for decades. But they did discover this specific version of themselves at 47 — the version that actually goes. The version that sits on top of a rocket and says yes, I’m ready.

What I discovered at my age is that creativity was never something I lacked. It was something I hadn’t given myself permission to use. And the moment I stopped waiting for that permission — the moment I just started building — everything changed.

The stories got better. The ideas got bolder. The voice in my head that said you’re not the creative type got quieter and quieter until one day I realized it had stopped talking entirely.

So this is for the parents who think the window has closed

It hasn’t.

You’re not too old, too busy, too practical, or too far along on a different path. You’re exactly where the Artemis crew was before they were the Artemis crew: in the middle of a full, messy, complicated life — with something extraordinary still waiting.

You might just have to give yourself permission to reach for it.