AMID LIFE, a creative guide for rebellious, reinventing midlife women

Tired of the hustle and comparison culture? Fed up with patriarchy and capitalism telling you what and how you "should" be? Ready to write a new chapter?

Welcome! Let’s connect.

I write this newsletter to spark self-discovery and to provoke conversation and connection for women amid life. Now, more than ever, we must find and use our voices. Keep reading for what you can expect to see in future newsletters.

If there was ever a moment to follow your passion and do work that matters, this is it.

—Seth Godin

What do I want to do with my life?

This is the question I posed to a life wizard. Amid peri-menopause and career burnout from decades in corporate marketing, branding, and communications, I knew something had to change. It took more than a magic (months and months of searching, actually) to learn that the ‘something’ would be me.

In this newsletter, we’ll confront that invisible chorus of shoulds. You know that voice inside your head—from your Instagram feed, your last performance review, your high school teacher, an Oprah Winfrey special—telling you who or how you should BE in this world?

A while back, I left a 30-year business career to reinvent myself. I searched for my so-called purpose for over a year before I learned to listen to my intuition and simply DO what made me happiest.

Along the way, I discovered

• The purpose-industrial complex hyping promises of youth, happiness, and fulfillment. (Spoiler alert: they’re selling something.)

• The myth of “might have been.” It is, in fact, too late to “be what I might have been.” Everything I’ve done is a foundation to build a future of new possibilities.

• Creative self-discovery methods that are helping me to identify and shed the weight of societal, cultural, and generational expectations.

AMID LIFE is a place where you can rediscover yourself, away from the chorus of shoulds. Take a look inward and a look around at the influences that may be holding you back (thanks patriarchy and capitalism) and set yourself free to do whatever it is you want.

You can’t be ambivalent about what you want.

I’ve gathered tools and wisdom from business management, brand and marketing strategies, personal development, creative writing, and a few of my literary and historical heroines.

Join me in discovering (and rediscovering) how to:

• Reflect on the past with intention toward the future

• Create a plan to achieve your goals (and when it’s better not to make a plan)

• Discover your why (to help guide whole-hearted decisions)

• Trust yourself and your voice

We’re all amid something.

Career burnout, caregiving overwhelm, grief, depression, relationship reckoning, raging hormonal imbalances, howling at-the-moon anxiety. Call it a midlife crisis if you want. Or maybe … take a breath and give yourself a break.

You’ve done what you set out to do. Reached a savings goal, cracked the glass ceiling, launched your kids, or sent your partner packing. It’s my time! You shout.

Yes, it is your time.

Weekly posts are free!

All subscribers receive:

• Personal essays, book notes, and cultural-moment opinions

• Excerpts from my memoir in progress. A menopausal, mid-career woman buys an old Vermont farmhouse, hires a life wizard, and leaves a 30-year career to test the theory, it’s never too late to be what she might have been.

• Moments of Change stories from guest writers answering a simple prompt: Tell us about a moment when everything changed.

• A bit of hodgepodge, recommended reading, affirmations, adorable photos of my grandson Seb, Kitty the cat, and Rangeley, my sweet and sage yellow Lab (Though he recently crossed the rainbow bridge, his wisdom is timeless.)

Paid subscribers will join the Amid Life community, with benefits.

• Exclusive journal prompts designed to inspire your personal or career reinvention

• Access to chats and the ability to comment on all posts

• Researched opinion essays on history and hot topics impacting everyone except rich, white men.

Please stay connected, there’s so much more ahead of us, AMID LIFE! Until then …

Work hard. Be brave. Believe.

Catherine