What if no one cares about your midlife reinvention?
Why writing personal stories matters more than ever🔥even when the world is burning.
Why would anyone care about my experience as a menopausal woman amid a career change and self-discovery, when our democracy is smoldering? How does a hot flash compete with headline-grabbing flash-bang grenades?
Saturday was sunny in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, after 25 consecutive rainy weekends. I rallied1 joyfully, along with millions of others. And still, a smoky haze hung over the mountains. Western Canada is burning, and we felt the impact 5,000 miles away. When I work on my midlife reinvention memoir, I feel as though my story is shrouded in smoke. And yet
Midlife—this dizzying, sweaty, liberating stretch—is when our stories get really interesting. And necessary. Maybe even dangerous.
Our stories are lessons. Our stories are maps. Our stories are cell-phone videos—irrefutable evidence, proof of our existence—gauntlets for the resistance.
No more waiting for our turn
The world is always on fire. The kids still need us. Our parents need us. Our jobs need us. We must nurture our relationships, build community, clean the house, make the meals, and practice self-care.
While we’re waiting for the perfect conditions, our voices are smothered. While we have stories burning inside us, we wonder if our writing is self-indulgent, hurtful, too loud, too personal, too risky, or worst of all, too banal.
Look. We’ve stopped pretending we wanted that job, that marriage, those bullshit expectations to shut up and smile. We’re not coloring our hair or stuffing our feet into heels. We admit it: we never liked Pinot Grigio or those moms with orange slices at the soccer games, wearing cute outfits and make-up on a rainy Sunday at 8:00 am.
“Well-behaved women seldom make history.”
Quiet women don’t make history either. You know who wrote personal stories during times of crisis? Anne Frank.
Also ..
Shirley Jackson | The Lottery (1948) is an allegory about nationalism and mob mentality on the cusp of McCarthyism
Greta Thunberg | No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference (2019) The world needs more “angry young women.”
Betty Friedan | The Feminine Mystique (1963) made the personal political, empowering housewives to ask, “Is this all?”
Malala Yousafzai | I Am Malala (2013) Shot by the Taliban for advocating for girls’ education
Nawal El Saadawi | Memoirs from the Women’s Prison (1984) Written on toilet paper with an eyebrow pencil. Nawal was imprisoned in Egypt for her political views.
- | In the Dream House (2019) A memoir of emotional abuse in a queer relationship, written in Trump’s initial efforts to erase LGBTQ representation and freedom.
Channel Miller | Know My Name (2019) Amid #MeToo, Miller writes, “to girls everywhere, I am with you.”
- | All Fours (2024) The breakthrough literary moment for perimenopause and midlife sexuality.
When the world is a dumpster fire, women’s stories are both oxygen and water.
Writing is a way to take a deep breath, process trauma, make sense of chaos, laugh, mourn, and connect. Writing can catalyze change in ourselves and others, especially in midlife, when the magic of writing is catharsis and self-discovery.
The personal essay begins with a spark of curiosity and can ignite into a raging inferno or be extinguished by cool water.
Midlife reinvention stories are survival guides
When I started writing (mostly personal essay and memoir), the voices in my head whispered, “No one cares,” and “Who do you think you are?”
Then I published, and I heard something else: Thank you. Thank you for sharing your story.
Need more inspiration?
I love this from
: Sometimes I feel like a carcass, worried at by a dozen starving wolves. Other days I feel like the potato I am, uncooked, in a darkened corner of the cupboard, waiting to sprout. …. [A]s a writer, I am in a unique position to be able to do something I might not be able to otherwise- tell a story that plants a seed of hope, or of recognition, or makes a reader feel less alone, and more understood. writes in Why My Story Matters “It was a divine act to write and to become a vessel for stories demanding to be told. As others related to what I wrote and found solace in my words, I knew that writing is a gift. A gift must be honoured. A gift must be shared. A gift needs the act of giving and receiving.Yes, the headlines are terrifying. Yes, I’m a Boomer white lady living in the land of Bernie Sanders and Ben & Jerry. Yes, the air smells like smoke. But should I keep stacking my stories like firewood, or should I strike a match? Fight fire with fire?
In a news/media environment controlled by billionaire bros, we must light a backburn to deprive their cruel, chaotic, and corrupt wildfire of fuel.
As
wisely points out, the world has always been on fire. Our stories need to reach people who gravitate to racist or misogynistic ideologies, because they seek “antidotes to the deep sadness at the heart of everyday life. We need [to write] better ones.”Sigh. They won’t vote for a woman president, and yet it’s the women who know how to clean up a mess and to lead with empathy born of a lifetime of holding stories. Our voices can’t wait, ladies. We carry the matches to burn down the lies we’ve been told, and we carry the water necessary for new life.
How does it feel to you to be writing in ‘these times’? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Work hard. Be brave. Believe.
Catherine
For more information on the No Kings rally, visit https://indivisible.org
Lovely post - thanks for the pep talk! I often have to remind myself that writing is not frivolous and that in fact it's the written word that gives me sustenence - so clearly it's important and necessary.
Love, this Catherine: "Look. We’ve stopped pretending we wanted that job, that marriage, those bullshit expectations to shut up and smile..." There is something really nice about looking at the next generation and saying..."ok, Yours! I'm done with that bit now."
I think the idea of sharing our stories is a confirmation that we aren't alone and we aren't making it all up. This is a restart button phase of life. and ...who knew?