A few weeks ago, I hosted a session with a handful of Real Girls Guide baddies led by my cousin, Jessica Cathey.

I walked into the entire session thinking I knew exactly what I was carrying. I left realizing some of it wasn’t mine in the first place.

And if I’m being honest, I was a little skeptical.

Not of Jessica… of the idea that a few hours on a random Saturday were going to tell me something I didn’t already know.

I’ve spent years talking about my feelings, writing about my feelings, and overthinking my feelings. I’d done therapy. I’d had the hard conversations. I’d unpacked (and am still unpacking) plenty.

Then a breathing exercise came along and reminded me there were apparently still a few boxes in storage.

One of the things that came up for me was blame. I’d spent years taking responsibility for things that weren’t mine to carry. As a daughter, a wife, a mother, and a fixer, I got so used to holding the bag that I started mistaking it for part of my personality.

I also had a moment involving my grandmother that I’m still not entirely sure how to explain.

And, I’m okay with that.

What I know is that I showed up expecting an interesting experience and left carrying less than I arrived with.

And since I come from a long line of women who process life by talking about it (usually loudly, we are Italian after all), I figured the best next step was a conversation!

1. Let’s start at the beginning. How the hell did you end up doing this work? What was happening in your life that led you toward healing, breathwork, and helping others reconnect with themselves?

Jessica: For most of my life, I thought I was healing. What I was actually doing, was surviving.

I spent decades carrying abandonment, grief, insecurity, loss, and a nervous system that seemed permanently wired for danger. I became incredibly skilled at functioning. I could show up. Perform. Take care of business. And keep moving.

By my late 30s and early 40s, I had a beautiful life. A loving husband. Two amazing children.

Meaningful work. Yet the coping mechanisms I’d built over a lifetime were still running the show.

Control. Hyper-independence. Seeking validation outside myself.

In May of 2023, I attended a plant medicine journey hoping to heal. What happened instead was that I remembered.

I remembered who I was before survival became my identity. And that experience changed the trajectory of my life. It led me deeper into understanding the nervous system, breathwork, intuition, healing, and ultimately helping other women come home to themselves.

Because that’s what I believe healing really is. Remembering who the hell we are beneath the noise, the conditioning, and the inherited beliefs.

2. Was there a moment when you realized the life you were living no longer fit the person you were becoming? What shifted for you, and what did you learn from it?

Jessica: Well, I wasn’t trying to escape my life. I loved my life. But I also started to realize that my soul was getting louder than my coping mechanisms. And I was fed up with looking for external validation, hiding my pain, acting from survival, and wearing armor. I reached a place where guarding myself became more painful than changing. And once I started remembering who I was, forgetting was no longer possible.

3. You work with women navigating divorce, caregiving, empty nests, grief, menopause, career pivots, and all the other surprises nobody warned us about. What patterns do you see over and over again? What are women struggling with most right now?

Jessica: Women living in survival mode and calling it normal. Women who have become so accustomed to carrying everyone else’s needs that they can no longer hear their own.

Women who believe exhaustion is just part of life. Women who have spent years proving their worth through what they do instead of recognizing their worth already exists.

Most of the women I work with aren’t broken. They’re disconnected. They’ve spent so much time surviving that they’ve forgotten who they are underneath the survival. And through my work, time and time again, I watch them wake up in real time. It’s incredible.

4. For women who hear “breath work” and immediately think, “Cool. I’ve been breathing my whole life,” what is actually happening during these sessions and why can they feel so transformative?

Jessica: Most people hear the word breathwork and assume it’s about breathing better. It’s not.

It’s about accessing parts of yourself that thinking alone can’t reach.

We spend years trying to heal through logic. We talk about our experiences. We analyze our patterns. We understand exactly why we are the way we are. Yet we still find ourselves reacting from the same wounds, fears and survival strategies.

That’s because healing doesn’t happen exclusively in the mind. The body keeps score.

It stores grief, heartbreak, stress, fear, trauma and emotions we never fully processed.

Breathwork creates a bridge between the conscious mind and the subconscious body. It allows us to bypass the part of ourselves that wants to analyze everything and access what is ready to be released, felt, witnessed or transformed.

I’ve watched women reconnect with forgotten parts of themselves in a single session. I’ve watched tears that had been waiting decades to fall finally come through. I’ve watched women experience profound peace after years of anxiety.

What makes it transformative isn’t the breath itself. It’s what becomes available when the noise quiets down and the body finally feels safe enough to let go.

It’s not just a breathing session. It’s a reconnection to intuition - allowing it to become loud again.

And for many women, it’s the first time they’ve truly met themselves in years.

5. So many women spend decades taking care of everyone else and then wake up one day wondering where they went. When someone feels disconnected from herself, where should she start?

Jessica: I think the first step is understanding that you’re not lost. You haven’t disappeared. You’re not broken.

You’ve simply become buried beneath years of responsibilities, expectations, roles, obligations and survival strategies.

Most women don’t wake up one day disconnected from themselves. It happens gradually. We become the caretaker. The wife. The mother. The employee. The helper. The fixer. And somewhere along the way, we stop asking ourselves what we need.

So I don’t believe the answer is to become someone new.

I believe the answer is to remember who you were before the world told you who you needed to be.

Start by getting curious. What do I want? What feels true for me? What am I tolerating? What am I pretending not to know? What lights me up? What drains me?

The smallest acts of self-connection matter. A walk. Five minutes of silence. A journal. A breathwork session. A conversation with someone who sees you. A bath. A massage.

You don’t have to figure out the rest of your life. You simply have to start listening again.

Part of my work - whether through breathwork, channeling, sacred circles or intuitive guidance - is helping women remember how to hear themselves again. Because the answers they’re searching for are often already within them.

The woman you’re looking for isn’t gone. She’s been waiting for you to come back.

Bonus Question: What’s a belief, piece of advice, or expectation women have been carrying around for years that you wish we’d collectively throw straight into the trash?

Jessica: That being everything for everyone else is somehow a virtue. I think women have been praised for self-sacrifice for so long that many of us confuse depletion with love. We’ve been taught that good women give until there’s nothing left. That our needs should come last. That rest must be earned. That asking for help is weakness. That if everyone around us is okay, then we’re okay too.

Fuck. That. Noise.

A woman who abandons herself cannot fully show up for anyone else. Caring for yourself is not selfish. It’s responsible.

When a woman learns to honor her needs, trust herself, set boundaries, rest, receive support and take up space, everyone around her benefits.

So if I could throw one belief directly into the trash, it would be this: Your worth is measured by how much you sacrifice. Your worth was never up for negotiation in the first place.

I still don’t fully understand what happened that day. I just know I left carrying less than I brought with me. At this stage of life, that’s reason enough for me to pay attention. If you’d like to learn more about Jessica and her work, you can find her here:

Website: www.thejessicacatheychannel.com

Instagram: @TheJessicaCatheyChannel

And if you’ve ever had one of those experiences that leaves you staring at the ceiling later thinking, “Well, I wasn’t expecting that,” I’m here for it all!

We’ve earned every wrinkle. Might as well make more laugh lines together.
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Grab a New Midlife Workbook!

And if you’ve read my first book and loved it, a quick review on Amazon helps keep it moving!

Even with all the talk about redefining midlife, I still hear the word “crisis” a lot. It gets used like it explains everything, and it really doesn’t. And on the flip side, there’s the “it’s not a crisis, it’s clarity” version (which, fine, I’ve probably said myself once or twice), and that doesn’t explain much either.

Most of the time, it’s just a label we use so we don’t have to look too closely at what’s actually happening.

The version people picture is the one I keep seeing play out around me. It’s the obvious one: something happens, it’s visible, a little disruptive, and more often than not it follows a very male-coded version of midlife. A sharp left turn that people around them can point to and say, “there it is.”

One of my favorite publications, The Midst, shared a stat that stuck with me: only about 23% of people actually experience something that qualifies as a true midlife crisis. Which means the version that gets labeled so quickly isn’t what most people are actually living through.

We’re using one word to describe two very different experiences, and mostly noticing one of them.

Put two people in the same relationship, and that difference gets a lot harder to ignore.

(PS: If you want a more grounded breakdown of how this is being defined and where that 23% actually comes from, that piece is worth reading here.)

From what I’m seeing, it doesn’t come with a clean headline. It builds over time and shows up in how things land long before anything on the outside changes. For women especially, it rarely follows that obvious, dramatic arc, so it often gets reduced to stress, mood, or hormones instead of being taken seriously for what’s actually shifting underneath.

When I find something gets overused like this, I go back to the definition. A midlife crisis isn’t really about the behavior everyone points to. It’s about tension: the gap between the life someone thought they’d have and the one they’re actually in. That gap creates pressure, and the difference shows up in where that pressure goes.

Lately, I’ve been noticing how differently that plays out. For a lot of (not all) men, it moves outward. Something feels off and the instinct is to fix it by rearranging something around them: where their attention goes, how they see themselves, what they’re doing. It doesn’t always make sense from the outside, but it’s easy to spot.

For a lot of women, it moves in the opposite direction at first. It stays internal and shows up as more questioning, more noticing, and a sense that something doesn’t quite fit the way it used to. Nothing is necessarily broken, which is part of why it gets overlooked.

There’s a version of a relationship I’ve been seeing more clearly. The kind that runs for decades because it’s built on roles that both people understand without ever really spelling them out. It keeps going because it functions. There’s enough structure, shared responsibility, and momentum to keep everything moving forward.

Then midlife strips just enough of that away to reveal what’s been there all along.

The kids grow up. The schedules open. The constant motion that once held everything together starts to ease up. What’s left is the relationship itself, without as much around it to absorb the friction. That’s when it starts to feel different, even if nothing has technically changed.

A therapist friend of mine (and our resident expert), Charles Bauman, said it in a way that stuck. “A lot of men won’t go build real friendships or reach out to other men. So their partner becomes everything by default: companion, sounding board, social life, all of it.” He sees it constantly. It works as long as someone is willing to carry that weight.

Over time, that imbalance becomes harder to ignore. And often, that’s where the responses often diverge. One person starts looking more closely at what’s actually there, while the other is trying to ease the discomfort without necessarily examining it. Both are responding to the same thing, just in completely different ways.

They’re in the same stage of life, but it just doesn’t land the same way.

Something’s Gotta Give Gets It

I’ve always loved Something’s Gotta Give. It’s one of those movies (like Bridesmaids, Sisters, and My Big Fat Greek Wedding) that’s always in rotation for me.

I just rewatched it, and it hits different now. What stood out this time was the contrast between the two main characters.

Jack Nicholson plays the version everyone recognizes. Older, successful, still surrounding himself with much younger women (including the daughter of the lead played by Diane Keaton) and moving through the world like nothing really needs to change. When something feels off, he looks for a way to fix it outside himself. It’s visible, easy to point to, and quick to label.

The experience of Diane Keaton’s character moves in a completely different direction. Nothing about her life looks broken from the outside, but the way she sees it starts to change. There’s a recognition of what she’s been accepting and what no longer feels like enough. It doesn’t come with a big moment, but it changes what she’s willing to stay in.

That’s the part that gets lost when everything gets labeled a crisis.

The focus stays on what’s easiest to see instead of what’s been changing all along. The story becomes that something suddenly went wrong when, for many women, something has been quietly building for years.

Maybe that’s why so many conversations about midlife miss the point.

#RealGirlsGuidetoMidlife #MidlifeCrisis #MidlifeWorkbook

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Grab a New Midlife Workbook!

And if you’ve read my first book and loved it, a quick review on Amazon helps keep it moving!

Somehow we’re already at Part 8.

What started as a quick list of things I couldn’t stop talking about has quietly turned into a pretty great collection of books, podcasts, creators, products, places, and random internet rabbit holes that make life a little smarter, a little easier, a little glowier, and definitely more entertaining.

Some I stumbled across myself. Quite a few came from all of you.

Either way, they’ve all earned a spot on our ever-growing Real Girls Obsessions list.

Let’s add a few more.

People We’re Listening To

Chelsea Waterwall on IG - Nostalgia, car dancing, and the soundtrack to raising my three boys.

Why We Love Her: Chelsea completely hijacked my Instagram algorithm, and I’m not even mad about it.

Her reels have become my excuse to turn the volume all the way up and dance around my kitchen or sing in the car like nobody’s watching. She has a gift for bringing back songs you forgot you loved until the first few notes hit. And it takes me right back to car dancing and signing with my 3 J boys (often to widely inappropriate tunes) that we each vibed with hardest: Uproar for my biggest boy, Florida’s Low for #2 (which he called the apple song), and Get Low for me and #3.

Those songs instantly take me back to road trips, baseball tournaments, school drop-offs, and three little boys who somehow turned into men. They’re 23, 20, and 15 now, but music has this incredible way of collapsing time.

One chorus in and suddenly we’re all singing at the top of our lungs again.

Unapologetic Midlife with Mindi Lobuzzetta - Honest conversations about what comes next.

Why We Love Her: Mindi recently invited me onto her podcast, and it immediately felt less like an interview and more like two women comparing notes.

She talks openly about confidence, identity, reinvention, mental health, relationships, and everything that comes with building a life that still feels like your own after decades of taking care of everyone else. If you’re looking for thoughtful conversations that leave you with something to think about, she’s worth adding to your rotation.

Victoria Byrd on Substack and on her pod - Proof that reinvention doesn’t have an expiration date.

Why We Love Her: Victoria also welcomed me onto her podcast, and since then I’ve become a regular reader of her Substack. One of the things I appreciate most is that she isn’t chasing trends or miracle fixes. She writes and speaks thoughtfully about building what’s next, trusting yourself again, and creating a life that actually fits the woman you’ve become instead of the one everyone expected you to be.

She’s also working toward her PhD while continuing to build her business, which I find wildly inspiring. Women really can keep becoming new versions of themselves.

Beeanca411 on IG - So many things to love! She says exactly what you’re thinking… only funnier.

Why We Love Her: Bee has become one of those creators I’ll stop scrolling for every single time. First of all, she starts so many of her reels with, “I’m so glad you picked up the phone,” and somehow it immediately feels like you’re catching up with your funniest cousin. The reel that hooked me was about panty liners refusing to stick where they’re supposed to. It was so ridiculously specific and so completely relatable that I laughed out loud.

That’s what makes her content so good.

Secondly, she says all the things most people wouldn’t dare say out loud, then somehow balances those observations with the exact pep talk you didn’t know you needed. And every now and then she’ll casually drop a word like ‘whilst’ into the conversation.

I mean… come on.

Books, Bookstores & Book Clubs

Yellow Bird Books in Aurora IL - Exactly the kind of bookstore every community deserves.

Why We Love Them: If you’ve been following our Obsessions series, you already know Dr. Alexis Dunne and I are slightly obsessed with If You Give a Cat a Hot Flash. Well… Menopawsy is heading to Yellow Bird Books for Alexis’ first official bookstore event on July 19, and I couldn’t imagine a better place.

Independent bookstores have an incredibly special place in my heart. They’re the ones championing local authors (like me), welcoming self-published writers, hosting events, introducing readers to books they never knew they needed, and building real communities around stories.

Yellow Bird feels exactly like that. Small. Local. Scrappy. Book-loving.

Please support places like this whenever you can.

BONUS: Independent Bookstores (Bookshop.org is a great way to support them.)

Why We Love Them: Because algorithms will never replace a bookseller who says, “You have to read this.”

Maybe it is because I’m an author now. Maybe it’s because I know firsthand how much these stores do for writers.

Either way, I’ve become even more passionate about supporting independent bookstores whenever I travel.

Amazon serves a purpose. Independent bookstores build communities. There’s room for both.

But if you have a local indie near you, walk in. Buy a book. Talk to the staff. You’ll probably leave with three recommendations you never would have found on your own.

Talking Animals Books - The bookstore that believed in me before most people knew my name.

Why We Love Them: Talking Animals will always have a special place in my heart because author and creator Lacey Pruett read THE REAL GIRLS GUIDE TO MIDLIFE, loved it, and invited me in.

We’ve now done two events together, and every visit reminds me why independent bookstores matter so much.

They’re thoughtful, welcoming, deeply connected to their readers, and passionate about introducing people to books they’ll genuinely love.

They’ve built something really special, and I’m incredibly grateful to be a tiny part of it.

The Finlay Donovan Series by Elle Cosimano - Fast, funny, wildly entertaining, and proof that ordinary women can become absolute badasses.

Why We Love It: First of all…In my next life, I’d like to be Finlay Donovan.

This series somehow blends friendship, mystery, crime, motherhood, and laugh-out-loud humor into books you genuinely can’t put down.

What I love most is watching women figure things out together—even when they don’t have a plan, don’t have the experience, and definitely didn’t expect life to head in this direction.

These books are smart, ridiculously fun, and a reminder that sometimes the most capable people are the ones who never saw themselves coming.

Saving Noah by Lucinda Berry - The kind of book that stays with you long after you’ve finished it.

Why We Love It: I’m not reading this one for the second time because it’s easy. I’m doing it because it isn’t.

As the mom of three boys, this story forced me to wrestle with questions I hope no parent ever has to answer. It challenged my heart in ways very few books ever have.

Lucinda spent years working as a trauma psychologist before becoming one of the bestselling thriller authors in the country, and that experience shows on every page.

She’s also built an incredible second career, sold millions of books, and quietly reminds me that women are capable of reinventing themselves at every stage of life.

Creepy Book Club - For people who like their stories a little darker.

Why We Love It: Started by two best friends (including Ashley Desanno at lotsamiles on IG - a personal fan fav and Dr Emily Reeder), this is the book club for people like me who prefer a reading list that leans more psychological thriller than beach romance.

Creepy Book Club has built a community around books that make you question everyone, trust no one, and immediately text your friends, “You HAVE to read this.”

It’s fun, welcoming, and dangerously good for your TBR pile.

Even more importantly, Ashley and Emily have used the community they’ve built to shine a light on heartbreaking unsolved cases, including the murder of Rachel Hansen. Their companion podcast, Reconsidered: Unsolved, takes a thoughtful, research-driven look at cases like Rachel’s that deserve continued attention and reminds us that behind every headline is a family still searching for answers. The 4 episodes on Rachel’s case should be required listening.

Real Girls Guide Midlife Workbook - Because sometimes you need somewhere to put all the thoughts swirling around in your head.

Why We Love It: A little shameless self-promotion… cuz if I don’t do it… then how do I expect others to??!!

The workbook exists because reading something and actually doing something with it are two very different things. Over the last year at RGG, we’ve talked about everything from menopause and parenting to relationships, confidence, purpose, grief, identity, and figuring out who we become after spending decades taking care of everyone else.

The workbook gives those conversations somewhere to land. It’s full of prompts, exercises, reframes, journal pages, and tiny practices designed to help you get out of your head and onto the page.

Sometimes the answers have been there all along. They just needed somewhere to come out.

Products Quietly Pulling Their Weight

ANUA PDRN - Remember Amanda from Part 7? Yep… She got me again.

Why We Love It: If you’ve been seeing PDRN everywhere lately, it’s because it delivers stellar support for skin repair, hydration, elasticity, and that elusive “you look really well” glow without looking like you’ve done anything dramatic.

I’ve only recently started using it, but I’m impressed enough that it earned a spot here.

I’ll also link Amanda’s ShopMy page here because she doesn’t feature anything that is not fully tested and that actually WORKS!

Aloha Collection Tote - The one that somehow carries my entire life. And that is saying a lot!

Why We Love It: I’ve never really been a purse person. Which probably explains the missing credit cards, misplaced keys, and occasional moment of wondering where I put… well… everything.

This tote has become my answer.

It’s lightweight, waterproof, ridiculously roomy, and somehow works equally well for the beach, airplanes, book events, and the constant back-and-forth between California and Australia.

Apparently I just needed one giant bag instead of twelve small ones.

Salty Crew - Great design never goes out of style.

Why We Love It: One of my favorite humans on the planet, Carrie Trimm Drew, has been part of the Real Girls Guide ride since the very beginning.

She’s also an incredibly talented apparel designer whose work regularly shows up in Salty Crew collections.

There’s something really satisfying about seeing someone you admire doing work that’s instantly recognizable without needing to put their name all over it.

I’ve been a fan of Salty Crew for years (as have my 3 J boys), and now I get an extra kick every time one of Carrie’s designs shows up.

A few of my Carrie favs are: the Ombre Muscle Tank, Mai Tai Tails Skimmer, and Salty Sardine Boyfriend Tee.

Bronwyn Saglimbeni and her Flip Flop Recommendation Featured in Substack - She somehow knows exactly what we need before we do.

Why We Love Her: Our RGG crew has met Bronwyn before. She’s one of my favorite writers, someone I’ve known for decades, and she was also one of the experts featured in The Real Girls Guide to Midlife.

A few weeks ago she wrote about finally finding the perfect grown-up leather flip-flops.

The timing couldn’t have been better.

I looked down while reading her piece and realized I was wearing my middle son’s old Reef sandals… from when he was about fifteen.

I’ve clearly reached the stage of life where I was happily wearing my kid’s hand-me-down flip-flops without giving it a second thought.

Needless to say… I ordered the grown-up pair Bronwyn featured from Zara.

Sometimes the universe knows exactly what it’s doing.

That’s a wrap for Part 8. The full running list of Real Girls Obsessions can be found here.

And if something recently earned a permanent spot in your group chat, your headphones, your nightstand, your beach bag, or your late-night scroll… send it my way.

Some of my favorite discoveries over the last eight installments have come from this community, and I have a feeling we’re only getting started.

#RealGirlsGuidetoMidlife #RealGirlsGuideObsessions #MidlifeFaves

We’ve earned every wrinkle. Might as well make more laugh lines together.
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And if you’ve read my first book and loved it, a quick review on Amazon helps keep it moving!

I spent a lot of years thinking discipline was the answer. A better plan. A better routine. A better system.

But lately I’ve been wondering if the problem isn’t discipline at all.

Most women I know aren’t lacking discipline. They’re carrying too many priorities that no longer belong to them (and maybe never really did): other people’s needs, expectations, emergencies.

Writing seriously gets me thinking about this because one question keeps showing up: what matters now?

Not what mattered ten years ago. Now.

So, what’s taking up space in your life that no longer deserves it?

P.S. This question (and a whole lot of others like it) found their way into the new Real Girls Guide Midlife Workbook.

#RealGirlsGuidetoMidlife #RealGirlsGuideMidlifeWorkbook #JulyReframe

We’ve earned every wrinkle. Might as well make more laugh lines together.
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And if you’ve read my first book and loved it, a quick review on Amazon helps keep it moving!

Summer is here, which means some of us are about to spend a lot more time around teenagers, college kids, grown kids, nieces, nephews, and other young humans who appear to be speaking English while somehow making it feel like an entirely different language.

At this point, I know enough teen slang to be dangerous. The words below aren’t necessarily new, but they’re the ones I’ve been hearing on repeat lately. Some are useful. Some are ridiculous. All of them are delivered with the kind of confidence that makes you wonder if everyone else attended a meeting we somehow missed.

We did not.

Part One introduced me to words I didn’t know existed. Part Two introduced me to a number (67) that somehow became a complete thought despite containing absolutely no useful information.

And now we’re here.

Jit

A kid. A younger person. Usually not said with warmth. Example: “This jit thinks he invented basketball.”

The word sounds fake. it is not.

Motion

Having things going on. Friends. Dating prospects. Influence. Opportunities. If someone has motion, they’re active, connected, and making things happen. Everyone suddenly sounds like they’re pitching a startup.

Fumbled

You had the opportunity and blew it. Can apply to tests, jobs, friendships, life choices, or forgetting why you walked into a room. A timeless concept.

Standing on Business

Doing what you said you’d do. Following through. Keeping your word. Having standards and enforcing them. Possibly the first piece of teen slang that could improve society.

Mass Difficulty

A spectacular failure. Not a setback. Not a disappointment. The kind of mistake that deserves its own PowerPoint presentation. An unnecessarily dramatic phrase that I plan to start using immediately.

Maxxing

The act of aggressively improving something - usually yourself. Sleepmaxxing. Moneymaxxing. Gymmaxxing.

At first I heard TJ Maxx and I thought it was a new loyalty program. I was wrong.

Airball

A complete miss. Likely spectacularly. The kind of take that should have stayed in the drafts.

A useful word that deserves wider adoption among grown adults.

Deep It

Think about it. No, really. Think about it. Somehow much cooler than “let’s unpack that,” which should probably be retired (but which I still actually say).

Valid

The modern version of “that’s fair.” A simple acknowledgment that someone has a legitimate point, feeling, complaint, or opinion. No debate. No dissertation. Just valid.

Crashed Out

The moment someone completely loses the plot. Usually after several warning signs everyone else noticed first. We’ve all witnessed one. Some of us have starred in one.

Lore

The backstory. As in: “You don’t know the lore.” We used to call this context. Now it’s lore, which somehow makes every family disagreement sound like an ancient prophecy.

Opp

An enemy. A rival. A person you’re actively not rooting for. The word makes even minor annoyances sound like organized crime. Example: “She’s my opp.” Ma’am, that’s your coworker.

Pressed

Bothered. Annoyed. Way too invested. As in: “Why are you so pressed?” A devastatingly efficient way to point out that someone is making a bigger deal out of something than necessary.

Honestly, this one could have saved me years of corporate meetings.

Hard Launch

The official public reveal of a relationship. As in: “She hard launched her boyfriend on Instagram.” I guess posting a significant other is now treated like a product release. And the marketing department in me respects it.

I’ve learned just enough teen slang to know when someone is complimenting me, insulting me, rejecting me, encouraging me, or quietly judging me.

That’s progress.

What I still can’t do is explain half of these phrases to another adult without sounding like I’ve joined a secret society against my will.

If you’ve heard a new one recently, drop it in the comments. There is clearly enough material for Part Four.

Just don’t send me any more numbers. I’m still not over 67.

#RealGirlsGuidetoMidlife #RealGirlsGuideMidlifeWorkbook #TeenSlang

We’ve earned every wrinkle. Might as well make more laugh lines together.
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Get the New Workbook!

And if you’ve read my first book and loved it, a quick review on Amazon helps keep it moving!

Yes, like I often do, I’m calling it ours on purpose.

When I wrote REAL GIRLS GUIDE TO MIDLIFE, I truly thought I was finishing the thing I started decades ago.

But, what became clear afterward is that recognizing what’s happening in midlife is only the beginning. Many of you started noticing changes that didn’t feel dramatic, but also didn’t feel small… the kinds of adjustments that reshape how you think about your relationships, your body, your responsibilities, and the decisions in front of you.

The first book helped build language around that experience. Now, the REAL GIRLS GUIDE MIDLIFE WORKBOOK creates space to work with what comes next.

And before anyone hears “workbook” and thinks, “Hard pass. I’m not doing homework.” Don’t worry, this isn’t school and you aren’t being graded, I promise… it’s just a space to think and put stuff down on paper.

It moves through many of the questions that start to surface and hit differently in midlife (for so many of us), and leaves room to help you decide what they actually mean.

Plus, you’ll find plenty of blank journal pages to dive into things on your own.

This community played a huge role in shaping the end result, so I wanted the Workbook and the Gift Bundle to be available here first before it goes to Amazon.

It felt like the right place to begin.

Wherever you start—with the original book, the workbook, or both together—I’m so happy we’re doing this part side by side.

PS - before I sign off, all the things in the Real Girls Guide world exist because of Carrie and Brad at The Drew Creative. They’ve believed in this project, and in me, through every idea, every pivot, and every magical thing we’ve brought to life together.

#RealGirlsGuidetoMidlife #RealGirlsGuideMidlifeWorkbook #MidlifeWomen

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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the women we grew up around in the ’70s and ’80s and how much of their unhappiness got filtered through humor, cigarettes, Tab cans, ashtrays on kitchen counters, and little muttered comments while scrubbing baked-on lasagna pans after everybody else wandered off to watch TV.

Entire generations of women survived by becoming funny.

And the weird part is: I didn’t fully recognize how much truth was buried underneath all of it until I got older myself.

The more I think about it, the more I realize female humor back then wasn’t really about comedy as much as it was survival. A pressure release valve. A socially acceptable way to tell the truth without blowing up your entire life.

Because women could say almost anything as long as they said it with a laugh. That was the deal.

A woman could joke about wanting to disappear. Joke about motherhood making her insane. Joke about never wanting to have sex again. Joke about carrying the entire household mentally while everybody else sat around asking where things were that had been in the same damn drawer since the Carter administration.

Everybody laughed. Nobody had to look too closely. Life moved on.

And if all else failed? Add a side of forced forgiveness apparently. Your husband emotionally failed you? Here’s a baked pasta dish, no meaningful conversation whatsoever, and instructions to “keep the family together.” A shocking amount of female emotional conditioning from that era basically boiled down to: swallow your rage, freshen your lipstick, and continue serving appetizers.

Women like Erma Bombeck became iconic because she said things women were absolutely thinking but weren’t really allowed to say directly yet. She made domestic life feel honest at a time when culture was still aggressively selling women the fantasy that fulfillment came from marriage, caregiving, and having a spotless house with decorative fruit in a wooden bowl nobody was allowed to eat.

This energy was everywhere.

Carol Brady on The Brady Bunch somehow managing six children, a husband, a housekeeper, perfect hair, and approximately zero visible emotional needs of her own. Janet from Three’s Company permanently stuck playing the responsible adult in the apartment while the men got to be chaotic, unserious, and lovable for it. The women in 9 to 5 fantasizing about kidnapping their misogynistic boss because female workplace rage had to be wrapped in comedy for audiences to tolerate it. And Steel Magnolias (one of my all time fav go-to flicks) may honestly be one of the best examples of this entire dynamic ever put on film: women holding each other together through grief, pressure, caregiving, disappointment, and rage while still being expected to stay charming, funny, composed, and emotionally available right up until somebody finally snaps in public.

The imbalance itself became the joke. Women were expected to laugh at their own depletion before anyone accidentally mistook it for a legitimate problem.

And looking back now through my own midlife eyes, I can see there was something heavier sitting underneath a lot of those jokes that people didn’t fully acknowledge at the time.

I think a lot of women weren’t really kidding. Or at least not fully.

They were lonely. Overwhelmed. Touched out. Sexually disconnected. Emotionally exhausted. Quietly furious. And deeply conditioned to make all of that sound charming instead of alarming.

Because women (especially mothers) have historically had to package pain in ways that didn’t make everybody else uncomfortable.

Rage? Too much.
Resentment? Ungrateful.
Sadness? Self-indulgent.
But make it funny? Suddenly everybody relaxes.

And this is where I think Judy Blume matters as a counterpoint. She was telling girls the truth before they learned how much of themselves the world would eventually ask them to soften, smooth over, downplay, or edit for everybody else’s comfort.

I’m still obsessed with her for that.

Girls in her books were messy. Curious. Weird. Angry. Hormonal. Jealous. Self-conscious. Sexual. Confused. Their inner lives mattered. Their bodies mattered. Their questions mattered.

She treated girls like actual human beings before the world fully did.

Rereading her now (I’ve re-read several of my own personal favs, DM for the list) hits differently because what stands out isn’t innocence. It’s fucking real.

Then somewhere along the way many women learned being fully real came with consequences.

So we got strategic.

We got funny. Capable. Easygoing. “Low maintenance.” We learned how to smooth things over. How to make exhaustion sound relatable. How to tell the truth sideways so nobody would accuse us of being bitter, difficult, dramatic, hormonal, selfish, or “letting ourselves go.”

And I think that’s part of why midlife women sound different right now. Less polished. Less interested in turning every painful thing into a cute little story everybody else can comfortably consume and move on from. Less willing to laugh things off immediately.

The humor is still there (hot take: women remain the funniest people alive by a mile) but there’s more directness underneath it now.

I know I’ve started saying things out loud that younger me would have softened immediately (or just ignored entirely).

Actually, this hurt me.
Actually, I’m angry.
Actually, I’m tired.
Actually, I don’t want to keep white-knuckling my way through life while pretending it’s all so fucking adorable.

Maybe that’s why some people seem uncomfortable with midlife women right now.

I mean, I think I’m still funny as hell.

I’m just not setting myself on fire anymore so everybody else can stay warm and call me “easygoing.”

#RealGirlsGuidetoMidlife #RealGirlsGuide #MidlifeLaughter #70sMoms

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I’ve always been an over-thinker. Always.

I’ve replayed conversations, analyzed text messages, worried about my kids, imagined worst-case scenarios, and generally treated every minor life event like it deserved a full committee review.

The funny thing is, post-menopause - I seem to have less energy, less patience, and fewer functioning brain cells available for this nonsense.

And yet...here we are.

Still wondering if that text sounded weird. Still dissecting something somebody said. Still mentally preparing for problems that haven’t happened. Still carrying around thoughts that should’ve been evicted weeks ago.

While wisdom comes with age, perfection remains elusive.

Vote in the poll or hit reply. I have a feeling a lot of us are carrying around thoughts that should’ve been evicted weeks ago.

And if you’ve figured out how to stop overthinking, please identify yourself immediately. The rest of us have questions.

#RealGirlsGuidetoMidlife #RealGirlsGuide #AskARealGirl #MidlifeQuestions

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There’s a reason women keep sending Ana Allen’s reels to each other at 11:47 PM with messages like: “THIS IS LITERALLY US.”

I’ve become mildly obsessed with Ana because her content feels less like polished social media and more like a giant digital support group for women like me trying to survive midlife with our collective sanity, hormones, relationships, and patience hanging on by a thread.

It feels very real right now: midlife women are finally having the loud, overdue public moment we should’ve had all along. We’re finally talking openly about things that used to stay buried under “I’m fine.” The rage. The overstimulation. Parenting older kids. Empty nests. Marriage changes. The weird identity shifts. The constant mental load. The realization that a lot of us are completely exhausted from holding everything together while pretending we’re not.

Ana somehow captures all of it with humor and that very specific “slightly unhinged but still functioning” energy women instantly recognize in each other. (And I say that with deep love and an aggressive amount of personal identification.)

Case in point: her viral reel where she texted the lyrics to “Nothing Compares 2 U” to her kids and accidentally created one of the most relatable parenting moments on the internet.

Naturally, I needed to talk to her.

The Questions

1. Your content feels like a giant group chat for overwhelmed midlife women. Did you realize there was this huge audience craving this kind of honesty, or did it surprise you too?

Ana: I first dipped my toe into creating content on TikTok when our youngest children went to college in their second year. It was simply to continue embarrassing them or making them cringe… so I could laugh and they could laugh - a connection we have always had. Soon, it became something fun for me to do to pass the time until my husband got home from work… a creative outlet and maybe a distraction from the loudest silence a mother knows: their empty bedrooms. When I look back at those videos, I can see that I was spiraling a bit, maybe starting perimenopause, super emotional, and I remember telling my husband that I felt like I had a cloud over my head and couldn’t get out of it. We thought it was just my ADHD and addressed that first, thinking it would solve everything. It did help, but not completely.

All of that to say, I was lost, and it was something I didn’t feel I deserved to talk about because my life is good and all four of our children had flown the nest beautifully. My pride “should” outweigh the fact that I didn’t know who I was without being their everyday mom.

So I danced, did lip syncs, and made some pretty fun videos that really hit.

2. You talk openly about ADHD, menopause, parenting older kids, and the emotional weirdness of this phase of life. What’s been the biggest shift for YOU personally in midlife so far?

Ana: The biggest shift… gosh, I would say there were mini shifts that added up to the biggest shift. When the last of the kiddos left and I had no routine, no schedule, and nothing impending, I was walking in circles in our home all day, bouncing from task to task.

One particular day, my husband got home from work at his regular time. He came in the door and I stood there, dropped my shoulders, and started sobbing. I was still in my pajamas, dinner wasn’t ready, and I had not completed one task.

We decided we needed to start by finding a doctor, so I got medicated. That was the first shift for me. I could think a little clearer, and having a doctor to talk through it with made me feel normal and okay. Later, I worked on my gut health, got a personal trainer, and went to the best hormone doctor I could find and began hormone replacement therapy.

Then I realized Act 1 of our life: God gave us the most beautiful purpose by giving us the gift of raising children. It feels like that in itself is an entire lifetime, and my identity was surely wrapped up in that.

Then came Act 2, and it felt like a blank script, really. At first, I couldn’t find the words, so I said and did nothing. The blank script was depressing and confusing to me.

When I realized that blank script was for ME to write, at first it was exciting, and then again it became overwhelming. What if I write the wrong script or go the wrong direction?

This is a long way of telling you that I realized my part can be written in pencil with a BIG FAT ERASER!! I can try things and put them away. I can make a plan and cancel if I want. I can make friends and realize we’re not heading the same way.

3. The “Nothing Compares 2 U” texting reel with your kids absolutely exploded because every parent instantly saw themselves in it. Did you know while making it that it was internet gold… or were you just entertaining yourself?

Ana: 100% entertaining myself. I saw another person do it and did it to him with no plans of posting it. It was just me being funny with him. Wanna know a secret? I was on the toilet when I was texting him. I laughed so hard I wanted to share it!

4. Why do you think so many women in this age group suddenly feel desperate for realness and community right now instead of polished perfection?

Ana: Women in our age group were raised by mothers who didn’t even know they were supposed to talk about this stuff.

I’ve had so many conversations with women in my mother’s generation who say, “I didn’t go through it like you guys do. I mean, I had a few hot flashes and then my period stopped.”

And then, in the very next breath, they’ll talk about waking up in the middle of the night and putting their feet in the pool because they were so hot… or how they suddenly gained belly weight, their body changed, their sleep changed, their moods changed… and and and……..

So I really think social media has given women an opportunity to realize we are NOT alone.

We can absolutely share the best parts of our lives… and we should. That’s part of the fun. But for those of us brave enough to talk about the things our mothers never warned us about, it can literally save another woman’s life.

I’ll share all of it.

5. What’s something about parenting older kids or empty nesting that nobody properly prepared you for?

Ana: The fact that being a “successful parent” means the children you raised no longer need you is something nobody really prepares you for. At exactly the moment you realize you did your job well, gave it everything you had, and became the mother you wished you had… your role changes.

You go from full-time employment to being a consultant who gets called in only when needed.

Be prepared for this by deciding who else you are besides their mom.

Cheat code if you’re married: you were his wife first. Lean into that harder than you think you should as your children’s independence gets closer and closer.

6. Bonus Question: What’s one thing midlife women need to stop apologizing for immediately?

Ana: The number one thing I hear from women is that they go to their doctor, their blood work comes back “fine,” and at worst they get prescribed antidepressants. This infuriates me. We do NOT have to feel like this.

We joke about it like it’s some kind of badge of honor, make the people we love most suffer through it, and then apologize for fits of anger, apathy where we were once energized, and losing sight of the woman we see in the mirror.

We need to find solutions, and that’s why it’s so important to talk about it. We beat ourselves up over the woman we are becoming and miss the woman we were.

I have a podcast with my friend of more than 40 years called “Girl! Can You Talk?” and we NEVER run out of things to talk about (experts on topics our listeners request, personal stories about our current and past experiences) because we refuse to retire into the shadows simply because we cannot make babies anymore.

I truly want women to be reminded as often as I can that you are not alone, there is always room for you, and tomorrow needs you just as much as yesterday did.

What I love about Ana is that she’s willing to talk about the stuff so many women feel completely alone in! The body changes. The empty nest grief. The emotional static. The identity shifts. The feeling of looking around at your beautiful life and still wondering why you suddenly feel so lost in it.

And somehow she manages to make women laugh while talking about all of it.

Follow her on IG stat, dive into her podcast and join her email list to keep up with everything she’s building over at The View From Ana’s Bubble for all the behind-the-scenes chaos, the unfiltered reader stories, and the kind of conversations that make women immediately text their friends: “okay THANK GOD it’s not just me.”

Women need more spaces like this. Real ones.

#RealGirlsGuidetoMidlife #RealGirlsQ&A #Ana’sBubble #MidlifeInfluencer

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Yep, we’re back again. Because apparently this is who we are now: aggressively recommending books, internet people, skincare, podcasts, weirdly effective moisturizers, emotionally supportive cats, and badasses on Instagram who somehow understand us and our hormones better than most doctors did in 2009.

As always: no trend forecasting. No “must-have summer edit.” No pretending every product changed our lives spiritually.

Just things that are legit earning their place lately!

Books We’re Devouring

If You Give a Cat a Hot Flash by Alexis Dunne, MD - Tiny menopausal cat chaos with massive emotional support energy.

Why We Love It: Yes, I worked on this one with Alexis, Carrie, Brad, and Anna and it ended up being one of the most fun creative experiences I’ve had in years.

Somewhere between the group texts, the creative process, and all of us realizing how absurdly recognizable this overheated little feline had become… Menopawsy quietly evolved into the unofficial mascot for every woman currently overheating, overstimulated, emotionally fried, under-slept, and suddenly furious at underwire bras.

Strangers by Belle Burden - This book got under my skin in the way the best memoirs do.

Why We Love It: It’s about marriage, loneliness, identity, emotional distance, and the slow unraveling that can happen inside relationships long before anyone officially admits something is wrong. The writing is beautiful without feeling performative about being beautiful, which feels very rare right now. You know those books where you keep stopping because a line hits too close to home and suddenly you’re just staring into space rethinking your entire emotional history? That kind.

People and Voices We’re Following & Loving

TMI Aunt Tammi on IG - Menopause, marriage, exhaustion, wine, lipstick on her teeth, and the mystery of Harold.

Why We Love Her: Tammi talks about midlife in a way that feels immediate and recognizable instead of polished or performative. There’s usually a wine glass involved, lipstick on her teeth, and Harold quietly existing in the background while she narrates hormones, marriage irritation, body changes, sleep issues, and suddenly having absolutely no tolerance left for unnecessary noise or nonsense.

What makes her content work is that it feels like an actual woman talking honestly about what this phase of life looks like instead of trying to package it into inspiration or advice.

Amanda - Midlife Finds on IG - Midlife product finds, beauty rabbit holes, and tiny things making life feel slightly more pulled together.

Why We Love Her: Amanda’s page feels like having one very informed friend who’s constantly texting: “WAIT. I FOUND SOMETHING.”

Skincare finds. Midlife beauty products. All the things that somehow make daily life easier, less swollen, and less chaotic after another night of hormone roulette and garbage sleep.

What I like is that she’s a real person sharing things she actually uses, not somebody performing a perfectly curated internet life. The recommendations land more like group-chat intel than influencer content.

And at this stage of life, women sharing practical survival information with each other feels genuinely useful.

PS: what started as a dermatology appointment for her son led to a melanoma diagnosis for herself. Now she’s sharing her journey, raising awareness, and reminding all of us how easy it is to put ourselves last on the list of people we take care of.

Matt Hyams on IG - Perimenopause reenactments so accurate they should qualify as documentary footage.

Why We Love Him: Matt’s entire account is basically him impersonating his perimenopausal wife with terrifying precision.

The facial expressions. The hormone rage. The overstimulation. The sudden irritation over absolutely everything. The “don’t touch me but also why aren’t you emotionally available?” energy. The running commentary about sleep, body temperature, exhaustion, and hating noises.

Every woman (me especially) watching immediately recognizes herself somewhere in it.

What makes the content land isn’t just the humor. It’s the fact that you can tell he’s actually paying attention. He’s observing the emotional swings, the exhaustion, the sensory overload, the weird contradictions of midlife, and turning them into something funny instead of dismissing women as dramatic or “crazy.”

Which, frankly, is rarer than it should be.

Lauren Rubin on Cake For Dinner — journaling, anxiety, gratitude, and practical ways to get unstuck.

This episode with Laura Rubin, founder of AllSwell Creative and author of The Big Unlock, was one of those conversations that makes you immediately want to grab a notebook. Lauren and Cake For Dinner host Keesha Scott talk with Lauren about journaling as more than emotional dumping or diary writing. She shares practical ways writing can help calm anxiety, recognize patterns, reconnect with yourself, and shift your mindset in small but meaningful ways. The conversation covers everything from future-focused anxiety and gratitude practices tied to the five senses to her “4x4” journaling method and what she calls “dopamine push-ups.” Grounded, thoughtful, and genuinely useful without drifting into self-help fluff. Also, I highly recommend subscribing to Cake For Dinner on YouTube if you want conversations that sound like real people talking about real life instead of another polished internet self-improvement lecture.

Cat & Nat on Instagram AND Cat & Nat on Substack - The realities of marriage, motherhood, and being needed by everyone constantly.

Yes, I fully fell into the Cat & Nat universe. Part of what makes them work is that they talk about motherhood after the cute stage is over. Not the curated little-kid era… the harder, messier phase where your kids are older, your marriage has history, your body is changing in real time, and your patience is hanging by a thread some days. Their content has this running undercurrent of “I love these people deeply but if one more person asks me where their charger is, I may disappear into the woods,” which feels wildly recognizable. I also appreciate how openly they talk about parenting older kids, marriage fatigue, hormones, mental load, and the exhaustion of being everybody’s default person. It feels more like overhearing a brutally honest kitchen conversation than consuming “content,” which is probably why so many women relate to them.

BONUS: Substack as a Platform - Not in a “build your creator business” way. In a “holy shit, real humans are still capable of honest thoughts on the internet” way.

The reason I keep loving Substack is because some people are finally writing like people again. Less optimized content. Less pretending. Less polished “5 ways to become your highest self before 7 AM” energy. More honesty. More contradiction. More “here’s what actually happened.”

Products That Deserve Their Own Thank-You Note

ROC Glow Stick Eye Balm - The fastest way to look slightly more awake than you feel.

Remember Amanda from our favorite IG voices section above? This was one of her recommendations and she was absolutely right about it. I’ve been pairing the Glow Stick with the RoC Retinol Correxion Eye Cream at night and the combo is genuinely helping the whole under-eye situation look brighter, smoother, and less exhausted overall.

There’s something deeply midlife about becoming emotionally attached to anything that makes you look even 11% more rested.

Tiny little glow stick. Major morale support.

Dr. Melaxin Dark Spot Cream - One of those “wait… why does my skin suddenly look better?” products.

Another recommendation from Amanda, and again… she was right.

As a general rule, I’m skeptical of basically every skincare promise on earth at this point. But this one slowly turned into a product I kept reaching for because my skin genuinely started looking calmer, brighter, and less angry overall.

Not “I suddenly look 24” results. More realistic “okay wait… I actually look rested and slightly more alive” results.

And at this stage of life, that’s enough to make me loyal.

Melt For You and Good Vibes by Womaness - Feel-good midlife body products that actually understand the assignment.

Why We Love Them: The pairing of these two is kind of magical. They help with dryness, comfort, irritation, and generally keeping things moist and feeling good without creating some swampy situation nobody asked for.

And I genuinely love what Womaness founders Michelle Jacobs and Sally Mueller are doing with the brand. They talk about menopause, hormones, sex, body changes, and vaginal health in a direct, grown-woman way instead of making everything feel awkward or shame-filled.

It reads more like women talking openly to other women instead of a company trying to “educate” us about our own bodies.

That’s a wrap for Part 7. Just a running list of things currently making midlife feel a little glowier, funnier, easier, calmer, and slightly less unhinged.

And if something recently earned a spot in your group chat, your headphones, your nightstand, or your late-night scroll… send it my way and I’ll add to our growing list of Real Girls Guide Obsessions. We’re all basically comparing notes now anyway. And I wouldn’t have it any other way!

#RealGirlsGuidetoMidlife #RealGirlsObsessions #NoGatekeeping #Glow

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Somewhere between hot flashes, burnout, parenting, careers, overstimulation, and trying to remember why we walked into the kitchen, one menopause doctor had a wild idea: What if menopause was explained through the emotional journey of a chaotic cat?

And somehow… four midlife women (including me) actually got the thing done.

What started as a ridiculous conversation turned into a hardcover book, IF YOU GIVE A CAT A HOT FLASH, featuring Menopawsy: an overheated, exhausted cat who quickly became the unofficial midlife mascot none of us realized we desperately needed until she arrived.

Dr. Alexis Dunne wrote it alongside her nurse, Anna Garcia. Carrie Trimm Drew brought Menopawsy to life with every illustration, designed the website, built the online store, created the merch, and continues to be the reason all of our wild ideas become amazingly beautiful and very real things.

The response has been overwhelming!

So I wanted to ask Dr. Dunne a few questions about the accidental rise of Menopawsy, why women seem desperate for humor right now, and what happens when midlife women stop overthinking and just make the damn thing.

1. At what point did you realize this wasn’t just a funny little cat book anymore?

Alexis: I started sharing the idea with other midlife women and suddenly everyone had thoughts, stories, jokes, and ideas to add. There was something really fun about taking a story we once read to our kids and reimagining it through the completely chaotic lens of our own midlife realities.

2. Why do you think women seem to be craving humor right now?

Alexis: The science can be overwhelming for midlife women. There are so many contrary opinions out there that it can be hard to know who is right and who is trying to make money off of you. But we know the symptoms we are feeling are common, and laughing and commiserating about them helps us feel less alone.

3. Did you expect Menopawsy to become such an unexpected mascot for women?

Alexis: I hoped she would! She is every one of us. She raised her kids and spent years taking care of everyone else, and now she’s in the middle of trying to figure out her own midlife chaos. The hormones, the exhaustion, the brain fog, the “who even am I now?” moments. She’s finally starting to ask herself what she needs instead of only focusing on what everyone else needs from her.

4. What was it like watching us four women (and our editor Brad Drew) somehow pull a real hardcover book?

Alexis: It was amazing! I love our group and we all get so excited with every new idea. We had the best time brainstorming, laughing, building the story together, and figuring out what the finished product could become. There was something really fun about a group of midlife women just creating something joyful together without overthinking every little thing.

5. What do you think women are actually searching for underneath all the menopause content flooding our socials right now?

Alexis: We are searching for a way back to ourselves. We haven’t really been there for a while. First we were teenagers trying to figure out who we were, then we were building careers, marriages, families, and taking care of everyone else. And now we’ve reached this point where so many women are asking themselves, “Okay… what’s next for me?”

Bonus Question: What officially qualifies a woman as being “in her Menopawsy era”?

Alexis: She has realized that what she used to put stock in doesn’t necessarily work anymore. She has figured out her worth and won’t let anyone strip her of it. She has stopped people-pleasing. She does what she wants (most of the time). We can still be partners, mothers, professionals and have our own lives too.

IF YOU GIVE A CAT A HOT FLASH is available now and makes a dangerously good gift for any woman currently trying to survive midlife with a mix of caffeine, rage walks, car cries, lip gloss, and emotional support silence.

And yes… Menopawsy attends a book club in the story where there’s a little nod to my own book, REAL GIRLS GUIDE TO MIDLIFE because our literary universe must also now include hot mess cats.

Buy Alexis’s book if you need a laugh. Buy mine if you want the raw, unfiltered reality sitting underneath why we’re all laughing so hard in the first place.

Like a fine wine and an amazing cheese, they pair beautifully together.

#RealGirlsGuidetoMidlife #IfYouGiveACatAHotFlash #Menopawsy #Meow

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Illustrations by Carrie Trimm Drew

Why the hell am I suddenly contemplating red lipstick is not a question I expected to be writing at 55.

I’ve spent most of my life being aggressively neutral about red lipstick. Red dresses. Red shoes. Red anything, really. I am not glamorous. I am not mysterious. I am not the woman slowly applying lipstick in a restaurant bathroom while strangers wonder who she is and where she’s going. I’m the woman who forgets she has lipstick in her purse until it melts in her car.

And yet for the past few weeks, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about a Substack post from a woman who started wearing red lipstick during COVID. She wasn’t headed anywhere special. She wasn’t trying to impress anyone. She simply liked how it made her feel, and for reasons I can’t fully explain, the whole thing lodged itself in my brain.

The post didn’t make me want red lipstick. It made me wonder if I needed an All Rise Thing of my own.

And by that, I don’t mean turning heads. God no. That sounds exhausting.

I mean the thing that changes your energy before you’ve even said a word.

Part of what’s making this so interesting to me is that I’ve never been someone who chased attention. Look, my blue eyes do still get comments. And my curly hair has generated more conversations in public bathrooms than I can count. At this point, I fully expect some woman to stop me mid-hand wash and ask for my curl routine before introducing herself (it happens a lot). Beyond that, I’ve never been the person who walks into a room and causes a collective stir… and I’ve never wanted to be.

In fact, the heads turning my direction these days tend to belong to men who are approximately 147 years old and somehow still convinced they’re in the running. No thanks, Tom Hanks.

All of this is a little funny, now that I think about it, because I actually did have a somewhat recent accidental All Rise moment: my 50th birthday. My Aussie Man’s daughter’s wedding. I had my makeup professionally done for maybe the third time in my entire life, wore a dress I normally would’ve talked myself out of buying, and for one rare evening I felt... different. Looser. More comfortable in my own skin. Like I’d stopped managing myself so tightly for five fucking minutes and finally relaxed into myself.

Maybe that’s why this whole thing feels less like a quest for validation and more like a field study. I’m already pretty damn taken with my Aussie Man, so the attention itself doesn’t mean anything to me. The feeling does.

What keeps rattling around in my head is the energy of it all. I’m truly fascinated by women who have found the thing that instantly changes how they feel when they walk into a room. The thing that makes them stand a little taller, smile a little differently, or feel a little more powerful, more playful, or more themselves before anyone else has even opened their mouth.

A while back, I accidentally found myself defending trucker hats and bikinis on the internet, which remains one of the more ridiculous sentences I’ve ever typed.

The blog was definitely about trucker hats and bikinis. I stand by both. It was also about what happens when you stop asking whether you’re supposed to wear something and start asking whether you actually like it.

The trucker hat and the bikini were simply the evidence.

The bigger story was about recognizing myself. Not a younger version. Not a better version. Just the version of me that feels relaxed, comfortable, rebellious, and completely uninterested in taking feedback from the cheap seats.

The same thing happened when I wrote about runway songs. Every woman should have that one song that comes on and suddenly you’re strutting through Costco like the place was built in your honor. You’re still buying toilet paper and protein bars. You’re still you. The only thing that’s changed is your energy.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized the red lipstick wasn’t really the story… the shift behind it was.

When I look around at women in midlife, the ones who intrigue me most aren’t the women desperately trying to look younger. They’re the women experimenting. The women with giant silver curls. The women who finally got the tattoo. The women wearing leopard-print glasses because they felt like it. The women who stopped coloring their hair. The women who started coloring it purple. The women who took up drumming (IYKYK), bought the leather jacket, learned to surf, launched the business, wrote the book (and about to launch their 2nd 😊), booked the trip, or finally wore the thing they’d been talking themselves out of for twenty years.

There is something incredibly attractive about a woman who is still curious about herself.

For decades, many of us were busy being useful. We were raising kids, building careers, managing households, solving everyone’s problems, and generally holding the whole damn circus together.

Then one day you look around and realize you’ve gotten really, really good at being sensible. The bills are paid. The calendar is managed. The forms are signed. Everything is always handled.

And that’s when the question sneaks in: Have I accidentally become the human equivalent of a beige waiting room?

The truth is, it’s been a very long time since I did something simply because it sounded fun.

That beige waiting room line has been rattling around in my head for weeks. I think it’s because I’ve realized I still have the capacity to surprise myself.

For a very long time, I was busy doing what needed to be done. Raising kids. Building a career. Paying bills. Managing life.

Curiosity got pushed to the back burner.

Lately it’s been showing back up.

Maybe that’s what this red lipstick thing is really about. It’s the realization that there may still be parts of me I haven’t met yet.

At 55, nobody is grading me anymore. Nobody is handing out awards for being sensible. Nobody is keeping score. And that’s surprisingly liberating. The freedom isn’t in becoming invisible. It’s realizing that most people weren’t paying nearly as much attention as we thought they were in the first place.

So now I’m curious. What’s your all-rise thing? I’m crowdsourcing ideas because I have a feeling a lot of you already know exactly what yours is. And if you happen to see me wearing bright red lipstick sometime in the next six months, mind your business!

I’m conducting research.

#RealGirlsGuidetoMidlife #AllRiseThing #Menopause #RGG

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That’s a hard thing to admit because for a long time I thought I was being loving. Mature. Flexible. Forgiving. Stable. Emotionally capable.

Something about the sun and the longer days always gets me thinking, and lately I’ve been noticing where I’ve spent years overcompensating for everyone else.

Smoothing things over first. Reaching out first. Rebuilding trust first. Moving on first.

And eventually I realized: if I stop carrying this relationship emotionally by myself, what actually happens to it?

That question hits. Some connections are mutual. And some only survive because one person keeps dragging them forward.

Am I the only one thinking about this lately?

#RealGirlsGuidetoMidlife #MidlifeBoundaries #Menopause #RGG

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I’ve written before about the kind of friendships that stand the test of time… the ones that can go dark for a while and still feel completely solid when you come back to them.

This is not that.

This one’s about what happens when the friendship itself is still good, but something inside the dynamic starts looking different. Nothing tragic or dramatic. Nobody’s storming out of the group chat. It’s more like one of those slow creeping realizations where somebody suddenly notices they’ve been low-key annoyed for… a couple years.

I keep hearing versions of the same story lately. Different women, different friend groups, same underlying thing.

And often, it shows up a lot around the annual girls’ trip.

High school friends. College friends. Decades of history. The kind of group where everyone knows each other’s business without even asking. Yet somehow, one person ends up running the entire damn thing.

She books the house, coordinates schedules, makes dinner reservations, starts the group text, follows up in the group text, reminds everyone to Venmo, remembers the snacks, tracks who’s arriving when, and generally carries the whole thing across the finish line while everyone else tosses in heart emojis and says “can’t wait!”

Meanwhile someone else just sort of… arrives. She shows up, has a great time, genuinely appreciates the effort, and leaves saying, “We should totally do this every year.”

And maybe five or ten years ago most women would’ve just handled it without thinking too hard about it. Rolled their eyes a little. Made a joke about being “the organized one.” Kept it moving.

But now it hits different. A lot of RGG gals have DM’d me lately with versions of the same realization: they’re starting to notice where they’re doing more than their share and where other people have gotten extremely comfortable letting them.

These roles rarely get consciously assigned. They just sort of develop over years and eventually become the default setting of the friendship.

The capable friend becomes the planner. The emotionally aware friend becomes the mediator. The reliable friend becomes the one everybody unconsciously waits for to make sure everything actually gets handled.

After enough years, people stop even seeing the labor underneath it all because it’s become so normal.

A lot of these friendships were also built during completely different phases of life. Back when everyone had more energy, fewer responsibilities, and less emotional exhaustion before the trip even started. Back when picking up the slack didn’t feel quite so loaded.

Now, the same dynamics just don’t land because tolerance for over-functioning starts changing in midlife. There’s less patience for constantly anticipating everything, smoothing everything out, remembering everything, and carrying things for people before they even realize something needs carrying.

That’s the part I keep hearing women talk about. Things rarely show up as giant friendship-ending fights. Most of the time, it’s a growing awareness of how many relationships, households, jobs, trips, and family systems seem to operate on the effort of the same people over and over again.

And then… the question becomes: what do you actually do with that realization?

Do you say something? Do you divide things up differently? Do you stop automatically stepping in every single time? Do you let the ball drop once and see whether anybody else notices it’s even on the floor?

History complicates all of it, too. Long friendships buy a lot of grace. Sometimes deservedly. Sometimes maybe a little excessively. Things that would feel irritating or unbalanced in a newer friendship become “just how she is” when there’s thirty years behind it.

Again, most of the time nothing actually blows up. The trip still gets booked. Everyone still posts the beach photo. The friendship survives.

Maybe that’s part of midlife too… noticing where friendship still feels mutual and where you somehow became the unpaid cruise director of everyone else’s social life!

#RealGirlsGuidetoMidlife #MidlifeEffort #MidlifeRoles #RGG

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Illustrations by Carrie Trimm Drew

I used to think being quick to forgive made me emotionally evolved, mature, compassionate, strong.

Now though, I know a lot of it was me trying to keep the peace, avoid discomfort, and make everyone else feel okay again as fast as possible, because there’s a certain kind of pressure women get handed early in life that nobody really talks about honestly enough. We’re taught to smooth things over quickly. Be understanding. Be gracious. Be the bigger person. Don’t hold grudges. Don’t make things uncomfortable.

Otherwise? We risk being labeled bitter, dramatic, difficult, cold, selfish, hard.

Women are expected to absorb pain gracefully and then hand out absolution like participation trophies so everyone else can feel okay again.

Midlife has made me realize how much of that conditioning I internalized.

There are situations in my life now where I have consciously decided to not explicitly forgive someone. And for a long time, even writing that sentence would’ve made me deeply anxious because I thought forgiveness was the final destination of healing. Like if I haven’t forgiven and forgotten, I must still be broken, or spiritually stuck.

But I don’t actually believe that anymore.

I also think there’s a massive difference between forgiveness and acceptance, and women are rarely encouraged to separate the two.

I can accept that something happened without pretending it was okay. I can understand why someone became who they became without giving them unlimited access to me again. I can stop carrying active rage without offering emotional absolution like some kind of personal hall pass.

And forgiveness (if it ever comes) does not automatically mean reconciliation. Looking back, I definitely saw forgiveness as restoring the relationship to its previous form… as if full healing only really counted once trust was rebuilt, the tension disappeared, and everyone quietly returned to their old roles pretending the rupture never happened.

But those are separate decisions. I can forgive someone and still decide they no longer belong in the most intimate parts of my life. I can release the anger without re-entering the dynamic.

That distinction has completely changed my relationship with healing.

Some Stories Do Not Get a Redemption Arc

There are certain things that can permanently alter your trust. Some things change the way you move through the world. And I’m tired of pretending every painful experience needs to end with everybody tearfully self-aware and magically transformed into better people.

Sometimes the ending is simply: “That mattered. It hurt me. And things are different now.”

That’s it.

There’s actually a term therapists and psychologists sometimes use called “toxic forgiveness” which refers to forgiveness that’s forced, pressured, premature, or used to bypass real accountability, anger, grief, or boundaries. Psychologist Dr. Ramani Durvasula has spoken openly about how forgiveness can become emotional bypassing, especially when people are pressured to “move on” before they’ve fully worked through what happened or before trust has actually been rebuilt.

The first time I started reading about that concept, I felt weirdly seen. I was practically trained (though not intentionally by anyone) into this: make everybody comfortable again and tie my worth to how fast I was willing to just move on.

For much of my life, I forgave because:

• someone cried.

• I didn’t want family tension.

• everybody else wanted closure.

• I was exhausted.

• I didn’t want to carry the anger anymore.

• being “understanding” had become part of my identity.

And sometimes (this part stings a little) I forgave because I secretly thought endless compassion would finally make somebody love me properly.

I can see now how much of my own quick forgiveness came from discomfort intolerance. I wanted the tension over. I wanted everybody okay again. I wanted resolution more than I wanted honesty.

This hits especially hard when I think about parenting. One of my boys reminded me the other day about a time when he was maybe five years old and he and his brother were fighting over something completely ridiculous, which was basically the full-time occupation of small boys at that age… (and really, probably still is.)

I told him to apologize and he looked at me and said very calmly: “I’m not ready yet.”

I was straight up baffled! My instinct was to run the same script so many of us inherited: Say sorry now. Fix it now. End the conflict now.

But all these years later, his memory of it is completely different. He said, “I’m glad you didn’t make me do it.”

I realized something important: a forced apology means almost nothing if the person saying it hasn’t actually worked through what happened. And rushed forgiveness works exactly the same way. We pressure ourselves and each other to move on before we’ve even fully metabolized the pain. Discomfort makes everybody uneasy. Especially women’s discomfort. Especially women’s anger. But forgiveness on demand can feel more like emotional crowd control than real healing.

And look, before I go any further, I’m not anti-forgiveness. Some forgiveness has absolutely freed me. Some resentment was heavier than the original situation. Some pain genuinely softened over time once I stopped gripping it so tightly.

But the difference is that kind of forgiveness arrived naturally through my own process. It wasn’t forced out of me through guilt, pressure, family expectations, therapy buzzwords, or inspirational Instagram quotes floating over ocean sunsets.

It happened when I was ready. And that’s the part we gloss over: forgiveness only means something when it belongs to the person who was hurt. Not the person demanding it. Not the family system benefiting from it. Not the culture romanticizing women who endlessly absorb emotional damage with grace and wisdom and a fucking casserole!

I also finally understand that peace and forgiveness are not always the same thing. Sometimes peace comes from reconciliation. Sometimes peace comes from distance. Sometimes peace comes from accepting that a person will never fully understand the impact they had on you and deciding you no longer need them to. And sometimes peace comes from finally admitting: “No. That was not okay. And I don’t need to clean it up or make it meaningful to move forward.”

Before You Rush to “Move On”…

Or worse, convince yourself you’re healed once everyone else is more comfortable. These are the questions I ask myself now:

• Am I forgiving because I genuinely feel ready, or does everyone else just want this wrapped up?

• Has real accountability happened here?

• Do I feel safer now… or just pressured to move on?

• Am I confusing empathy with excusing behavior?

• Would I tell my daughter or best friend to tolerate this?

• Is forgiveness reconnecting me to peace… or reconnecting me to dysfunction?

• Am I trying to earn love by being endlessly understanding?

• Do I secretly believe boundaries make me mean?

• If I never got an apology, could I still create peace for myself?

• Am I forgiving because I’ve healed… or because conflict makes me deeply uncomfortable?

• Does forgiving this person require me to betray my own reality?

• If nobody expected forgiveness from me… would I still choose it?

The older I get, the more I believe this: Not everybody deserves forgiveness. Not every relationship deserves restoration. And not every wound needs to become a lesson wrapped in inspirational language for public consumption.

Sometimes the healthiest thing I can say is: “I understand what happened. I accept that it changed me. And no, you do not automatically get forgiveness just from enough time passing.”

And for me, some of the deepest peace I’ve found came after I stopped forcing myself to call something forgivable when it simply wasn’t.

#RealGirlsGuidetoMidlife #MidlifeForgiveness #MidlifePeoplePleaser

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Illustrations by Carrie Trimm Drew

Last month’s poll was about tolerance… and evidently, mine has continued its steady decline.

It’s not even big things for me these days. Just tiny, completely normal interactions that suddenly feel… aggressive.

Like why is everything so loud. Why is everyone so chatty. Why does nothing ever actually take “just a second.”

I used to roll with it. Be easy. Be accommodating. Now I’m side-eyeing everything and asking myself if I really want to deal with it. Most of it’s a no.

Vote or drop me a DM! I need a read on how widespread this situation is.

#RealGirlsGuidetoMidlife #AskaRealGirl #MidlifePoll #MidlifeTriggers

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We’ve earned every wrinkle. Might as well make more laugh lines together.
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Illustrations by Carrie Trimm Drew

I spent a lot of years staying silent: swallowing my feelings, keeping the peace, trying like hell not to make waves. God forbid I’d say or do anything that might make life harder for the people I cared about or, worse, make them feel anything less than proud of me.

There was a stretch during my teen years when that silence became survival. My mom, my brother, and I were tangled in layered, complicated situations. By then, my parents were long divorced, and my brother and I had our occasional visits with my dad. One weekend, we went to see some extended family and friends alongside him. At one point, our plans shifted suddenly. Instead of staying where we expected, we were leaving town. I don’t remember the reason… just that, looking back, it felt less about logistics and more about how much was already weighing on him.

I remember standing in a room when the change was announced. Everyone was quiet, then I was asked, almost reflexively, “What did you do this time?”

Like it was mine to carry.

It wasn’t the first time I absorbed blame for things far outside my control.

I was in elementary school when I got really sick… fever, stomach issues, down for weeks. And even then, the message (spoken or not) was that it was causing disruption. Making things harder.

In those moments, nothing ever really blew up. It just… settled. And over time, I got used to picking things up instead of pushing back.

That pattern followed me everywhere. Work. Home. Marriage.

I didn’t make a big decision about it. I just kept choosing the path that kept things moving, kept things smooth, kept everyone else comfortable. “Suck it up, buttercup” wasn’t something I said out loud… it was just how I operated.

And after a while, that meant I was the one carrying it all.

I second-guessed every feeling. I sat with them like they were unwelcome houseguests. I ran them through a mental checklist:

• Are these feelings real?

• Am I allowed to feel them?

• What’s the fallout going to be if I dare speak them aloud?

Staying silent felt easier. It kept things steady. Predictable. Like I had a handle on it.

But over time, it came at a cost. Every time I let something slide, I gave up a little ground. I told myself it was the right move… that people would pick up on what I wasn’t saying, that I didn’t need to spell it out.

That didn’t really happen.

And somewhere in that, I got used to not saying what I needed.

Figuring Out My Own Voice

What’s deeply ironic about all this is I’m one of those people who has always hated the sound of her own voice. It’s a little high-pitched. It can get preachy. It loves the rich details of a story, gets too passionate, too loud.

Then, when it’s scared, it goes very, very quiet. Like it’s trying to protect me.

There were times my voice sounded so unsure, so unsteady. Weak. That’s hard to admit because I don’t see myself as a weak woman.

My voice was there the whole time… it just didn’t always come out clean. It wobbled. It cracked. Sometimes it got loud enough to be impossible to ignore, and I’d shut it down anyway. I would tell myself I was overreacting. That I didn’t need to go there. That everything was fine.

But somewhere in my mid-40s, I started hearing it differently. When I finally looked at my marriage and admitted it wasn’t working, I let it say what it had been trying to say for a long time.

And then I did something I normally never would’ve done. I stopped running every possible worst-case scenario and just said the thing. I told my now-partner we didn’t need all the answers figured out to try a relationship from 8,000 miles away.

I let that version of me take the mic.

I heard her again when I said yes to an unexpected post-retirement advisory role. And now and since? I hear her all the time.

She speaks up now. In consulting conversations, in rooms where I used to hang back and play it safe, I say what I actually think and recommend what I know will work.

She’s more direct than I used to be. Calls things out. Sets boundaries. Also catches her own nonsense when it shows up. She tells people she loves them. She’s proud of what she’s built and doesn’t feel the need to downplay it.

She doesn’t sit around waiting to be noticed anymore. If something matters, she says it. Then she acts on it.

Mid-50s will do that. Time starts to feel a little less theoretical. There are things I want to write (yep, that 2nd book for example!!), say, try, learn (aka the drums), and I’m not as interested in holding back anymore.

Things I Wish I’d Said (And Things I’d Rather Not Have)

I was recently asked to make a list of 10 things I wish I’d said over the past decade. It took me a minute. Should I focus on the hard things people just don’t say or things I should have said less of? That last category of things came to me much faster, btw!

Things I wish I’d said sooner:

• Yes. To the job offers that scared me because I didn’t think I was “ready.” Turns out, I was more than ready. I was built for them.

• Enough. In my relationships. Of the shit I swallowed at work and being told I was too much, was too curious, was too loud. And truth be told, maybe way sooner.

• I forgive you and I would not be the woman I am without you. To my stepmom before she passed. I missed that window, and I still carry it.

• You were amazing. To my grandma, out loud and more often. She deserved to hear it.

• Yes, let’s go. To a move with my boys to Australia. I said no back then for a lot of really important reasons. But I still think about how differently our lives would have been had we gone.

And then there’s the list of things I wish I hadn’t said or swallowed:

• “It’s fine.” I said that a lot when it wasn’t. Now I say what’s actually going on, even if it’s a little uncomfortable to hear.

• “I shouldn’t say anything.” Comical in a way, given this exercise! I used to stay quiet to keep things smooth. Avoid conflict. Spare people from feelings they probably needed to deal with anyway. Now I say what needs to be said, because staying quiet wasn’t helping anyone.

• “I’m sorry for feeling this way.” I used to say that like my emotions needed approval. Like I had to smooth them out before anyone else could deal with them. I don’t do that anymore. I feel what I feel and say it, without apologizing for it.

• “Let’s wait until the timing is better.” I said that while I stalled and overthought everything. At some point I realized I was just buying time and calling it strategy. Now I move when something matters, even if the timing isn’t perfect.

• “I’ll handle it.” That was my default. I picked things up before anyone else even had a chance to step in. It felt easier than asking, and way easier than explaining. Now I don’t automatically grab everything. I ask for help. I leave some things where they are and let other people meet me there.

If you’ve been calling your silence “grace,” I get why. It works… until it doesn’t. Drop a comment or send me a note… I’m here to learn new stuff myself and to listen.

#RealGirlsGuidetoMidlife, #RealGirlsRegrets, #MidlifeForgiveness #RGG

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We’ve earned every wrinkle. Might as well make more laugh lines together.
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Illustrations by Carrie Trimm Drew

I’ve written a couple pieces about decoding teen slang (you can find the OG piece here because I can’t be the only one who needs a translator)… and yes, I absolutely use it at home. Not always correctly, rarely on purpose, but with the confidence of someone who just learned one phrase and plans to ride it into the ground. My 15 year old says it gives secondhand embarrassment, which obviously means I double down.

And to keep me humble, there’s a very specific point in midlife where you realize you’ve become the final surviving carrier of phrases nobody under 30 has ever heard outside of a beauty parlor (do these places even still exist??) or on a rerun playing in the background at a dentist office.

“For the love of Peter, Paul and Mary,” is among my own personal top ten. And before anyone comes the fuck after me, no, I’m not being sacrilegious. Calm down for a sec, and take a breath! It’s just a light and breezy Ang special.

When I say it, the youngest looks at me like I’ve just quoted Abraham Lincoln from memory. Then five minutes later I hit him with “for Pete’s sake,” which by the way still absolutely slaps as a phrase. Timeless. Versatile. Works for traffic, bad customer service, people chewing too loud, and discovering someone put an empty Diet Coke can back in the fridge.

Also… why is Peter carrying this entire idiom franchise on his back?

And once you notice these phrases coming out of your mouth, you realize how many are just permanently baked into your operating system.

Like: “the state of your bed is the state of your head.” THIS ONE especially. My grandma Gemma used to say it, usually while aggressively pulling sheets tight enough to bounce a quarter off them. And now, every time my room (or for that matter, any room in the house) gets even a little chaotic, I hear her voice in full surround sound. Meanwhile, I’m stepping over a chair covered in yoga pants and sweatshirts… which, at this point, is basically my entire personality.

Then there’s “always the designer, never the dressmaker,” which she used to mutter over hours and hours-old coffee and a cigarette while quietly judging someone’s life choices… or the weight of her own endless, thankless jobs.

And can we discuss the wording choices I just can’t personally release?

ATM machine. PIN number. VIN number.

I know. The extra word serves no purpose. That said, we are ride or dies anyway.

Same with “beanie hat.” Apparently just saying “beanie” feels unfinished to me.

Gen X women especially carry around this incredible collection of inherited phrases from mothers, grandmothers, school secretaries, lunch ladies, mall cashiers, and women who survived life powered entirely by Aqua Net and stress.

Which is why phrases like these still hit immediately:

• “Money doesn’t grow on trees.”

• “You’ve got another thing coming.”

• “Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.”

• “Were you born in a barn?”

• “You’ll live.”

And perhaps the most psychologically destabilizing sentence ever spoken by a mother: “We’ll see.”

Not yes. Not no. Just enough uncertainty to ruin your entire weekend.

The wild part is how fast one phrase can transport you.

I swear every time I say “for Pete’s sake” I am instantly back in my own iconic grandma’s house: floral wallpaper, a clock ticking loud enough to raise your blood pressure, the smell of burnt toast, and a ceramic chicken soup tureen sitting right in the middle of the kitchen table. (PS… why did every house have decorative geese dressed for the seasons? And why do I kind of miss them?).

Even the harsher sayings still live in my brain rent-free:

• “Act your age.”

• “Who died and made you queen?”

• “Don’t make me come in there.”

Today’s teens would call these “emotionally unsafe,” ask “why does she low-key threaten everyone?” and immediately make a TikTok about it.

And yes, I have become the woman saying things like:

• “I just sat down.”

• “I can’t hear (or funny enough see) with all this yelling.”

• “Don’t touch the thermostat.”

And my current daily favorite: “I walked into this room for a reason.” At this point my brain has the loading symbol spinning in the corner at all times.

But I weirdly love these old phrases because they bring people back. The women who raised us were funny, exhausted, overstimulated, wildly capable, and carrying entire households while telling everyone else to “quit crying before I give you something to cry about,” which… wow. Aggressive. Yet somehow culturally universal.

Their sayings were blunt. Efficient. Slightly alarming. Oddly comforting.

And maybe that’s why I don’t want them disappearing. I want “for the love of Peter, Paul and Mary” to survive. I want my own “grandma specials” to thrive. I want women our age to continue to yell “were you born in a barn?” at fully grown adult children who still can’t close a cabinet door.

That’s leaving a legacy.

Now, tell me the old people phrase living in your vocabulary right now because I know some of you are out here casually saying things like “cool your jets” without a shred of irony!

#RealGirlsGuidetoMidlife, #RealGirlsLingo, #MidlifePhrases, #GrannyLingo,

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Yep, you guessed it… we’re back again.

Like always, no trend chasing. No curated “must-haves.” Just the things that are actually earning their place right now. Low drama. High return. Subtly iconic.

Here’s what’s holding up lately.

People We’re Following

Brandy Peacock Traylor @brandypeacocktraylor – Smart, grounded, and saying the quiet parts out loud.

Why we’re following: I actually found Brandy through a reel of her lip-syncing “It Takes Two” by Rob Base (one of my all-time favorites) with a caption along the lines of I can’t remember what I ate for dinner but I will never forget the lyrics to this song… which honestly felt like a direct transmission from my brain.

That was the gateway.

Since then, her posts have that rare ability to talk about midlife shifts without turning them into a performance or a crisis narrative. Her content feels steady and honest… like someone handing you language for things you already sensed but hadn’t fully named yet. Thoughtful without being heavy. Reflective without drifting into “healing journey content.” She’s the kind of follow that makes you pause mid-scroll instead of scrolling faster.

Anasbubble @anasbubble – Hysterical midlife observations that somehow double as a nervous-system reset.

Why we’re following: Ana talks about midlife the way most of us actually experience it: hormones, ADHD brain moments, empty-nest shifts, and the general “what in the entire fuck is actually happening to me lately?” phase… but she does it in a way that makes you laugh instead of spiral.

And if you haven’t seen the reel where she pranks one of her kids by texting the lyrics to “Nothing Compares 2 U” by Sinéad O’Connor (which pulled millions of views) go find it immediately. It’s the perfect example of her humor: unexpected, deadpan, and very midlife-mom-coded.

It’s honest, a little chaotic in the right way, and deeply recognizable if you’re living anywhere inside the midlife transition zone right now. Somehow both hysterical and calming at the same time, which feels like a very specific midlife superpower.

Voices We’re Actually Listening To

Unapologetic Midlife with Mindi Lobuzzetta – The kind of conversations you have with your besties over wine.

Why we’re listening: Mindi talks about midlife the way it actually unfolds… identity shifts, divorce, rebuilding confidence, motherhood, starting over, and what happens when life doesn’t follow the neat timeline you expected. When I joined her on the podcast we immediately realized how much overlap we share: moms, divorced, engaged, navigating the same complications, and the conversation went exactly where real conversations go: honest, raw, thoughtful, and yes… a few well-placed curses included.

Women Mastering Midlife with Victoria Byrd - @msvictoriabyrd – Strategy, reinvention, and real talk about starting again on your own terms.

Why we’re listening: Victoria doesn’t just talk about midlife transitions; she’s living them! She shares honestly about divorce, hormones, rebuilding, and now going back to school to pursue her PhD. That combination of transparency and legendary forward motion is rare. When I joined her show, what struck me most was how grounded and intentional she is about designing what comes next instead of reacting to what already happened. She’s doing midlife like a blueprint, not a recovery plan. Honestly? Certified badass behavior.

Coming Into Focus with Helen Tansey – Conversations that help things make sense again.

Why we’re listening: Helen creates the kind of space where midlife reflection doesn’t feel heavy or prescriptive, just clarifying and easy. I was lucky enough to be a guest on her show, so the connection was already there. Then, on a day I really needed it, she sent me one of the most genuine, grounding voice notes out of the blue. The timing and the message both landed in a way that felt like a quiet reminder that sometimes the right people show up with the perspective we didn’t even realize we were waiting for, if we just stay open enough to notice. Her podcast carries that same energy… steady, reflective, and quietly reassuring.

Dr Abby Medcalf – Boundaries that are practical, direct, and actually usable in real life.

Why we’re reading & listening: Abby’s book Boundaries Made Easy and her Relationships Made Easy podcast get straight to the point about where we over-explain, over-accommodate, and carry things that were never ours to manage in the first place. It’s practical, direct, and the kind of guidance that makes you change how you respond in real conversations — not just nod along while reading and forget it five minutes later.

Creams and Serums We’re Slathering

Youth to the People 15% Vitamin C - Actually works, layers well, and doesn’t require a second mortgage.

Why we’re loving it: Full disclosure: I was standing in Sephora with my 16-year-old stepdaughter when an older-ish associate made a very intentional beeline straight to me and said, essentially, girl, trust me on this one. Not in a “let me rescue you” way (though honestly I am always open to skincare intervention), but in a confident midlife-to-midlife handoff way.

She was right.

It’s reasonably priced, it layers well, and I’m actually noticing a difference — brighter, more awake skin and less of that “I handled everyone else’s life today” look around my face. Also the name alone deserves points. Youth to the People? Sure. I’m still very much about youth to all the people.

ROC Retinol Correction Eye Cream AND CeraVe Eye Repair Cream - A completely unscientific left-eye/right-eye experiment that noticeably softened the raccoon-eye situation.

Why we’re loving them: Dark circles and the tiny under-eye “crinkle geography” (and if you’ve read my book, you already know about my oldest son’s very honest assessment of the situation under there) have been longtime residents around here, so I ran a completely unscientific left-eye/right-eye experiment like a middle-school science fair project: zero documentation, no poster board, maximum commitment.

Both surprised me.

Within a few weeks things looked brighter, smoother, and less shadowy overall. Also possibly helping: the red light mask from the last Obsessions quietly pulling overtime in the background like a dependable coworker who never feels the need to announce what they did.

Either way… they’ve each earned a spot.

Binge-Worthy Shows

Your Friends & Neighbors — Easy-entry drama that pulls you in before you realize you’re invested.

Why we’re watching: Light drama with just enough tension to keep things interesting without requiring emotional recovery time afterward. It’s the kind of show you start casually (yeah, I’m late to this party) and suddenly realize you’ve watched three episodes and are now deeply invested in people whose decisions you absolutely would not make yourself.

Real Housewives of Beverly Hills + Erin Jones-Wesley Like Us podcast - Dinner-table tension, side-eye energy, and now a relatability leaderboard.

Why we’re watching: I’ve been obsessed with Real Housewives of Beverly Hills for years and I am not even slightly embarrassed about it. It’s one of the strongest franchises in the entire Housewives universe (and yes, I watch several), because the mix of friendships, alliances, lifestyle chaos, and completely unhinged dinner-table dynamics somehow never gets old.

And then Erin’s Like Us podcast added the leaderboard.

Her system for tracking “relatable moments” across episodes deserves its own Bravo spinoff. Assigning points for who’s being the most normal in wildly abnormal situations somehow turns Housewives into a competitive sport and makes the whole thing feel weirdly accessible… even if your own dinner parties rarely involve full glam squads, someone saying “name ’em,” or a simple conversation quietly turning into a full alliance shift before dessert (IYKYK).

Erin gives fantasy football energy - housewives edition. It’s unexpectedly addictive. And honestly? Elite behavior.

BONUS: Iconic Author Energy We Deeply Respect

Freida McFadden - Thriller plots that make you cancel your own bedtime.

Why we’re obsessed: The reveal that Freida McFadden is actually Dr. Sara Cohen, a New York physician specializing in brain disorders, somehow made her books even cooler.

She protected her privacy. Built a massive thriller audience anyway. Wore wigs and glasses for appearances. And then casually stepped forward once the momentum spoke for itself.

That’s not branding. It’s purely perfected strategy.

Also: I watched The Housemaid on a flight and now absolutely need to read the book because sometimes the correct order is movie first, then obsession spiral second.

No rules here. Chef’s kiss behavior all around.

And that’s Part 6.

Just the things quietly making life smoother, brighter, calmer, or more entertaining lately.

If something recently earned a spot in your group chat, your headphones, your nightstand, or your late-night scroll… send it my way and we’ll add it to the growing list of our Real Girls Obsessions.

This list keeps evolving the same way midlife does: selectively, honestly, and with zero patience left for things that don’t hold up.

#RealGirlsGuidetoMidlife, #RealGirlsObsessions #MidlifeMustHaves #Influenced #MidlifePodcast #MidlifeWriter #MidlifeFun #RGG

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We’ve earned every wrinkle. Might as well make more laugh lines together.
Let’s connect: Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn | Website | Book

And if you’ve read the book and loved it, a quick review on Amazon helps keep it moving.

For years I thought responsible decisions required a full timeline.

Where this leads. How it plays out. What happens five years from now. And obviously a complete set of worst-case scenarios already imagined and survived in advance.

Because that’s what capable women do.

We don’t just think things through. We think them all the way to the edge before we let ourselves move.

Midlife is teaching me something simpler: I don’t need the whole decade figured out.

I need the next move to move. That’s enough.

#RealGirlsGuidetoMidlife #RealGirlsRealityCheck(list) #RGG #MidlifeReality

We’ve earned every wrinkle. Might as well make more laugh lines together.
Let’s connect: Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn | Website | Book

And if you’ve read the book and loved it, a quick review on Amazon helps keep it moving.

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