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

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

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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I technically retired once, and it lasted about a month.

After thirty years of working hard, I stepped back and thought maybe this would be the moment things finally slowed down. Not in a ceremonial retirement kind of way. There was no gold watch. No tropical-drink-on-a-Tuesday energy. It was more like I stepped off the treadmill for a minute and thought, maybe this is the part where I stop doing work the way I’ve always done it and figure out what the next version actually looks like.

Except what came next was consulting. Then writing… a fucking book!! Then building something new. And somewhere in the middle of all that I realized something I wasn’t expecting.

Retirement isn’t a finish line anymore. It’s a moving target.

Over the past year especially, I’ve noticed how often this conversation is showing up in my circle: friends who never used to talk about retirement are suddenly talking about it. People who thought they had a plan are questioning the plan. People who assumed things would unfold in a predictable way are realizing that midlife is when work, money, identity, and partnership all start interacting differently than they did before.

Some of the conversations are practical. Some of them are funny in a slightly dark way. Some of them are honest ways I don’t remember hearing even five years ago.

I’ve heard friends say they feel like they’re becoming their own partner’s retirement strategy. I’ve heard people say they expect to work until they’re ninety-seven. I’ve heard people say they’re just going to ride everything until the wheels fall off. I’ve also heard people quietly admit they retired recently and are surprised by how strange it feels not to love it.

And then there are the friends who didn’t choose this moment at all. The ones who were laid off. The ones who were pushed out. The ones suddenly trying to reenter the workforce at an age when nobody ever told us we might need to reinvent ourselves again.

Underneath all of these conversations is the same realization: nobody actually explained how this part was supposed to work.

The Part That’s Really About Money (Even When We Pretend It Isn’t)

Retirement conversations sound like they’re about money. Most of the time they’re actually about identity.

For women especially, this is the moment when decades of earning patterns, caregiving patterns, partnership structures, and invisible labor all show up at once.

Some of us were primary earners. Some of us stepped back at key moments for family. Some of us built careers around flexibility instead of accumulation. Some of us assumed there would be time later to figure things out.

Midlife is often when “later” arrives.

Inside relationships, retirement planning can suddenly become a conversation about power, timing, independence, expectations, and fairness in ways nobody warned us about ahead of time. It’s where questions like whose timeline, whose income, and whose security stop being abstract and start becoming very real.

Before We Go Further, One Important Thing

I should say something clearly because this part matters.

I am not a financial advisor. This blog does not come with a retirement calculator. I am not about to tell you your number or your timeline or whether you should move somewhere sunny and start playing pickleball four days a week.

What I am is someone who worked for thirty years (longer if you count the first job I lied to get when I was a teenager), technically retired for about a month, stepped into consulting, started writing books, and suddenly found myself in the same conversations I keep hearing everywhere now about work, timing, and what the next twenty years are actually supposed to look like.

This isn’t about spreadsheets. It’s about looking at what’s already changing whether you planned for it or not.

The Fear Part Is Not Irrational

There’s another layer to this conversation that doesn’t get said out loud very often.

Some of the fear around retirement timing and career pivots isn’t overthinking. It isn’t negativity. And it isn’t a mindset problem.

Sometimes it’s math.

Sometimes it’s what happens when a layoff lands later than expected, or a partner retires earlier than planned, or a health issue shows up, or caregiving changes the timeline, or a relationship shifts in a way nobody saw coming.

And one of the reasons women are talking more openly about all this stuff right now is because we’re starting to see how quickly certain decisions become harder to undo if we wait too long to look at them clearly.

That doesn’t mean panic. But it does mean honesty.

Ignoring the conversation doesn’t make the risk smaller. It just makes the timeline shorter.

And the good news (and yes, there can be good news in this part) is that paying attention now gives you more options than waiting until something makes the decision for you.

Real Girls Reality Check(list): Career Pivots + Retirement Conversations

This isn’t about scaring yourself. It’s a place to start taking a real look at what your next phase might actually require.

1. Have I actually looked at my retirement numbers recently?
Not what they were five years ago. Not what I hope they are. The actual numbers as they stand today.

2. Do I know what retirement means for me personally, not just for my household?
Shared plans matter. Individual ones matters too.

3. If my job disappeared tomorrow, would I know what I’d do next?
Consulting, fractional work, teaching, advising, writing, or something entirely new. Midlife careers are rarely single-track anymore.

4. Am I staying in my current role because I still want it, or because changing direction feels risky right now?
Those are very different reasons to stay.

5. Have I invested in keeping my skills and network visible over the last few years?
Midlife layoffs are real. Re-entry is easier when people already know what you do.

6. Do my partner and I actually agree about what retirement timing looks like?
Not vaguely. Specifically.

7. Have we talked honestly about whether one of us is quietly carrying more retirement pressure than the other?
This conversation is happening in more households than anyone admits publicly.

8. Do I want to stop working, or do I want to stop working the way I’m working now?
These are not the same decision.

9. Have I created any flexibility in how I earn income?
Consulting, advising, project work, writing, teaching, portfolio careers. Flexibility is becoming one of the most valuable midlife assets there is.

10. Do I know what I actually want my days to feel like if work changes?
Less travel. Less pressure. More autonomy. More creativity. More space. Retirement decisions are lifestyle decisions wearing financial clothing.

11. Am I avoiding this conversation because it feels uncomfortable or overdue?
Avoidance is the most common retirement strategy I see.

12. Am I allowing myself to imagine that the next phase could be redesigned instead of endured?

This is where the conversation shifts from fear to agency.

What Surprised Me Most About My Own Pivot

When I stepped out of a traditional career structure, even briefly, I expected uncertainty. What I didn’t expect was how quickly my definition of work started changing once I gave myself permission to change it.

Consulting gave me flexibility I hadn’t had before. Writing gave me ownership I hadn’t had before. Building something new reminded me that experience doesn’t disappear just because the structure around it shifts.

None of that removed the questions about retirement timelines or financial planning or what the long-term picture looks like. Those questions are still there. (And if you know me, I am an Olympic-level worrier, so yeah… there are nights when this is absolutely all I think about.)

What changed instead was my assumption that there is only one acceptable way to move through this phase of life. There isn’t. There’s just the script we were handed.

Stepping outside the default path (even briefly) made it obvious there are far more options available in midlife than anyone ever explained to me while I was busy building everyone else’s stability.

So Here’s the Real Part We Often Do Not Hear Enough

A lot of us assumed retirement would be a clean transition. Work hard. Save responsibly. Hit a number. Step back.

Instead what I’m seeing everywhere right now is something messier and more honest. Careers are shifting instead of ending. Layoffs are forcing decisions earlier than expected. Consulting is becoming a bridge instead of a backup plan. Partnerships are having conversations they probably should have had ten years ago. And a surprising number of people are quietly realizing they don’t actually want to stop working — they just don’t want to keep working the way they have been.

And that’s not failure.

Midlife isn’t arriving with a single exit ramp anymore. It’s arriving with a set of choices most of us were never taught to expect.

And the more women I talk to, the clearer it becomes that we’re not late to the retirement conversation.

We’re just finally having honest versions of it.

If This Checklist Hit Closer To Home Than You Expected

Start one conversation. Look at one number. Ask one question you’ve been avoiding.

Or admit (even just to yourself) that something about your relationship with work has already shifted.

That’s usually where this begins.

And if you’re trying to make sense of that shift, this exact territory - career pivots, partnership expectations, financial independence, identity changes, and the strange feeling of realizing nobody handed us instructions for this decade - is why I wrote the Real Girls Guide to Midlife.

Not to tell you what your retirement plan should be.

Just to help you recognize what’s changing while you’re still in the middle of it.

Because midlife isn’t when the options disappear. It’s when they finally start belonging to us.

#RealGirlsGuidetoMidlife #RealGirlsRealityCheck(list) #RGG #MidlifeReality

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There’s a quiet tension that shows up in long-term partnerships, especially in midlife, and it rarely announces itself as a big problem.

Most of the time, it starts with something small.

Tickets. To a game. A concert. A fundraiser. A reunion. A weekend built around something one person loves and the other agrees to because that’s what partners do.

And what looks like a simple scheduling conversation turns into something else entirely.

Because the disagreement isn’t really about the event. It’s about what showing up represents.

By midlife, many partnerships have moved through years of shared logistics… careers, parenting, caregiving, mortgages, community obligations. Life was organized around collective responsibility. Showing up together made sense because the “project” was shared.

As that structure shifts (children grow up, careers stabilize or change, identities evolve), something more subtle emerges: two adults with distinct preferences.

Different interests. Different energy levels. Different ways of wanting to spend a Saturday night.

And then the question arises: “Will you come with me?”

I hear versions of this all the time!

Your partner buys tickets to something they’re genuinely excited about: a band, a game, an event that feels personal to them. They ask if you want to come. You hesitate. It’s not really your thing. You say no. Maybe gently. Maybe more than once.

And what started as a simple invitation (let’s say to a heavy metal concert) starts to carry weight. Your partner feels rejected. You feel pressured. The tone shifts. The meaning shifts.

Suddenly the conversation isn’t about the event anymore. It’s about whose preferences set the rhythm of the relationship.

And on your side, there’s that moment of quiet, slightly incredulous honesty: “Do I even look like a mosh pit girl to you anymore?”

On its face, it’s a simple request. But underneath, it can carry meaning. Is this about companionship? About being seen? About loyalty? About not wanting to go alone? About reassurance that we’re still aligned?

My favorite therapist, Charlie Bauman, speaks about ‘differentiation’ in long-term relationships. He writes, “The goal of a healthy partnership isn’t fusion. It’s two differentiated adults choosing each other.”

Differentiation means maintaining a sense of self while remaining connected. It allows for closeness without requiring sameness.

Midlife often tests that capacity.

When one partner assumes the other will go to something as proof of support, and the other partner hesitates, it gets personal real quick. Not in a dramatic way. In a quiet way that makes both people slightly unsure what just happened.

For a lot of us, especially women (and yeah, definitely me), showing up has always been part of how we demonstrate love. We learned early to be agreeable, flexible, supportive, and easy to bring along. We learned that partnership meant participation. So saying “that’s not really my thing” can feel selfish, even when it’s completely reasonable.

And on the other side, it’s just as understandable that a partner might hear hesitation as distance. If you’ve built your life around doing things together, the instinct isn’t control. It’s closeness. It’s wanting shared experiences instead of separate ones.

What makes this tricky in midlife is that many of us are just starting to notice how many automatic “yeses” we’ve been carrying for years. Not because anyone forced us. Because we were easy. Because we were adaptable. Because we were used to being the ones who made things work.

So when a no finally shows up, it can feel bigger than the actual decision.

With my friends (and yeah, sometimes with me too), I start to notice tension creep in when attendance turns into a trade agreement. “I go to your things, you go to mine.” It sounds fair. It even sounds mature. But over time it quietly shifts partnership into scorekeeping, and scorekeeping is where resentment starts doing its best work.

Charlie says something that stuck with me: when partners stop differentiating, they start negotiating from that resentment instead of from desire. That shift is subtle, but you can feel it immediately when it happens. People stop choosing each other and start managing each other.

And underneath all of this is usually the same question neither person is saying out loud: if parts of your life happen without me, where do I fit?

The strongest midlife partnerships I see are the ones that can tolerate space without immediately interpreting it as distance. They understand that autonomy isn’t rejection. It’s part of staying connected without feeling crowded. They make room for separate interests, separate friendships, and different definitions of what sounds like a fun Saturday night.

The intimacy isn’t sitting next to each other at every event. It’s knowing you don’t have to.

#RealGirlsGuidetoMidlife #MidlifePartnership #RGG #MidlifeNegotiating

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The cover of the Real Girls Guide: Midlife Workbook is here!

Before anyone hears the word workbook and thinks “Hard. Pass. I am not doing homework right now, or ever!” - don’t worry. This isn’t that kind of work. No grades. No catching up. No doing it wrong. It’s just space to notice what’s shifting and somewhere to think on paper while midlife is busy rearranging things anyway.

And I want to be totally honest about something: writing this one wasn’t part of the plan.

Making Real Girls Guide to Midlife took almost twenty years… not because I was drafting it the whole time (I wasn’t… and if you know the red folder story, you know that idea was literally buried for a while), but because it took that long to live enough life to write it honestly.

Finding that red folder again wasn’t just a reminder that I had once planned to write this book. It was a realization that many of the things I had been wrestling with in my mid-30s and into my 40s: the massive changes, the uncertainty, the pressure, the questions I didn’t yet know how to name were things I had already moved through.

Not perfectly. Not cleanly. Not without battle scars. But I had made it to the other side of many of them.

By my mid-50s, I was carrying a whole new set of questions and realities I couldn’t have imagined back when I first tucked those notes away.

I wasn’t writing toward a life I hoped would make sense someday. I was writing from one I had already lived through… and finally understanding that the woman I am now is the one I trust to carry me through whatever comes next.

Finishing the book mattered in a different way, too. I wanted to prove to myself that I could see something that big all the way through. And I wanted my boys to watch me do something that required hard work, grit, faith, and perseverance.

We finish what we start. We take risks. We bet on ourselves.

That mattered to me more than I understood at the time.

What I didn’t expect was what happened after the book came out.

So many women wrote to me. They told me what felt familiar. What surprised them. What they had been carrying quietly for years. They shared stories they hadn’t planned to share with anyone.

This workbook (which truly was never part of the original plan) exists because of those conversations.

It’s for the moment when something shifts… not dramatically, just enough that you start noticing what no longer fits the same way it used to. The roles you’ve carried. The relationships you’ve managed. The expectations you learned to meet without question. Even the version of yourself everyone got used to.

You don’t need a grand plan to begin. You don’t need to reinvent your life. You just have to start noticing what’s already changing.

If you’ve already read Real Girls Guide to Midlife, this is the next step. And if plan on starting here, you’re in exactly the right place.

This one comes out soon, and I’ll be sharing a few behind-the-scenes moments and things I didn’t expect to learn while writing it right here as we get closer.

So if you want the real-time version of what’s unfolding (and the occasional midlife field report along the way), make sure you’re subscribed to The Real Girls Guide here on Substack. That’s where everything shows up first.

I’m incredibly grateful to this community and to every person who has read the book, shared it, or taken the time to tell me what it meant to them. This second book exists because of you more than you realize.

Truly… thank you for being here with me.

#RealGirlsGuideWorkbook #MidlifeJournal #RGG #MidlifeMantras

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There’s something happening in midlife that women talk about with each other but almost never say out loud to the men involved. It usually comes up after a glass of wine (or a cocktail if you’re like me), or during one of those conversations where someone finally admits something slightly horrifying and everyone else immediately says, “OH MY GOD, SAME.”

The topic is not affairs. Not finances. Not even the emotional stuff people expect.

It’s… the bodily commentary.

Because somewhere around midlife, many men appear to enter a phase where they become deeply, passionately interested in narrating what is happening with their bodies. Not in a vague “getting older” sense. In a forensic sense. A play-by-play sense. A level of detail that feels less like intimacy and more like an unsolicited medical podcast.

And the timing is often spectacularly bad.

The New Love Language: Medical Updates

Many women in my circle will say things like, “He just spent five minutes explaining what he flossed out of his teeth and then leaned in to kiss me.” Or, “He lifted his shirt to show me a rash and then asked if I wanted to go upstairs.” One friend described her husband casually announcing a prostate update while they were literally getting into bed. Another said her partner will periodically say things like, “Feel this weird bump on my back,” and then look confused when the mood does not immediately become electric.

None of this is malicious. In fact, that’s part of what makes it so funny. Most of these men think they’re just talking. They think they’re sharing. They think they’re being transparent and communicative, which for decades women have been begging them to do.

But the problem is not the sharing itself.

The problem is the content and the timing… aka the context.

Things Women Do Not Need to Hear Before Sex

Somewhere along the way, the nightly conversation has drifted into territory that could best be described as medical adjacent.

For example:

• what was discovered during flossing
• a detailed report on digestion
• the newest knee or back pain
• dermatology findings unveiled under bright lighting
• the ongoing documentary series known as hair loss

Hair loss alone seems to inspire a surprising amount of discussion. Not just quiet acknowledgment, but analysis. Angles. Demonstrations in bathroom mirrors.

“Look right here,” they’ll say, pointing at the crown of their head as if unveiling a geological formation. “See how it’s thinning?”

Yes. We see it.

We also remember when this conversation was about kissing and foreplay!

Meanwhile… The Female Libido Situation

Meanwhile, the women I talk to are sitting there thinking something they would never say out loud: our midlife libido is already fragile.

Hormones are shifting. Sleep is weird. Stress is high. Our bodies are doing their own set of strange recalibrations. Many women (me included, by the way) are already negotiating a delicate internal ecosystem when it comes to attraction, energy, and wanting to be touched at all.

So when the environment suddenly shifts into a detailed report on what someone just removed from between their molars, the remaining spark does not stand a chance.

The difference is that most women have developed a quiet editing instinct about when and where certain updates get shared. There’s usually an unspoken understanding that the pre-romance atmosphere is not the moment to debut a dermatology discovery.

For reasons that are both biological and cultural, some men (not all, so don’t come for me all crazy-like) don’t seem to make that distinction.

Why This Is Happening

Part of this is simply that midlife is the first time many men really notice their bodies changing.

For decades the male body tends to operate like reliable machinery. Recovery is quick. Strength holds steady. Things hurt… and then stop hurting.

And because men historically weren’t encouraged to talk about their health or vulnerability very much, all of those observations usually come pouring out once they finally do.

Another reason is that many men genuinely believe this is what good communication looks like. They have spent years hearing that women want more openness, more emotional presence, more honesty about what’s going on internally. So they deliver exactly that.

They just happen to deliver it in the form of a nightly status report on their sinuses, their digestion, and the texture of their toenails (yes, these topics really did come up in my field research!).

The Comfort Trap

There is also the quiet creep of comfort that happens in long relationships.

Early attraction runs on mystery, presentation, and a little bit of performance. People curate themselves. They dress with intention. They flirt.

As relationships settle into the long middle years of mortgages, grocery lists, and shared logistics, that layer of seduction can slowly dissolve into something closer to roommate energy.

And roommates, unfortunately, do show each other strange lumps on their elbows.

How Women Can Survive This Phase

Supporting a partner through a knee surgery or a new medication is one thing. Pivoting from a ten-minute conversation about bowel regularity into spontaneous sex is another category entirely.

The mental transition required there is heroic.

What I hear from women most often is not cruelty or rejection, but bewilderment. They’ll say things like, “I was actually in a good mood until he started describing his foot fungus,” or “I might have been open to the idea of sex until the dental excavation story.”

And again, this isn’t because women don’t understand bodies changing. We’re living it too. It’s simply that the timing of these updates can quietly drain the atmosphere of anything remotely romantic and sexy!

The good news is that this is fixable. A few small strategies help:

• move health updates to daylight hours
• gently redirect the conversation when it gets… anatomical
• reintroduce flirting before medical commentary
• remember that mystery is still attractive at 50, 60, 70…+++

None of this requires therapy or a relationship overhaul.

It mostly requires a little more awareness in the moment.

A Final Public Service Announcement

There is nothing wrong with discussing health updates, aches, weird moles, or the mysteries of digestion. Those are all normal parts of being human in midlife.

Women have our own growing list too. We just tend to save those conversations for friends, doctors, or daylight hours.

But perhaps those conversations belong over coffee, fully clothed, and several hours away from the bedroom.

Because nothing in human history has ever successfully bridged the sentence,

“Look what I just pulled out of my teeth…”

with the sentence,

“So… you want to have sex?”

#RealGirlsGuidetoMidlife #MidlifeMen #MidlifeSex #Libido #TMI

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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.

There was a stretch in midlife where I thought my libido had quietly packed a bag and left the building.

Not dramatically. Not with a slammed door. Just… diminished. Blurry. Harder to access.

Seven years post-menopause, a few recent hormone tweaks have absolutely helped. Thank God for science. And for doctors who don’t gaslight women into thinking dryness and disinterest are personality flaws.

But hormones weren’t the whole story.

My Aussie man and I finally started getting real language around desire after reading Miranda July’s book All Fours and realizing that what we were feeling wasn’t “broken.” It was unspoken. There’s a difference. Once we had words, things shifted. Not instantly. But honestly.

And then I got introduced to Jana Danielson - movement educator, author of The Sacred Woman’s Guide to Moving Better, pelvic floor advocate, and founder of Bloom Better and the Cooch Ball - by Andrea Claire of the Fxck You 50s podcast and Dr. Trina Read, sexologist, author of The Taboo Show, and host of the Sensational Sex and Pursuit of Pleasure podcasts.

When women I trust start talking about pelvic floor health, empowerment, and actually feeling again, I pay attention.

Because here’s the truth: midlife sex doesn’t have to be dead. But it does require us to stop pretending we can think our way back into desire. We have to feel our way there.

Jana is here to help us take even more control…not just of our pelvic floor, but of our pleasure, our presence, and the narrative that says this part of life is supposed to shrink.

Let’s get into it.

1. Midlife is often framed as a time of sexual decline. From your work, what actually changes—and what wakes up—when women stop performing sex and start listening to their bodies?

Jana: I LOVE this question! I am 52 years old and a few months ago was talking to my friend Amy St. Germain, the Founder of Oboo, and she was telling me that she saw a stat that said that 50% of women over 50 do not have any form of intercourse or self pleasure! WHATTTT! For someone like me whose tagline is “Waking Women Up One Cooch at a Time” that stat made me sad at first, and then it motivated me to make an impact on women and decrease this number!!

What changes physiologically is real, hormones shift, tissues change, nerve sensitivity fluctuates. But what wakes up when women stop performing is self-awareness. They start noticing what they actually feel, what they actually want, what has never actually worked for them but they did anyway. That’s not decline. That’s data.

And here’s the piece that almost no one talks about: the ability to receive.

Dr. Mindy Pelz speaks to this beautifully in Age Like a Girl, when a young woman first encounters her hormones and gets her period, her brain literally reorganizes itself. It shifts from a “self-first” orientation to one where she feels most validated, most seen, when she is caring for others. That’s not a flaw. That’s biology. But it means that for decades, most women have been wired to give, to tend, to anticipate everyone else’s needs, including in the bedroom.

Then midlife arrives. Hormones reset. And for the first time since adolescence, the brain begins returning to self. It’s a biological invitation to come home to your own experience. But here’s the thing, you can’t just flip a switch after thirty years of conditioning. Unlearning takes time. It takes practice. It takes someone saying out loud: your pleasure matters.

Not as a reward. Not as a bonus. As a birthright.

So many women have quietly filed pleasure under “optional” or something to get to if there’s time, if everyone else is okay, if they’ve earned it. Midlife is the moment to cross that out entirely. Pleasure isn’t optional. It’s physiological. It’s psychological. It is, in every sense, your right and reclaiming it starts with finally being willing to receive it.

2. Many women come to midlife disconnected from their pelvic floor, often without realizing it. What are the most common myths you see about pelvic health and desire that keep women feeling broken or “past it”?

Jana: The biggest myth? That Kegels are the answer to everything. They’re not, and for many women, they’re actively making things worse. Here’s why that matters.

Most women arrive at midlife carrying decades of holding. Holding stress. Holding grief. Holding the weight of being everything to everyone. The clothes and the shoes that we wear very much impact the pelvic floor in a less than optimal way and we do not even realize it! And so much of that holding lives in the pelvis and the pelvic floor. When we guard, protect, and brace through this part of our body for years, we tap directly into the sympathetic nervous system. Fight. Flight. Freeze. The brain starts operating as if we are constantly running from something. And when that’s the baseline, we can’t even meet our most fundamental need: safety.

So the pelvic floor becomes a rock wall. Tight. Armored. Holding onto stress and emotional residue that has nowhere else to go.

And then we cough. We sneeze. We laugh too hard. And we leak. Our rational mind immediately says, okay, do more Kegels. But that’s the trap. The traditional Kegel of ‘stop the flow, start the flow, squeeze and hold’ only adds more tension to a muscle that is already over-tensed. And here’s the truth that changed everything for me: a tight muscle is not a functionally strong one. Tension and strength are not the same thing. I learned this early in my life, at 21 years old when I was on 11 medications for gut pain, headaches and joints that felt like the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz after a heavy rain, I peed my pants everyday and I was not a new mom nor was I in menopause. This turned out to be a gift as it was the inspiration that brought me to create the Cooch Ball over 20 years later (but I digress, let’s get back to this answer!).

So before we strengthen these 14 muscles, we have to release these 14 muscles. Pelvic floor physiotherapy is one of the most powerful ways to begin that process. So is the Cooch Ball, a pelvic floor fitness tool that I created! It works with movement and breath to create the kind of dynamic, functional engagement that actually restores the pelvic floor rather than gripping it tighter. When I discovered the research from Dr. Bruce Crawford showing that 90% of pelvic floor dysfunction is a movement and fitness issue, not a medical one, that was the moment I knew I had to create a fitness solution. Not another squeeze-and-hold protocol. A movement practice. The Cooch Ball was born!

The second myth is that disconnection is just “getting older.” No. Disconnection is the result of decades of not being taught to acknowledge and love this part of our body. We were taught to manage it, contain it, or ignore it entirely.

And the third myth, the one I want to dismantle loudly and clearly: that leaking, pain, numbness, and pelvic floor dysfunction are normal. They are not normal. They are common. Those are two completely different things. Common means many women experience it. Normal means it’s supposed to happen. It is not supposed to happen. It is simply what occurs when a whole generation of women was never given the tools, the language, or the permission to care for this part of themselves. That changes now.

3. You talk a lot about sensation, presence, and embodiment—not performance. How does reconnecting with the pelvic floor change the way women experience desire, pleasure, and even confidence outside the bedroom?

Jana: The pelvic floor is the physical center of the body. It’s connected to your breath, your nervous system, your posture, your core, your voice. When it’s tight, guarded, or numb, that energy doesn’t just stay in one place, it radiates outward. Women feel it in how they carry themselves, how they show up in meetings, how present they feel in conversation. Embodiment isn’t a concept. It’s a felt experience. And once you feel it, you can’t unfeel it.

But let’s go even deeper because this is where it gets both scientific and revolutionary.

According to Dr. Sara Reardon in Floored: A Woman’s Guide to Pelvic Floor Health at Every Age and Stage, in order to orgasm, the pelvic floor muscles need to contract and relax (turn on and off) anywhere between 2 and 32 times. That’s not passive. That requires intelligent, responsive, well-trained muscles. Which means orgasm isn’t luck. It isn’t reserved for a special category of women who somehow won the genetic lottery. It is a physiological capacity that every woman has and like any capacity, it responds to awareness, practice, and training. When I say we need to know our bodies, this is exactly what I mean. We don’t just want strong pelvic floors. We want smart ones.

And then there’s the piece that stops me every single time I talk about it, the pudendal nerve.

The pudendal nerve is the primary motor and sensory nerve connecting the brain to the genitals and pelvic floor in both men and women. It carries everything sensation, pleasure, pain, signal, response. It is the communication highway between your mind and your most intimate self.

And its Latin root? Pudendal means an area of shame.

Let that land for a moment. The main nerve responsible for bringing pleasure from the pelvic floor to the brain is literally named after shame. And according to Dr. David R. Hawkins’ research on emotional frequency, shame is the single lowest-vibrating emotion a human being can carry. It sits at the very bottom, below grief, below fear, below anger. It is the heaviest thing we hold.

So when women feel disconnected from desire, from sensation, from their own bodies it is not weakness. It is not dysfunction. It is, in many cases, the accumulated weight of shame that has been layered onto this part of us for generations. Culturally. Religiously. Relationally. That shame lives in the nerve itself, etymologically, historically, and somatically.

Reconnecting with the pelvic floor is therefore not just a fitness practice. It is an act of reclamation. Every breath that softens this area, every intentional movement that restores sensation, every moment of curiosity instead of avoidance, it is a woman choosing a higher frequency. Choosing herself. Choosing pleasure over shame.

That is what changes outside the bedroom too. When a woman stops carrying shame in her center, she stands differently. She speaks differently. She takes up space differently. That’s not a metaphor. That’s the body, finally free to move.

4. Menopause and perimenopause can bring pain, numbness, or fear around sex. What do you wish more women understood about what’s happening physiologically—and what isn’t actually permanent or inevitable?

Jana: I wish women knew that dryness, discomfort, and numbness are physiological responses not punishments, not the end of the story. Estrogen decline affects vaginal tissue, yes. But tissue responds to blood flow, and blood flow responds to movement, stimulation, and hydration. We can influence this. More than most women realize.

And I wish more women understood the fear cycle because this is where so much unnecessary suffering lives. Fear creates tension. Tension creates pain. Pain creates more fear. It is a loop, and it is absolutely breakable. Breath work, pelvic floor release, proper lubrication, and when appropriate, hormone support can interrupt that cycle at any point. None of this is inevitable. Some of it is just unaddressed. There is a massive difference between those two things.

Which brings me to the tool I wish every woman in perimenopause and menopause had in her hands immediately: her own breath. Specifically, her diaphragm.

Here’s what most women don’t know, the diaphragm and the pelvic floor are biomechanical partners. They move together. When you inhale and your diaphragm drops, your pelvic floor gently descends and lengthens with it. When you exhale and your diaphragm rises, your pelvic floor naturally lifts. They are in constant conversation. But the vast majority of women are neck and chest breathers, short, shallow, upper-body breaths that never reach the diaphragm and therefore never reach the pelvic floor. The partnership goes silent.

When we learn to breathe diaphragmatically, fully, slowly, letting the belly expand on the inhale and soften on the exhale we are doing several things simultaneously. We are directly activating the parasympathetic nervous system, pulling the body out of fight-or-flight and into rest and restore. We are taking in 600% more oxygen into our cells. We are increasing blood flow to the pelvic region, which is exactly what tissue needs to stay healthy, responsive, and lubricated. And we are creating a gentle, rhythmic release in the pelvic floor the kind of release that no Kegel, no gadget, and no supplement can replicate on its own.

For women experiencing pain or fear around sex, diaphragmatic breathing is often the very first entry point because it is safe, it is always available, and it begins to rebuild the conversation between the brain and the body before anything else is asked of either one.

You don’t have to fix everything at once. Start with a breath. A real one. All the way down.

5. There’s a big difference between “having sex” and feeling desire. For midlife women who say, “I don’t want sex anymore,” how do you help them untangle whether it’s hormones, resentment, exhaustion, conditioning—or something else entirely?

Jana: I always start by asking: When did you last feel desire for anything? Not just sex but anything. A meal. A conversation. A creative project. If desire has gone quiet across the board, we’re usually talking about nervous system depletion. The body has nothing left to give. That’s not a libido problem. That’s a load problem.

But if desire shows up in other places and just not here then that’s important information. That points to something relational, or historical, or rooted in how sex has been framed for her entire life. Was it ever for her? Or always for someone else? Untangling that honestly, without shame, is where real change begins. Hormones are one chapter. They are not the whole book.

And here is the framework that I come back to again and again when working with women on desire because I believe the pelvic floor is not one thing. It is a trifecta.

The first layer is the physical - the muscles, the fascia, the nerves. This is where most conversations about pelvic health begin and, unfortunately, end. But it is only the foundation.

The second layer is the emotional - this is where we hold. Where we protect. Where we store what we never processed, never said, never let go of. Decades of stress, grief, resentment, and unmet needs don’t just live in our minds. They live in our tissue. The pelvis is one of the body’s primary storage units for emotional residue, and until we acknowledge that layer, no amount of physical work will fully unlock what’s possible.

The third layer is the energetic - and this is the one that changes everything for women who have tried everything else. The sacral chakra sits in the pelvic bowl. I call it the sacred chakra because that feels more true. This is the energy center where sensuality lives. Where creativity lives. Where the capacity to feel, to flow, to generate and receive lives. When this center is blocked, stuck, or simply ignored, the impact ripples far beyond the bedroom. Women notice it in their creative life, their joy, their sense of aliveness in the world.

So when a woman says I don’t want sex anymore I don’t just hear a libido question. I hear a woman who may be physically tight, emotionally guarded, and energetically shut down in her center. And the path back isn’t a single solution. It’s tending to all three layers with curiosity, with patience, and with the radical understanding that desire isn’t a luxury. It is life force. And it lives right here.

6. Cooch Balls are often misunderstood as just another wellness gadget. How do you explain their role in healing, pleasure, and nervous system regulation—especially for women who feel intimidated or skeptical?

Jana: I get the skepticism. The wellness industry has handed women a lot of things that promise transformation and deliver very little. So let me be direct: Cooch Balls are a tool for proprioception which means helping your brain reconnect to a part of your body it may have lost the signal to. That’s not a gadget. That’s rehabilitation.

But before I explain what the Cooch Ball does, I want to talk about what it restores because that’s the real story.

Blood flow is Queen.

I mean that with every ounce of conviction I have. Blood flow is our body’s life force. Oxygen-rich, nutrient-rich blood is how tissue heals, how nerves communicate, how muscles function, how sensation returns. Without it, everything downstream suffers quietly, gradually, and in ways we often chalk up to aging or bad luck rather than stagnation.

And here’s the reality for so many midlife women: the pelvic floor is one of the most blood-flow-deprived areas in the body. We sit for long hours. We hold tension without realizing it. We stop moving this part of ourselves intentionally or we never started. Over time, fascial restrictions build up around the pelvic floor muscles like shrink wrap, slowly suffocating them from the circulation they need to stay healthy, responsive, and alive. When we believe this is just my life now and we stop engaging, that stagnation becomes the new normal. And the whole body’s systems feel it.

This is exactly what the Cooch Ball was designed to address.

Sitting on the Cooch Ball which has been specifically engineered to work with the body’s tissues and nervous system, not against them for just three minutes a day begins to melt through those fascial restrictions. It creates gentle, targeted blood flow back into a region that has been starved of it. The pelvic floor muscles receive nourishment. Sensation starts to return. The brain and the body begin talking to each other again.

The gentle weight and movement also create proprioceptive feedback, your pelvic floor has to respond, adapt, and engage in a way that passive Kegel squeezing never achieves. And because the pelvic floor is so intimately connected to the vagus nerve and the parasympathetic nervous system, that engagement has a regulating effect on the whole body. Women tell me they feel calmer. Clearer. More themselves. That’s not marketing. That’s nervous system science.

It is done at home. Fully clothed. Three minutes a day.

I call it CPR for your pelvic floor because that’s exactly what it is. You are bringing something back to life that was never meant to go quiet. You are restoring circulation to your center. And from that center, everything changes.

Start with curiosity. You don’t have to commit to anything more than that. Three minutes. That’s all. Your body will do the rest.

Bonus Question

7. If a midlife woman feels disconnected from her sexuality but isn’t sure she even wants to “get it back,” what’s the smallest, least-performative place you’d invite her to start?

Jana: Breathe into your belly. Slowly. On purpose. Right now.

That’s it. That’s the first move because breath is the fastest bridge between the thinking mind and the feeling body. You don’t have to want anything yet. You don’t have to fix anything or reclaim anything or show up for anyone. Just breathe. Let your belly soften. Let your pelvic floor release on the inhale.

Do that for two minutes a day for two weeks and tell me nothing shifts. I’ll wait.

Connection always starts smaller than we think. And it almost always starts with breath.

And here is what I also want every woman reading this to hear, the reclamation is real. The reawakening is real. Women experience it every single day and it moves me every single time. But so is the disconnection. And here’s the thing about that: it’s okay. More than okay, it’s necessary.

That’s the contrast of life. If we were always turned on, always connected, always humming with aliveness we wouldn’t actually know what any of it meant. We need the quiet seasons. We need the moments of I don’t even know what I want so that when the signal returns, we can feel the difference. We can actually receive it.

So if you are in a season of disconnect right now please don’t freak out. Don’t make it mean something is broken or gone or your fault. Ask instead: what is this season showing me? What am I being invited to release, to rest, to reconsider?

Disconnection is not the end of the story. It is often the very thing that makes the reconnection so profound. You are not behind. You are not broken. You are in contrast and contrast is how we learn what we truly desire.

Breathe. Begin there. The rest will find you.

The Bottom (no pun intended) Line:

If you’ve been waiting to feel like yourself again, this is your reminder that nothing about you is missing. Midlife doesn’t take desire away. It asks us to participate in it differently.

That shift can start small. With breath. With awareness. With learning what’s actually happening in your body instead of assuming the story you’ve been handed is the only one available.

Jana’s work gives women practical ways back into sensation, strength, and connection… not through performance, but through presence. If this conversation sparked something for you, here are a few easy places to start:

• Start with the basics - Explore the Terrain Fitness Bundle here.

• Learn about the Cooch Ball - A simple daily tool to restore pelvic floor connection https://bloombetter.life/angela.

• Join her guided membership space at The Bloom Room community.

• Explore menopause-specific support programs and education for this stage of life here.

And if you want ongoing insight into pelvic health, embodiment, and what’s actually possible in midlife, follow Jana on Instagram; she shares practical education there every day.

Midlife doesn’t always take desire away… it changes how we learn to find it again.

#RealGirlsGuidetoMidlife, #Midlife Desire, #MidlifeSexDrive #Libido #RGG

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For most of my adult life I’ve been oddly committed to understanding my personality. Not in a deeply clinical sense, but in the very practical sense of taking every personality test the internet has ever produced.

Myers-Briggs? Done.
Enneagram? Obviously.
Corporate color wheel personality profiles? Of course.
Leadership styles, emotional intelligence inventories, strengths assessments… if someone sent a link, I took it.

And here’s the obvious part: the results were almost always the same.

Different systems. Different language. But I kept landing in the same general personality neighborhood.

On the Myers-Briggs, I’m an ENFP. On the Enneagram, I’ve consistently tested as a 9. On the various corporate color systems, I usually fall into the warm, relational, harmony-seeking categories.

After a while I realized these tests were all describing some version of the same person.

Someone who is naturally curious about people. Someone who connects ideas and humans easily. Someone who tends to lead with optimism and emotion first. Someone who prefers collaboration to confrontation and would generally rather keep the peace than start a fight.

In other words, the personality tests kept confirming what I already suspected: I’m wired as a connector and someone who sees patterns quickly. Many of those profiles suggest a big-picture thinker who starts with possibility and figures out structure later. There, though, I’m almost the opposite. I need to see the structure first. Once the framework is clear, that’s when I start seeing all the potential inside it.

That description felt right for a long time. It fit the way I worked, the way I built relationships, and honestly the way I moved through most of adulthood.

But recently I’ve started noticing something interesting.

I don’t think the core personality has changed, but I do think something new is getting louder.

For most of my life my instinct in almost any situation has been to explore, to understand, to find the common ground. I was usually the one asking questions, connecting dots, looking for the collaborative path forward.

Lately, however, I’ve noticed a different instinct showing up alongside that one. Instead of endless exploration, there’s more decisiveness. Instead of smoothing things over, there’s more clarity about what I will and will not tolerate. Instead of waiting for consensus, there’s a stronger impulse to simply act.

Out of curiosity, and because apparently I will never stop taking personality quizzes, I recently took another one. This time it was an archetype test, which looks less at personality traits and more at the energetic roles people tend to embody.

You can take the same one here if you’re curious:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/cmc33/12-archetypes-quiz

My result surprised me a little but definitely tracks: I scored as The Warrior.

If you had asked me ten years ago whether “warrior” described my personality, I would have laughed. I’ve always thought of myself more as the diplomat than the fighter.

But when I read the description, it was hard to ignore how much of it felt familiar.

The Warrior archetype isn’t really about aggression. It’s about clarity and protection. Warriors tend to move toward challenges rather than around them. They are motivated to defend what matters, set boundaries, and take action when something needs to change. They are comfortable making decisions, cutting through noise, and stepping forward when leadership is required.

In other words, they spend a lot less time negotiating their own authority.

The more I thought about it, the more it made sense.

Midlife seems to do something interesting to many of us. The traits that helped us navigate our twenties and thirties (collaboration, flexibility, patience, diplomacy) don’t disappear, but they start pairing with something stronger.

The connector learns how to confront.
The peacemaker learns how to protect.
The big-idea person learns how to execute.

What used to be harmony-seeking slowly grows a backbone.

Maybe that’s the real midlife personality shift. We don’t become completely different people. The core wiring is still there. The ENFP curiosity is still very much alive. The Enneagram 9 instinct toward peace hasn’t vanished.

But something else has joined the party.

There’s more willingness to say the uncomfortable thing. More confidence in setting boundaries. Less patience for unnecessary nonsense. A growing comfort with taking the lead instead of waiting for permission.

The personality tests that once described us so neatly might not be wrong. They might just be incomplete.

Because midlife doesn’t erase who we’ve always been. It simply activates parts of ourselves we didn’t need earlier.

And if the new version includes a little Warrior energy alongside the curiosity and connection, I’m starting to think that’s not a bad upgrade at all.

#RealGirlsGuidetoMidlife, #PersonalityTest, #NavigatingMidlife
#TheWarrior, #Curiosity, #Connection #MidlifeMood #RGG

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We’ve earned every wrinkle. Might as well make more laugh lines together.
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For a long time, my competence was my identity.

If something broke, I handled it. If a light blinked on the dashboard, I Googled it. If the sprinkler system started hissing like it was possessed, I became the suburban water system whisperer.

Divorce will do that. Solo living will do that. Being the grown-up in the house will absolutely do that.

And here’s the thing: I can fix the toilet. I can figure out why the oil light is on. I can track down the rogue sprinkler head flooding the hydrangeas like it’s auditioning for a disaster movie.

But lately, as my Aussie Man has been around more, something hit me.

I don’t actually want to.

Not because I’m incapable. Not because I’m playing small. Not because I suddenly believe women shouldn’t know how plumbing works.

I just… don’t care to.

There is a difference between empowerment and exhaustion.

I fought hard for my independence. I built a life where I don’t need anyone to survive. That matters to me. That’s radical midlife self-possession. That’s earned.

But self-possession also means I get to decide where my energy goes.

And I have zero spiritual calling to understand the internal mechanics of a toilet tank.

If I had to? Of course I would. If he wasn’t around and the thing imploded (like can they even do that??!!)? I’d YouTube the hell out of it. But if he’s here? And willing? And frankly better at not spiraling over blinking warning lights? I gladly hand it over to you, sir.

There is something deeply powerful about saying, “I can do it. I just don’t want to.”

We’ve been trained to prove we can carry everything. Every task. Every emotional load. Every practical burden. The invisible labor and the visible labor and the “well if you don’t do it, who will?” labor.

Midlife has been teaching me something quieter: Independence doesn’t mean omnipotence. Partnership doesn’t mean regression. Delegating is not surrender.

It’s discernment.

Now, before anyone writes me a think piece: this is not about weaponized incompetence. It’s not about pretending I don’t know how to change a lightbulb. It’s not about shrinking.

It’s about choosing.

Choosing not to spend my finite midlife bandwidth diagnosing sprinkler valves. Choosing not to research oil viscosity ratios. Choosing not to become emotionally entangled with the inner architecture of porcelain.

And while we’re here, let’s be clear about one more thing.

If there is a dead rat or mouse involved? Absolutely not.

Rodents sit firmly on my list of irrational fears… right next to chickens. Yes, chickens. I was repeatedly chased through an orchard as a child taking a short cut to my best friend’s house and I’ve never fully recovered. Feathers + flapping + unpredictable aggression? No thanks, Tom Hanks.

That is firmly on his list. In permanent ink.

Here’s the point.

For years, independence was about survival. Now it’s about preference.

I don’t need to know how everything works. I need to know how I work.

And I work best when I get to choose what I carry.

That’s the shift. That’s the growth. That’s the relief.

If you’re in midlife and quietly realizing you don’t actually want to be in charge of every blinking, leaking, scurrying thing in your house anymore… you’re not regressing.

You’re refining.

Tell me: what’s officially off your list these days? And what are you happily keeping? Come confess in the comments.

#RealGirlsGuidetoMidlife, #SelectiveIndependence, #MidlifeShift
#EnergyIsCurrency, #NotMyJobAnymore, #RefiningNotRegressing

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We’ve earned every wrinkle. Might as well make more laugh lines together.
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Every so often I throw a few Ask a Real Girl questions out to the RGG community, not because I’m looking for scientific data, but because I’m curious about the quiet patterns that show up when midlife women answer.

The results are rarely shocking. But they’re always revealing.

Here’s what this round of polls says about where we are right now.

We’re Done With a Lot of Things

When I asked about confidence, the winner wasn’t subtle. 50% chose “Zero patience for bullshit.”

That tracks.

Another 29% said their current confidence looks like saying no without writing a whole essay to justify it.

Translation: midlife confidence isn’t about becoming louder or shinier. It’s about becoming clearer. Less explaining. Less negotiating with nonsense. Less performing patience for things that drain us.

Turns out the most powerful glow-up might just be a boundary.

Sleep Is… A Situation

In the sleep poll, our most common “routine”? The 3 a.m. wake-up (43%).

If this is you too, congratulations - you’re in excellent company.

Close behind was “all of the above” (29%) - which apparently means a nightly grab bag situation - and a healthy portion of what someone perfectly labeled “hot–cold chaos.”

In other words: midlife sleep is less routine and more interpretive dance.

And yes, some of you admitted to doing what I call midnight life math… that moment where you mentally review every decision you’ve made since 1997 while staring at the ceiling.

We’re Craving New… But Not in a Hard Hustle Way

When asked what kind of “new” people want this year, the results were refreshingly sane.

The top answer: Learning something just for fun (34%), closely followed by less doing, more space (31%).

Only 7% voted for doing just one new thing total this year, which feels like the most accurate answer of all.

The takeaway here is interesting: midlife curiosity is still very much alive. But the appetite for constant productivity? Not so much.

We’re not trying to optimize life anymore. We’re trying to actually live it.

Our Quiet Joys Are… Delightfully Boring

One of my favorite questions asked about the midlife joy nobody really understands except you.

The winner: The bedtime beverage ritual (33%).

Tea. Magnesium cocktails. Whatever concoction signals that the day is officially over and no one is allowed to need anything else from you.

Driving in silence came in close behind at 29%, followed by the comfort of rewatching the same shows again and again.

Apparently the midlife nervous system loves two things: predictability and quiet.

And honestly? Same.

Beauty Has Entered Its Practical Era

When it comes to beauty essentials, the community delivered a very realistic starter pack.

Top vote: Cream blush for a natural glow (50%).

Runner-up: Concealer for the no-sleep face (25%).

Because if the sleep poll taught us anything, it’s that concealer is now a public service.

Readers and big sunglasses also made the list, which might be the most realistic midlife beauty routine of all: see better, hydrate the face, and hide behind giant frames when necessary.

PS: If you want some product ideas, check this list of our fav RGG obsessions.

And Finally… Resolutions Are Out

When asked about New Year’s resolutions back in January, the winning answer was clear: a collective hard no (43%).

Another 39% said they might set intentions instead, which feels like the diplomatic compromise.

But overall the vibe was unmistakable: midlife women are not interested in becoming a project again.

We’ve spent decades trying to improve ourselves.

Now we’re mostly trying to live in peace with the people we’ve already become.

The Real Pattern

If you zoom out, all of these answers point to similar shifts:

1. Less tolerance for nonsense.

2. A deeper appreciation for quiet joy.

3. Curiosity without pressure.

4. Beauty routines that work with reality, not against it.

5. Sleep that…well…exists on its own terms.

In other words: we’re not falling apart. We’re just done pretending everything has to look polished to be good.

If the Year of the Fire Horse is supposed to bring boldness and independence, midlife women appear to be right on schedule.

Which might be the most midlife thing of all.

P.S. I’m hosting another Goodreads giveaway for the #1 bestseller Real Girls Guide to Midlife. This time, 20 paperback copies are up for grabs for women who are tired of pretending they’re fine and ready for the real conversation.

Enter now and share with a friend here.

Giveaway runs March 16–26!

#RealGirlsGuidetoMidlife, #RealGirlsPolls #NoBS #RGG #MidlifeSleep

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

One of the most humbling shocks of parenting is realizing your kids are wildly different humans. Which, duh, makes total fucking sense… and yet somehow still blindsides you.

When they were little, I thought of my three as “The Boys.” One strategy fits all. If something worked on one, it should logically work on the other two. I assumed those differences would mellow out by 18, that adulthood would smooth the edges and align them into some cohesive outcome.

Wrong. Hilariously, epically wrong.

They are even more different as young men - emotionally, energetically, and especially in how they want (or don’t want) me involved in their lives.

One kid is basically me with better sneakers. He tolerates my lists, my nudges, my obsessive reminders. Sometimes he even thanks me. It feels familiar, like parenting in a language I’m fluent in.

Another one? Look, I love him (all of them) deeply, but my mom “superpowers” don’t always land the same way with him. I’ll send a thoughtful message with a light splash of unsolicited advice and get back “ok.” Or sometimes nothing at all. Once, after I (gently, I swear) pressed him about a school decision, he took a little space from me for a week. I stared at my phone more than I’d like to admit.

That quiet wasn’t rejection. It was a boundary. And it made me pause. My bigs are stepping into their own lives while I was still holding onto an older version of them… the ones who needed more from me than they actually do now.

And then there’s the youngest: suddenly taller than me, calling me “bruh,” launching himself through the house like gravity is optional. Basically every teenage-boy reel on Instagram… living in my kitchen.

Parenting (young and emerging) adults flips everything. The old instincts (hover, manage, fix) are suddenly the wrong ones. My reminders are ignored. My opinions are tolerated on a good day. My role is being rewritten in real time, and I don’t always get a draft copy.

When Their Futures Don’t Match the Ones You Imagined

Another emotional curveball is watching them build futures that don’t quite resemble the ones you once pictured. Maybe you imagined college, a straight line, something steady and predictable. Their version? Gap years. Creative paths. Nontraditional routes.

As for me, my boys are charting their own courses, and none of them look anything like mine.

As for my two bigs, one is studying fashion. He’s found his thing, and he’s good at it. When people say, “He’s lucky you let him do that,” I have to laugh a little. Let him? It was never mine to decide. My role is simply to cheer him on… and yes, occasionally write the checks.

Another is finding his way at his own pace. And that pace sometimes stretches me. I see so much in him and have to remind myself not to project my urgency onto his process. Watching him move through uncertainty isn’t difficult because he’s failing; it’s difficult because I’m learning that my definition of progress isn’t the only one that counts. Maybe progress is quieter than I expected. Maybe it’s simply continuing to try.

And of course there are moments when the familiar parental voice creeps in… the one that wonders if we should have done something differently, pushed a little more here or worried a little less there. I asked my mom once if she ever felt that tension between what she hoped we’d become and who we actually turned out to be. She laughed gently and said, “Of course.” Then she reminded me that what matters most is that they grow into good people.

Their paths aren’t mine. And if I keep gripping the stories I once wrote for them, I’ll miss the lives they’re actually living. I don’t want to be so focused on imaginary outcomes that I overlook the real wins unfolding right in front of me.

At the end of the day, I don’t want to be the mom who made them feel like they had to earn my pride. I want to be the one who showed up for who they are - fully, fiercely, and without hesitation.

Motherhood, Mafia-Style

A little confession time: when my kids are hurt, I don’t instinctively reach for calm or reason (though I promise I do get there, eventually). I go straight to vengeance. Mafia-style. If you come for my kid, we have a problem. I’ve clearly never acted on it (thank you, self-control and a strong desire to avoid prison) but the instinct is bone-deep.

It’s probably why my middle son once told me I remind him of Beth Dutton. After I finished a full season and tallied her felony count, I gently suggested we might need therapy.

This is also why my kids send me the same Instagram reel on repeat.

It’s some over-the-top, feral, badass mom moment where a woman absolutely loses her mind defending her child. Every time they tag it: “This is you.”

They’re not wrong.

And yet, I have a softer side.

My Love Language? Mild Panic and Asking If You’ve Eaten

No matter how old they get or how independent they become, if I hear even the slightest shift in their voice, I default to the same question I’ve asked since they could chew: “Did you eat?”

It doesn’t matter if they’re at work, on vacation, or literally mid-chew. I need to know they’re not starving or spiraling. Their answers range from “Yeah” to “Mom, I’m literally eating,” but I still press. Because “Did you eat?” has never really meant food. It means: Are you okay? Are you taking care of yourself? Do you know someone is still watching out for you?

Maybe one day I’ll stop asking.

But not today.

When the Kid You Raised Shows Up for the Woman You’ve Become

During that quiet week with one of them, the other big showed up for me in a way I’ll never forget. He sat with me while I turned the conversation over in my head… replaying it, second-guessing myself, reaching for explanations that probably weren’t there.

Gently, he reminded me that the situation wasn’t as simple as I was making it. That his brother wasn’t angry or unloving… just overwhelmed. He helped me see that sometimes being the “safe one” means you absorb the unfiltered frustration, not because you deserve it, but because they trust you enough to let it out.

He didn’t try to fix anything or take sides. He just stayed steady. And in that moment, I realized something I hadn’t expected: the kid I raised was now capable of showing up for the woman I’ve become.

Still Paying. Still Praying. Still Wishing They’d Answer My Damn Texts.

Parenting adult children isn’t empty-nest tips and cute checklists. It’s bite marks and receipts. It’s paying the phone bill and still getting sent to voicemail. It’s watching them stumble, soar, ghost you, love you, and drive you slightly insane (sometimes all before noon).

It’s biting your tongue until it’s metaphorically bloody, resisting the urge to fix, and loving them through fires you’re not allowed to put out.

You don’t stop being a mom when they hit adulthood. You just enter the boss-level phase. You’re still the anchor, still the fridge full of their favorites, still the soft place to land. You’re also learning, sometimes painfully, when to step in and when to step the fuck back.

Parenting doesn’t end. It sharpens. Turns out raising adults requires as much heart and late-night crying as the toddler years… just fewer Goldfish crackers.

Tell me how you’re navigating this stage. What’s working? What’s not? What still wrecks you a little?

We’re still their moms. We’re still learning. And we’re not going anywhere.

P.S. I’m hosting another Goodreads giveaway for the #1 bestseller Real Girls Guide to Midlife. This time, 20 paperback copies are up for grabs for women who are tired of pretending they’re fine and ready for the real conversation.

Enter now and share with a friend here.

Giveaway runs March 16–26!

#RealGirlsGuidetoMidlife, #RealGirlsParentingAdults #LoveLanguage #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.

What if midlife isn’t something to fix, but something we finally claim?

I’m hosting another Goodreads giveaway for the #1 bestseller Real Girls Guide to Midlife. This time, 20 paperback copies are up for grabs for women who are tired of pretending they’re fine and ready for the real conversation.

If this sounds like you (or someone you love), tag her so she doesn’t miss it.

Enter now and share with a friend here. Because none of us are meant to figure this out alone.

Giveaway runs March 16–26!

#RealGirlsGuidetoMidlife, #RealGirlsGiveaway #GoodreadsGiveaway #RGG

Subscribe now

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.

We’re back! No trend chasing. No affiliate circus. Just the things that are actually earning space in real life.

These are the accounts we stop scrolling for, the products that survive the bathroom purge, the food that gets requested again by the people who live here, and the books that don’t collect dust on the nightstand.

Nothing aspirational. Nothing sponsored. Just what’s holding up.

People We’re Following

Lacy Counts (@lacycounts) – Everyday chaos, zero polish, all truth.

Why we’re following: Lacy’s feed feels like someone finally turned the camera on real life instead of the curated version. Working mom energy, survival-mode humor, tiny wins that deserve confetti… she captures the in-between moments that most of us live in but rarely document. It’s not aspirational. It’s recognizable.

And yes, there’s one reel of hers (I’ll link it here because you need it) that I’ve watched an embarrassing number of times (ie. way more than thrice). At this point it’s less “content” and more emotional validation on demand. It made me laugh, then pause, then send it to an unsettling number of friends with “this.” Which, frankly, is the highest compliment.

Erin Wesley Jones @erinjoneswesley – Pop culture, daily life, and media feels all in one place.

Why we’re following: Erin’s IG is equal parts pop culture commentary, personal moments, and thoughtful takes on entertainment. She effortlessly blends film & TV enthusiasm with everyday snapshots, whether it’s a meaningful life moment or a fun observation about the things she loves. She’s the kind of creator who makes her hot takes (I’m obsessed with her Bravo ones) feel smart and relatable, and whose content you enjoy because it’s thoughtful, not overly curated.

Products We’re Loving

Michaels of Brooklyn Pasta Sauce – The vodka sauce took the crown.

Why we love it: I hosted an Italian family dinner night recently and the Michaels of Brooklyn vodka sauce won without debate. Rich, balanced, no strange sweetness, no “this came from a jar” aftertaste and a simple list of ingredients you can actually name and pronounce. It tasted like someone’s actual Nonna (or Noni like my great grandmas were named by us kids) was in the kitchen eyeing our plating and insisting we needed to “mangia.”It’s earned a permanent shelf spot.

Doich Foods – Clean, delish, and apparently teenage-approved.

Why we love it: I bought Doich (follow them here on the ‘gram) thinking it would be mine. Healthy, satisfying, not pretending to be dessert while secretly being cardboard. Instead, my 15-year-old claimed it immediately. I genuinely could not keep it out of his hands. And if a teenage boy voluntarily chooses the better-for-you option? That’s a five-star review.

My favorite flavor is Basic B#tch… which is deeply ironic because I assure you, I am anything but.

Also love that the brand gives back… every purchase supports organizations like Best Buddies and HelpCure HD. Snacks that do some good in the world are always welcome in my pantry.

Beauty Staples Saving the Day

Omnilux Red Light Mask – Low drama, high payoff.

Why we love it: The Omnilux mask is technically very flashy: glowing red like something out of a sci-fi movie and mildly terrifying if you walk into a room wearing it unannounced. But beneath the drama, it’s actually the opposite of gimmicky. It’s consistent. It’s science-backed. The kind of skincare that quietly does its job if you keep showing up for it. My man got me the Contour Face… and then surprised me with the bonus neck-and-chest version — and I’m not being dramatic when I say both are elite. Skin looks calmer, more even, less “life is happening and it’s all showing up on my face.” It’s subtle, steady, and quietly doing the work… which honestly feels like the most attractive quality in a device… and a partner.

REFY Face Primer – Smooth without suffocating.

Why we love it: REFY Face Primer is the skincare-meets-makeup hybrid that understands texture is different now. It hydrates, smooths, and gives that subtle glassy finish without pilling, sliding, or settling into places that didn’t exist in 2003. It makes skin look quietly refined — not filtered, not frozen, just… pulled together. The kind of base that says, “Yes, I slept,” even if you were up reorganizing your life at 1:17 a.m.

What We’re Reading & Listening To

It’s Not Her by Mary Kubica - Psychological tension without theatrics.

Why we’re reading: Mary Kubica doesn’t rely on cheap twists or shock value. She builds tension the slow, intelligent way through character, doubt, and the creeping sense that something is off but you can’t yet prove it. It’s Not Her pulls you in quietly and then tightens its grip chapter by chapter. It’s the kind of book where you tell yourself you’ll stop at a “natural break” and suddenly it’s midnight and you’re suspicious of everyone, including fictional neighbors. Smart, unsettling, and deeply readable.

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg – Behavior, decoded.

Why we’re reading: This isn’t motivational fluff. It’s behavioral wiring. Duhigg breaks down the cue-routine-reward loop in a way that makes you realize most of your day is running on autopilot… and that’s not a personality flaw, it’s design. The book walks through how habits form, how they stick, and more importantly, how they shift. It’s less about willpower and more about systems - which feels especially relevant in midlife when you’re re-examining what you carry, what you repeat, and what you’re finally ready to interrupt. Practical, grounded, and oddly empowering once you see the pattern.

Cake for Dinner Podcast with Keesha Scott on YouTube (because I love a good video pod…and the Apple pod link) – No filters. No performing.

Why we’re watching and listening: Keesha brings real-life conversations to the mic — motherhood, marriage, sobriety, mental health, identity — without polishing them into inspiration porn. She’s a mom of three and a certified parenting coach, but this isn’t expert-on-a-pedestal energy. It’s raw, layered, grown-woman dialogue about burnout, resentment, partnership, and rebuilding after hard seasons. The kind of conversation that lingers — thoughtful, grounded, and real enough to make you exhale. And follow her on IG too. You won’t regret it!

BONUS: I’ve mentioned author Liz Alterman and her fantastic books here before, but her blog is just as entertaining. She recently featured me (!!) as a guest, which was such a fun surprise. Her writing is witty, funny, and refreshingly honest… very much our vibe here at Real Girls Guide. Definitely worth subscribing if you like smart humor and relatable life commentary.

That’s Part 5. No hype. No “must-have before it sells out.” Just the accounts, books, and products that are actually earning their keep in real life.

If something has taken over your group chats, your bathroom counter, your dinner table, or your 10:42 p.m. scroll sesh, send it. We’re not curating perfection… we’re curating what holds up.

The full, growing Real Girls Obsessions archive lives here.

We’ll keep paying attention. Keeping what works. Letting the rest fall away without apology.

Because at this stage? If it doesn’t earn its place, it doesn’t stay.

#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.

If you read my piece about being the unpaid Chief Operating Officer of everyone’s calendar, you already know I have strong feelings about invisible labor.

That post was about logistics - schedules, coordination, the thousand small decisions that quietly stack up.

This is different.

This is what happens when the logistics calm down and the emotional math becomes harder to ignore. I’ve been thinking about this dynamic a lot lately… not just in relationships, but while building a leadership workshop on the invisible load high performers carry. Different context, same pattern.

Recently, I had a chance to connect with Charlie Bauman, whom I quote in my book and who has spent decades studying family systems and relational patterns. We weren’t dissecting one spectacular relationship. We were talking about themes.

And the themes felt… familiar. Not explosive. Not scandalous. Structural.

The Social Engine No One Acknowledged

Here’s the pattern Charlie said he sees a lot of: Midlife couple. Long history. Shared everything.

She has friends. Real ones. Women she texts without drafting it three times first. Women she meets for dinner and actually laughs with. Women who know the unfiltered version of her life.

He has… community-adjacent energy.

His social life exists, but it often runs through her. If she plans the dinner, he attends. If she sends the group text, he replies. If she stops? The friendships don’t fight to survive.

Charlie calls this “borrowed community”... when one partner’s social life is largely sustained by the other’s relational labor.

They simply fade.

Charlie framed this in terms of socialization. Many men were raised to compete, achieve, provide, endure. They were not raised to build emotionally intimate, individuated friendships. No one taught them how to initiate connection without a structured activity attached to it. No one handed them the playbook for calling another grown man just to talk.

“Relational skills aren’t instinctive,” Charlie says. “They’re socialized. And women are typically trained early to carry them.”

So when they partner up, their wife often becomes the bridge to connection.

Most of us were trained early to equate love with usefulness. To believe that being needed meant being valued. So when we become the bridge, the planner, the emotional translator, it doesn’t feel like over-functioning at first. It feels like intimacy. It feels like being essential.

And because she’s good at it… because she’s been good at relational management her entire life… she carries it.

Not consciously. Not maliciously. But consistently.

Competence Is a Hell of a Drug

This is where it threads into something bigger.

Being capable feels powerful. At work, it got me promoted. I was the steady one. The closer. The person leadership trusted when things were messy. I absorbed chaos and handed back calm.

At home, it looked similar. I smoothed tension. I remembered birthdays. I checked in on the friend who seemed off at dinner. I managed the emotional weather report for the entire household.

No one sat me down and assigned this. I was just good at it. Capability became currency. Slowly, it became identity.

The problem isn’t competence. The problem is when competence turns into quiet over-functioning. Charlie describes this as an imbalance of emotional labor — when one partner regulates the system and the other regulates themselves.

When I was the emotional regulator at work and the social infrastructure at home, I wasn’t just participating in the relationship… I was powering it.

For a long time, that felt fine. Productive. Necessary. Even virtuous.

Until midlife.

When the Shared Project Ends

At some point in midlife, the noise shifts. For some women, that shift comes when children grow up and no longer require constant coordination. For others, it arrives when careers stabilize, caregiving seasons change, or the external intensity of building a life eases just enough to create space.

Whatever the catalyst, the shared project that once organized daily life… raising kids, building a career, managing chaos, surviving demanding decades… begins to recede. The house may get quieter. The schedule may open up. The urgency softens.

And when that happens, what remains between two adults becomes clearer.

Sometimes what’s left is real connection: curiosity, shared growth, mutual expansion.

Sometimes it’s comfort and familiarity.

And sometimes it’s the subtle realization that one person has been evolving, expanding, building friendships, doing the inner work, while the other has remained largely unchanged.

This is where many women begin to admit, often quietly, that they feel like they are the only one growing. Not because their partner is cruel or malicious, but because they themselves have been carrying the relational momentum.

They are the ones initiating dinners, maintaining friendships, suggesting therapy, translating feelings into usable language, and managing the emotional temperature of the room. And when they imagine stepping back from that role, an unsettling question emerges: what would actually hold?

These aren’t dramatic questions meant to provoke an exit.

They’re structural questions about how the relationship has been functioning all along.

“It’s Better Than Being Alone”

Here’s where it gets uncomfortable.

Many midlife women are not afraid of loneliness. They have friendships. They have careers. They have rich interior lives.

What they are afraid of is the story attached to being single.

Culturally, partnership still signals success. A long marriage signals stability. Divorce in midlife still carries whispers… even in progressive circles.

So the internal equation becomes: this may not be great, but it’s stable. It’s familiar. It’s intact. And, “it’s better than being alone.”

On the surface, that sounds mature. Measured. Responsible.

But when you zoom out, it can also mean: I am willing to keep carrying this system because disrupting it feels riskier than staying tired.

And that’s the invisible labor piece no one talks about in marriage. Not just cooking dinner. Not just managing the calendar. Managing the emotional ecosystem of two adults.

And I know that role well. I lived in it so long it felt natural. When the exhaustion crept in, I didn’t question the structure. I questioned myself. Was I less patient? Less generous? Less in love? We’re told love should feel fulfilling. So when it starts to feel depleting, we assume something is broken inside us… not in the design of the arrangement. That misdiagnosis keeps women carrying far longer than they should.

Burnout Isn’t Just Corporate. And It Isn’t Just Marriage.

I saw this same pattern recently with a leadership workshop I led for a corporate client on the invisible load high performers carry. Different setting, same dynamic: the most capable people quietly absorb complexity, coordination, and emotional management until responsibility expands by default. Eventually the system depends on them… and exhaustion gets framed as a personal resilience problem instead of a structural one.

At work, we are finally naming burnout as structural. We’re admitting that when expectations increase and recovery time disappears, that’s math… not weakness.

In relationships, we rarely apply that same logic.

If you are the only one building friendships, the only one initiating growth, the only one suggesting therapy, the only one maintaining connection… that’s not just personality difference.

That’s load imbalance.

And load imbalance, over time, erodes intimacy. You cannot admire someone you are quietly over-functioning for. You cannot feel deeply partnered with someone who is emotionally downstream of you.

That doesn’t make your partner a villain. It does make the system unsustainable.

The Math of It All

Midlife has a way of stripping away denial. Not dramatically. Not explosively. Just steadily.

You start noticing where you’re carrying by default. Where you’re smoothing by reflex. Where you’re building connection because if you don’t, it won’t exist.

This isn’t a manifesto for leaving. It’s an invitation to check the math.

Are you partnered, or are you managing? Are you choosing this dynamic, or maintaining it because it’s familiar? Are you staying because it’s aligned… or because it’s less disruptive than change?

Being capable isn’t the problem. Believing you have to be the entire emotional engine of your partnership might be.

Midlife is when many women finally look at the numbers and realize the math doesn’t math.

If this hit, forward it to the woman who keeps everything running. Or reply and tell me where you’re tired in a way sleep doesn’t fix.

#RealGirlsGuidetoMidlife, #InvisibleLabor. #MidlifeTruths, #EmotionalLoad

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

I wrote a chapter about grief in my book while watching women around me mourn things no one sends flowers for.

Not just death. But divorce. Estrangement. Empty nests. Careers that quietly stalled. Bodies that changed without asking permission. Dreams that expired without a formal announcement.

And here’s what I kept noticing: change feels like failure. Different feels like failure. And failure comes wrapped in shame, fear, and guilt.

We’re supposed to “be positive.” We’re supposed to “be grateful.” We’re supposed to handle it well and not make anyone uncomfortable. But grief doesn’t care about optics. It doesn’t care about your LinkedIn bio or your family group chat.

As grief therapist Claire Bidwell Smith says, grief is anything you lose that mattered: your marriage before resentment, your ambition before burnout, your body before babies. That’s real. And pretending it’s not is how we stay stuck.

And sometimes grief isn’t metaphorical. Sometimes it’s brutal and immediate. I lost a friend recently after a short, lethal battle with cancer. She hadn’t even hit 45. One minute she was making future plans. The next, she was counting weeks. Watching someone vibrant and unfinished disappear like that rearranges you. It strips the illusion of “later.” It makes every quiet resentment feel small and every unresolved conversation feel urgent. It’s rocked me in ways that frankly I’m still untangling.

When author, Real Girl and total badass Diane Heiler lost her husband of 25 years, people told her to “buck up.” Even before he died, they insisted he’d get better. But the doctor had been honest — there was no cure. After he passed, the casseroles came. Then they stopped. The grief didn’t. What she needed wasn’t optimism. It was space. Permission to collapse. Permission to not be strong on command.

Midlife has been mislabeled for decades. What gets framed as decline is often something else entirely: a collision between who we’ve been and who we’re becoming. Dr. Nivedita Nayak calls it sacred tension… the push and pull between mourning and becoming. When we allow ourselves to honor what we’ve lost, we actually create room for what’s still unfolding. But first, we have to stop labeling every change as a personal failure.

The Stuff No One Warns You About

Grief doesn’t always show up in black dresses and casseroles. Sometimes it shows up in a comment like, “Did you forget to have kids?” Sometimes it arrives in your inbox with a cheerful “Welcome to AARP!” and you feel personally attacked. Sometimes it looks like fighting with Spanx in your bathroom and realizing you are too grown to be wrestling nylon to prove you still qualify as sexy.

And then there’s this: Diane fell in love again at 80. Not quietly. Not apologetically. She talks openly about passion, sex, and choosing joy after devastating loss. She didn’t shrink. She didn’t disappear. She lived.

And sometimes it’s quieter. It’s standing in front of the mirror and not quite recognizing the woman staring back at you.

Often the grief isn’t just about what ended. It’s about who you had to become to survive it.

I grieved the version of me who stayed quiet to keep the peace. I grieved the tightly wound, spreadsheet-carrying control freak who believed certainty equaled safety. I grieved the woman who shrank to be digestible.

Losing those versions hurt. But what emerged was bolder, clearer, and done shapeshifting.

As one Real Girl from the book put it, “The woman I was at 30 would be shocked by the woman I am now. And honestly? I love that for her.” That’s not denial. That’s growth with teeth.

Real Girls Reality Check(list): Grieve Well. Grow Anyway.

Here’s your midlife gut check. No candles. No worksheets. Just truth.

1. Name what you’re actually grieving.

Be specific. Not just “the divorce,” but the identity you built around being someone’s wife. Not just “the job,” but the sense of relevance and power that came with it. Not just “my body,” but the ease, the invisibility, or the attention it once carried.

When you name the real loss, you stop fighting a ghost and start facing something tangible.

2. Stop calling change a personal failure.

Different does not mean defective. Outgrowing something does not mean you ruined it. Choosing a new direction does not mean you lacked grit.

Sometimes it simply means you evolved. And evolution is not a character flaw.

3. Let the shame surface… then interrogate it.

Charlie Bauman reminds us that many of us still operate from old family roles: caretaker, peacemaker, achiever. When we start behaving differently, the scrutiny can be immediate. The shame can feel intense.

But that shame is often just freedom dressed in discomfort. It feels wrong because it’s unfamiliar, not because it actually is.

4. Stop editing yourself for approval.

You are not required to stay small in order to stay lovable. You are not obligated to be universally palatable.

If the real you makes someone squirm, that doesn’t automatically mean you’re too much. It might just mean you’ve stopped performing.

5. Take off the metaphorical Spanx.

If you are fighting your clothes, your calendar, your relationship, your public image, ask yourself why. Who are you still trying to impress? Who are you trying to prove something to?

Acceptance is not defeat. It’s permission. Permission to choose comfort, truth, and ease over performance.

6. Prioritize yourself without apology.

Our friend Diane Heiler said the greatest gift she gave herself after loss was learning to like herself fully and unfiltered. That’s radical at any age.

Self-prioritization isn’t selfish. It’s survival. If you disappear inside everyone else’s needs, there’s nothing left of you to love.

7. Honor the version of you that got you here.

You don’t have to hate who you were in order to grow beyond her. She carried you through what she knew how to survive.

You’re not abandoning her. You’re expanding her.

8. Decide who you are now… on purpose.

Not by default. Not by inertia. Not by someone else’s comfort level.

Midlife isn’t about clinging to who you were. It’s about consciously choosing who you’re becoming.

Here’s the truth, Real Girl to Real Girl:

You can grieve the girl you were and still love the woman you are. You can miss what was and refuse to go backward. You can feel shame, fear, and guilt and still move forward anyway.

Grief doesn’t make you broken. It makes you honest.

And on the other side of that honesty? Power.

So if you’re standing in front of the mirror wondering whether you’re too old, too loud, too different, too much… you’re not too much.

You’re finally just enough.

#RealGirlsGuidetoMidlife #RealGirlsRealityCheck(list) #MidlifeGrief

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

Over the past few months, I’ve had the opportunity to join several podcasts and conversations centered on midlife. You can listen to them here.

No matter where the conversation started, it often circled the same tension: the lifelong pressure to be “good.” Good daughters. Good partners. Good mothers. Good employees. Good at aging. Good at not needing too much.

I showed up expecting to mostly give and to share stories, offer language, and name things I’ve spent years thinking about quietly. What caught me off guard was how much came back in return. Not praise, but perspective. Simple reminders about how deeply the “good girl” conditioning runs… and how expensive it becomes in midlife.

On the Gen X Juggler Podcast, Deb and I unpacked outdated expectations, perfectionism, and the subtle ways women disappear over time, and how to catch yourself before you fade into the background of your own life.

With Forward From 50, the focus was clarity over chaos. Rest as necessary, not lazy. Boundaries without dissertations. Reinvention that doesn’t require blowing everything up, just releasing what no longer fits.

On The Natalie Tysdal Podcast, we stayed practical. Self-advocacy, asking better questions, and refusing to quietly power through discomfort when something feels off.

The conversation on F*ck You 50s went exactly where you’d expect… and further. Yes, we joked about “personal gardening (aka the bush),” but underneath it was medical gaslighting, suppressed rage, desire, and what happens when women stop accepting dismissal as normal.

Jessica Long from Midlife Advice and I tackled the trifecta: menopause, divorce, dating. No gloss. Just what shifts in your body, your tolerance, your expectations, and why dating after all that feels like a different sport entirely.

On Midlife Audacity, we zoomed out: identity waves, parenting grown kids, the internal committee that keeps women small, and what it takes to stop self-abandoning and start telling the truth.

With Heather Carey on Real Food Stories, the lens was nourishment. Food myths, emotional eating, and learning to support your body instead of fighting it.

On Your Spectacular Life with Jodi Weitz, the focus turned inward. We talked about personal growth without turning it into a performance, self-awareness that isn’t about impressing anyone, confidence that doesn’t need to be loud, and assertiveness that isn’t aggression.

Victoria Byrd from Women Mastering Midlife and I skipped the glow-up narrative and went straight to the reckoning: perimenopause, divorce at 45, identity loss, and the missing manual for what midlife actually feels like. We talked sovereignty over self-improvement, rest over performance, and why this season isn’t about fixing yourself — it’s about refusing to shrink.

On The Aging Well Podcast with Dr. Jeff Armstrong, we talked longevity with honesty, money, blended families, purpose, and the quiet grief of becoming someone new.

And with Mindi Lobuzzetta, host of the The Unapologetic Midlife podcast, we zeroed in on the invisible rule book women inherit… the unspoken expectations about likability, ambition, aging, and staying palatable. We talked about the cost of following rules you never agreed to, and what shifts when you stop asking for permission.

One of the most grounding conversations came through Dr. Alexis Dunne’s Book Club which we did as a live event. We first connected on Instagram @dunnewithmenopause, and she gave our book so much love…

If you don’t follow her, you should fix that now. She’s smart, direct, and refreshingly real. She read the book, chose it for her club, and invited me into a live conversation with women who had truly spent time with the material. Hearing passages read back… then questioned, challenged, and applied to their own lives was humbling. We talked about the book’s origin story, the midlife myths many of us absorb without realizing it, the grief that can surface when you admit things are changing, and the personal contract you write when you decide being “good” is no longer the goal.

Across all of these conversations, the same themes kept resurfacing:

• Midlife isn’t about fixing what’s broken - it’s about reclaiming what was always yours.

• Rest isn’t laziness; it’s necessary.

• Saying no doesn’t require justification.

• Desire doesn’t retire.

• Being “good” was never the same as being free.

• And what so many women think is “just me” is anything but.

What stayed with me most was how often people named things out loud that many of us have carried quietly for years. The resentment. The fatigue. The want for more. In those moments, the conversations stopped feeling like interviews and started feeling like permission… permission to be honest instead of agreeable.

I’m grateful for that. For hosts who make room for nuance. For women willing to sit with the complicated parts of midlife without smoothing them over. And for the reminder that sometimes the bravest shift isn’t reinvention.

It’s deciding you’re done being good at your own expense.

#RGG, #RGGtoMidlife, #MidlifePodcast, #MenopausePodcast

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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.

I’m teaming up with Womaness again to give three readers a curated bundle of my favorite Womaness products (and a few extra Real Girls Guide goodies) because midlife care should be smart, effective, and actually designed for women like us.

If you’ve been curious about Womaness, this is a great place to start. These are products I genuinely use, love, and recommend: Let’s Neck Serum, Coco Bliss and The Works. Plus, I’m adding a few of our RGG faves to the mix!

Three winners. Five days. Current Real Girls Guide subscribers, great news: you are automatically entered! Here’s how it works:

• Subscribe to The Real Girls Guide to Midlife if you aren’t already

• Follow @realgirlsguide55 on Instagram or Facebook

• Like, comment on or share this post on any channel

• Tag a friend who’d love this giveaway (1 tag = 1 entry; unlimited tags allowed)

• Bonus: Share the giveaway post to your IG or FB story, tag @realgirlsguide55, and add the hashtag #RGGgiveaway for an extra entry

• Every action = another chance to win

Disclaimer: No purchase necessary. Open to residents 18+ (or age of majority in your country). Giveaway runs February 24, ends February 28, 2026 at 11:59 PM Pacific Time. Three winners chosen at random and contacted via direct message or email by March 6, 2026. By entering, you agree to the full rules here. This giveaway is not sponsored, endorsed, or administered by Instagram, Facebook, or any other social platform.

#RealGirlsGuideToMidlife,#MidlifeFun, #RGGgiveaway, #Womaness

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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.