Grief doesn't live in stages. It's more like a fault line.
The stages became the story and you absorbed them without questioning them.Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. You have heard them so many times they feel like fact. They are not fact. They are a framework developed in the 1960s from i
Read more...The difference between privacy and secrecy.
They are not the same thing. They get used interchangeably. They are not interchangeable.Privacy protects you. Secrecy protects the thing that is hurting you.That is the whole distinction. Everything else is detail.Privacy is the boundary you draw ar
Read more...The midlife question isn't "who am I."
It is what am I still holding together that I no longer believe in.The "who am I" question sounds profound. It has an entire industry built around it. Retreats and journals and personality assessments and therapists and coaches all orbiting
Read more...Rest is not a reward.
You have been earning it your whole life.You will rest when the project is done. You will rest when the kids are older. You will rest when things slow down. You will rest when you have done enough to deserve it. You will rest when everyone is taken c
Read more...The cost of being the strong one.
You became the strong one so gradually you did not notice it happening.It started as a practical matter. Someone had to handle things and you were good at it. You were capable and clear-headed and you did not fall apart when other people did. So the
Read more...What your body already decided.
The decision is already made.You do not know it yet. Or more accurately, you know it and you are not ready to say so. There is a difference between those two things and most women spend months, sometimes years, living in that gap.The body decides fir
Read more...The woman you built was not a mistake.
She got you here.Think about what it took. The competence you developed because no one else was going to handle it. The smile you learned to put on because the alternative cost too much. The way you got good at reading a room before you walked into i
Read more...Fear has a tempo. Intuition has a frequency.
Most women cannot tell the difference between fear and intuition.This is not a failure of awareness. It is a function of the fact that no one taught you. The two get talked about as if they are opposites. They are not. They are different signals that
Read more...You are allowed to know what you know
You know.You have known for a while.You knew when the meeting ended and your stomach was tight on the train home. You knew when she said the thing and you laughed but something inside you went quiet. You knew when you read the message and put your ph
Read more...The 3 a.m. wake-up isn't anxiety
You wake up at 3 a.m.Your eyes open before your mind does. The house is quiet. Nothing is wrong.Except you are awake, and your body knows something your day did not have room for.The clock says 3:14. You lie there. You try to talk yourself back down.
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