I had resigned myself to having the life I had always known—a life centered around taking care of other people and placing myself at the bottom of the list. As long as I continued thinking that way, I was right. I would keep living the same life because…
I’ve reached the age that once seemed so far away: 63. The other day I asked my daughter if she ever thinks about being 40. You know, the way many of us think about being 20 or 30 again. Like most women in their 60s, I was ready…
Lately, I’ve been asking myself a difficult question: Am I working toward becoming the person I want to be, or am I staying the person I am today because it’s familiar and comfortable? The answer isn’t always easy. Because becoming someone new means facing the things we’ve been…
Dear JoAnn: “I don’t even know where to begin. Everything feels urgent, and I’m just standing in the middle of it all, frozen.” This is actually how your whole day — your whole life — is designed to process priorities. Your brain only does what you tell it…
I’m sitting here in my own apartment, looking at an entire day stretched out before me with no one to take care of. No meals to plan for someone else. No appointments to remember. No one needing me to make their life easier. And I have absolutely no…
Can I be brutally honest with you? I’m 63, and I’m starting completely over. And I am terrified. If you’re feeling this too, I want to talk about the lies that keep us stuck—and what’s actually true. But you know what scares me more? Reaching 73, 83, or…
Let me ask you a hard question: if you treated your friends the way you treat yourself, would you still have friends? Probably not. If someone talked to you, judged you, or doubted you the way you do in your own head, would you want to spend time…
The Permission Slip You’ve Been Waiting For: It’s Okay to Focus on You There’s a particular weight to living your whole adult life carrying everyone else. And then there’s the weight that comes after — when the obligations have lifted, the caregiving ends, and you realize you have…
During Covid, the world seemed to stop. For many people, everything changed — jobs were lost, loved ones passed away, and entire lives were rearranged overnight. But for me, on the surface, not much shifted. My family members were essential workers, so they kept right on going. My…
Can I tell you something I haven’t said out loud to anyone? I’m forced every day to look at the person in the mirror, and honestly? I don’t want to. Because I don’t recognize her. I feel like a stranger to myself. You know what I did the…