Meghan Markle Turns 40 — and This Resurfaced Blog Post of Hers is More Relevant Than Ever

Meghan Markle celebrates her 40th birthday today, but we’re looking back at how she marked her special day seven years ago. On August 4, 2014 the then-actress took to her lifestyle blog The Tig to share a few thoughts as she turned 33. Now that post has resurfaced and it seems more fitting to her life than ever after the last year.

“I am 33 years old today. And I am happy. And I say that so plainly because, well…it takes time,” she wrote. “To be happy. To figure out how to be kind to yourself. To not just choose that happiness, but to feel it.”

However as her blog continues, the points she makes hit home harder than ever, especially now she and Prince Harry are no longer working members of the royal family. In the blog, Meghan admits that her twenties and teenage years weren’t exactly great.

“My 20s were brutal — a constant battle with myself, judging my weight, my style, my desire to be as cool, as hip, as smart, or as ‘whatever’ as everyone else,” she continued.

“My teens were even worse — grappling with how to fit in, and what that even meant. My high school had cliques: the black girls and white girls, the Filipino, and the Latina girls. Being biracial, I fell somewhere in between.

“So everyday during lunch, I busied myself with meetings — French club, student body, whatever one could possibly do between noon and 1pm — I was there. Not so that I was more involved, but so that I wouldn’t have to eat alone,” she added.

But it was when Meghan was in her mid-twenties that she learned a mantra that stuck with her, one that has carried her through the last few challenging years since falling in love with Harry and joining the British royal circle. 

“I must have been about 24 when a casting director looked at me during an audition and said ‘You need to know that you’re enough. Less makeup, more Meghan.’

“You need to know that you’re enough. A mantra that has now engrained itself so deeply within me that not a day goes by without hearing it chime in my head. That five pounds lost won’t make you happier, that more makeup won’t make you prettier, that the now iconic saying from Jerry Maguire — ‘You complete me’ — frankly, isn’t true. You are complete with or without a partner. You are enough just as you are,” she concluded.

Over the last 40 years she’s seen great success in her career, most notably her role on Suits and as a global ambassador for numerous philanthropic causes including feminism, the fight against climate change, the arts, and animal rights. She’s travelled the world, spoken at the UN, made friends, fallen in love, and welcomed two children, Archie and Lilibet.

So in honor of Meghan’s big 4-0, let’s be kind and remember that not only are we enough, but she is as well. Happy birthday Meghan!

This article originally appeared on our sister site, Now to Love.