Welcome to the Midlife Anti-Hero Community

Reinvention, resilience, and rebellion for women in the middle of their lives.

This newsletter is my midlife reinvention in progress. It’s me rescuing myself from drowning in other people’s expectations.

In my mid-50s, I moved to Vermont, hired a life coach, and quit a three-decade marketing career, intending to reinvent myself—to find my so-called purpose. This made me the ideal target for the midlife marketing mega-trend.

It’s never too late to be what you might have been.

What if this popular “never too late” adage is nothing more than a re-hashed 19th-century marketing tagline meant to instill women with a sense of regret, a problem to be solved, and an opportunity for rescue with a buy-now-limited-time-offer link?

Well, to quote Tina Turner (RIP), “We don’t need another hero.” We need to rescue ourselves.

Benefits of Subscription

Free:

• Weekly posts, in the form of Postcards from Reinvention Road. Sneak peeks at scenes from my memoir (in progress) about finding myself again after leaving a 30-year business career.

• Occasional longer-form personal essays and cultural commentary.

Paid:

• Membership in a virtual writing group with monthly prompts and live chat threads

• 10% discount on mentoring services (annual subscription required)

• Downloadable extras to help plan your reinvention

  

Anti-heroes are complex, imperfect, and deeply skeptical. A midlife Anti-Hero rescues herself first.

Catherine H Palmer is now a writer

I quit my marketing job in 2018 and then spun out in a race to reinvent myself. I read everything, signed up for all the workshops, downloaded Podcasts, and followed midlife influencers on social media. I craved “likes” like I used to chase atta-girls and spot bonuses. I got a tattoo, toyed with sobriety, studied yoga, took social-media marketing workshops, and made vision boards and sparkly collages. I networked and Zoomed.

The midlife reinvention quest to find my purpose was exhausting, but I couldn’t shake the feeling I should be something. I just didn’t know what.

I have an MA in marketing communications and earned an MFA in creative writing during the pandemic. I used to manage brand and thought leadership marketing for technology companies, but it was time to write my own story.

You can find my published work in The Boston Globe, Huffington Post, American Literary Review, and other literary journals. I am a frequent contributor to AARP’s The Ethel Magazine and am currently writing a memoir, Typing Lessons.

I live in a 200-year-old farmhouse with a one-eyed cat, an anxious yellow Lab, and my partner of 16+ years (who says I can write anything about him as long as I call him Felix.) Yes, I moved to Vermont, but I do not raise chickens, make jam, or save my small town—life isn’t a Hallmark movie.

Thanks for joining me on this adventure called midlife.

Work hard. Be brave. Believe.

Catherine