Midstory Magazine

“schrödinger’s grief” by of Alicia’s Substack

“At 5:25 this morning, AJ was asleep.

His heart rate hovered in the fifties. His oxygen levels looked good. A cool cloth rested across his forehead. The room glowed with the soft light of monitors and infusion pumps. His hand was wrapped around mine.

For a few minutes, everything felt still.

Peaceful, even.

And yet, less than twenty-four hours earlier, we had been told to prepare ourselves for the possibility that he might not survive what comes next….”

“I Threw Out My Shapewear” by in

“I threw out my shapewear.

I’d amassed quite a collection. Spanx. Flexees. Wacoal. Expensive. Off-brand. Bargain brand. Spandex. Bone-in. Rib-eye.

We’re told shapewear makes clothes look better. That’s the line, right?

Entire industries are devoted to convincing us that the female human body contains an unacceptable number of female-human-body-shaped features.

Their solution was to invent body-squishing devices that relocate flesh to less politically sensitive regions of the body….”

“KJ and the Terrible Daughter Interview” by in

“After 100 recorded incidents, based on real events, there is sufficient material to assemble an interview.

Interviewer: The Terrible Daughter

Interviewee: KJ

Identity & Self-Assessment

Interviewer: How would you describe yourself?

KJ: I’m a good man. At the end of the day, I’m a nice guy. I don’t think people understand that.

Interviewer: You first met my mum while claiming you’d seen Jimi Hendrix.

KJ: I did.

Interviewer: You didn’t.

KJ: That’s not the point…”

“We Were Never Imposters” by

“Of all the promotions and roles I ever took, every single one happened because someone else pushed me toward it. I never believed I was ready. My husband reminded me how good I was before a negotiation. A mentor told me to go for the role before I had talked myself out of it. A colleague saw something in me that I could not see in myself at the time. And when I finally got to the biggest role, the CMO of an IPO ready company, I sat in that chair full of self-doubt that I could not do the job, that I was not smart enough, that sooner or later they would find out….”

“The Concert Wasn’t the Point” by

‘“Why is each song like 8 minutes long?” my 10-year-old asked.

“Because that’s what Dave Matthews does,” I said. We were driving to our friend’s house, and I was giving my daughter a crash course in one of the bands that defined my teens and twenties.

“I’m just really excited about the party bus!” she said with a squeal.

She paid no attention to the violin solo in “Crush,” which I maintain is one of the best things Dave Matthews ever recorded….’

“A Year of Firsts” by in

“Father’s Day is coming up next weekend, the first one Mike will spend in memory care. I’d already decided that I wasn’t going to say anything to my adult children about this; managing their relationship with their dad is still their business, not mine, even in this complicated context—and I know from experience that it isn’t helpful to have a parent around who’s constantly telling you what you need to do.

The only thing I’ve said to my kids about visiting Mike is that they need to manage this time in a way they’ll be able to live with, since they will be the only ones living with the choices they’re making now. Mike isn’t usually aware of who’s visiting him—sometimes he seems to recognize me, but often not—and he has no concept of how often this happens or how long those visits last…”

“The Night My Neighbors Were Murdered” by in Someone Should Do Something

“Have you, personally, ever been impacted by gun violence?

Pausing, my eyes drifted to the red recording light blinking in the corner of the screen.

I pictured the Uvalde parents. I flashed to the families of my patients. Those are the people personally impacted by gun violence, not me.

I almost told the journalist “no”. But that’s not true. I have been…”

“Why fourth time’s a charm (for my UK driving license at least)” by in Court & Spark

“Maybe I’m not just meant to be a driver.

I thought this while openly sobbing in the passenger seat of my instructor’s car as he drove me back from the test center. I had just failed my third UK driving test, and I couldn’t remember the last time I felt so incompetent. I could prepare for the meeting. Edit a doc. Get my kids to school on time (most of the time). Why couldn’t I do this?…”

“Midlife — The Second Operating System: When the Ego Quiets and Purpose Calls” by in

“I want to tell you about a conversation I’ve been having lately. It usually happens in the stolen moments between meetings, or over a glass of wine that we’re both too tired to finish, but too grateful for the company to put down.

She is a friend, a colleague, a mirror. She is in her mid-fifties. She has the titles, the CV that commands respect, and the office with the view she worked twenty years to earn. She has done everything “right,” and she has done it with a grace that hides the cost.

But one day when she looked at me, there was a softness in her eyes that wasn’t there a decade ago. She laughed — that quiet, knowing laugh we use when the truth is a little too heavy to carry alone. And she said, “I finally arrived. I’m exactly where I aimed to be. So why does it feel like my purpose is still somewhere out there, waiting for me to find it?”

“I Chose Myself Instead of Waiting To Be Chosen” by in

“I didn’t think I’d ever want to get married again. Two failed marriages had put me off the idea.

And yet. There I was, on the back of Chris’ Harley, cruising down Beach Road in Cape Town. Arms wrapped around his waist. Wondering when he was going to propose.

I knew he wanted to. But he was deep in a house renovation that was draining him financially and emotionally. A proposal would have to wait.

My logical brain understood that completely. But my self-doubting voice was having none of it. It turned his financial timing into evidence that I didn’t matter…”

It's Time For Our Weekly Share Thread

💬 Which essays did you particularly connect to? Are there themes in these essays that resonate for you?

My Ovaries Didn't Love Me Either

Hot Flash Energy — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 11:51:29 GMT

Through surgery, hormone replacement therapy, and the emotional reality of adjusting to a completely different body overnight, this essay explores anxiety, identity, aging, and the surprising freedom that came from finally understanding what had been wrong all along. — Lindsey

Almost a year ago, I woke up in a completely different body.

I went into surgery as a 42-year-old woman with horrible periods since I was 13, hormones that had me feeling slightly unhinged for years, and severe bloating from Stage IV endometriosis and adenomyosis, diagnoses I had only received a few months earlier.

I woke up in medical menopause. Overnight. Just like that.

Menopause, the thing women talk about happening in their 50s, slowly, over years, was suddenly my new life.

The decision to get there felt fast. The road leading up to it was anything but. I spent my late 30s and early 40s trying to figure out what was wrong with me. Doctor after doctor. Functional, Western, in-between. MRIs, CT scans, ultrasounds. Everything came back “normal.”

I got very used to sitting in sterile rooms, half-dressed in paper gowns, being told nothing was wrong while feeling completely off in my own body. Which, if you know anything about endometriosis, is not an uncommon story.

The wildest part is I had convinced myself I had almost everything else. A very long, slightly obsessive list of possible diagnoses. Endometriosis wasn’t on it.

No one had ever said the word.

Menopause and perimenopause did come up, and I shut it down immediately. Absolutely not. Not me. I’m young. I’m healthy. I’m not there yet.

Looking back, I can see how much resistance I had. I see it now in friends, too. Those words, perimenopause and menpause, carry a lot. It feels like aging, like loss, like some invisible line you cross that you can’t come back from.

It feels like the beginning of a version of life we’re not sure we’re ready for.

So when I was finally diagnosed with endometriosis at 42, I felt relief. Real relief. I could breathe again.

I wasn’t crazy. There was a reason I had felt so off for so long.

But I was also shocked.

I didn’t have the “classic” symptoms. I wasn’t doubled over in pain every day. I had just accepted painful periods since I was 13 as normal because that’s what we’re taught.

I remember calling my mom from the nurse’s office in high school, like clockwork every month, asking her to come pick me up. We both just assumed that’s how it worked.

And my cycle? Completely unpredictable. One month 25 days, the next 45. I didn’t question it. I just lived around it.

The first step after diagnosis was excision surgery.

On May 7, 2025, I went in. When I came out, my husband told me everything went well and then gently added, “You’re going to need another surgery.”

Not exactly the post-op update you’re hoping for when you’re still coming off anesthesia.

At my follow-up, I got the full story. The endometriosis was more extensive than expected, in places that would require a second, more complex surgery with a colorectal specialist.

Before the first surgery, we had talked about the possibility that because of my adenomyosis, we might eventually need to address my uterus and ovaries. But I walked into that appointment still holding onto hope that I could keep them.

There was a weird attachment there. And if I’m being honest, a fear I didn’t fully understand. My doctor didn’t sugarcoat it. She told me she didn’t want me stuck in a cycle of surgeries. She wanted to take the best, most effective approach long-term.

So I asked her directly about my ovaries.

She paused and said, “Your ovaries don’t really love you.”

That could have landed hard, but I laughed. Because honestly? They didn’t. Those ovaries put me through some things.

My entire life had been a battle with my hormones, my cycles, my body. We had a good run. It just wasn’t working.

So I made the call: full hysterectomy. Uterus, ovaries, the whole shebang.

Eight weeks later, I had my second surgery and woke up in medical menopause. Something I had been quietly avoiding for years was suddenly unavoidable. No more “maybe later.” No more “not yet.” This was it.

Recovery came first. A lot of resting. A lot of walking. A lot of pain and a lot of realizing the second surgery was, in fact, not messing around.

Then came HRT. Estrogen patches. Progesterone pills. Eventually there was testosterone cream. I remember holding that first patch in my hand, staring at it for a second longer than necessary, thinking, well… this is my life now.

And then just sticking it on and moving on.

Because what else are you going to do?

Balancing hormones in medical menopause is not subtle.

A racing heart after a glass of wine. A random itchy ear that makes no sense. Achy legs that feel like growing pains from childhood. Nausea for a week and a full body rash due to a high progesterone dose. No one really prepares you for the weirdness.

It was a strange realization. I was still me. Same personality. Same thoughts. Same sense of humor. But my body was operating in a completely different chapter.

Even now, ten months later, I’m still figuring it out. I strength train twice a week and still get sore enough to need more rest days than I used to. If I forget my fish oil, my shins will absolutely let me know.

My body has rules now. Different ones than before. Less forgiving in many ways. But the biggest shift hasn’t been physical; it’s been mental.

I used to be anxious all the time, constantly thinking, overanalyzing, replaying conversations, worrying about everything and everyone. Lying in bed at night replaying something I said three days ago like it was breaking news.

Now? I still care deeply, but the anxiety doesn’t run the show the way it used to. If I mess up, I apologize. And then I move on.

No three-hour mental spiral. No replaying every word I said. Just… forward.

There’s a version of me now that feels steadier. More direct. More honest. Less interested in being liked by everyone.

If something doesn’t fit anymore, a dynamic, a relationship, a version of myself, I notice it faster. And I’m more willing to let it go.

Not everything is meant to last forever.

So yes, I woke up in a different body.

Same person. Different stage.

But also… not entirely the same.

There’s an energy now. A spark. Something that feels like it had been buried under years of anxiety and not knowing what was wrong with me.

I woke up alive again. I’m not waiting to feel “good” to start living.

I’m still adjusting. Still figuring out hormones. Still having days where my body feels unfamiliar. But I’m also done overthinking every feeling, every symptom, every version of myself. This is the body I have now.

This is the version of me that showed up.

And honestly?

She’s a little less anxious, a little more honest, and a lot less interested in shrinking herself to make everyone else comfortable.

I don’t have it all figured out. But I’m not waiting around for that anymore.

Because while this version of me was always in there somewhere, buried under years of anxiety, symptoms, and trying to hold everything together, I’m really glad she’s here now.

A little more untamed. A lot more unapologetic.

And finally taking up the space she was always meant to.

Lindsey Morando is a marketing executive, writer, and women’s health advocate based in San Diego. After being diagnosed with Stage IV endometriosis and adenomyosis at 42, she began writing openly about menopause, chronic illness, identity, and the emotional complexity of midlife on her Substack, Hot Flash Energy. Her work explores the messy middle of healing, hormones, and becoming yourself again.

From Kabul to Kentucky: A Midlife Plot Twist

Denise Derya Brandt — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 12:03:50 GMT

As I read through the submissions to Midstory, I have started to notice patterns in what our Midstory community is writing about. Many — if not most? — of the submitted stories are about reinvention at midlife and often, particularly, about professional or career pivots.

Last week I published this essay by about how AI led to her own career pivot. In May Midstory featured this essay by about thinking through what comes next after a long career in digital media.

Read Denise’s story and then tell us about your own experiences with pivoting at midlife in the comments.

For two decades, my identity was my career — leading USAID-funded health projects in conflict zones, always moving, always needed. Then, at midlife, the losses accumulated, the world stopped, and the institution I'd given my career to was dismantled. Forced to finally stand still, I discovered a photograph that changed everything — and found my way to a writing desk in Northern Kentucky and a debut novel. This essay is about what happens when the life you built around urgency and purpose runs out of road, and you have to figure out who you are without it. — Denise

As we were leaving the Ray-Ban store in Duty Free, new sunglasses in hand, I felt the muffled roar in my chest, and in the tiny hairs on the back of my neck and on my arms that stood at attention, like soldiers preparing for battle. A primal instinct registered inside my body before my mind fully understood. My new husband and I locked eyes. In that moment, we both understood what was happening.

Prior to marrying, I had lived and worked in Kabul, Afghanistan for more than six years; I was fluent in the sound most people in the airport had probably never heard before. As a former law enforcement officer, so was my husband. He wanted to head toward the sound, toward the danger, but I knew to stay away from it and any crowds forming. I told him it was his responsibility to keep me safe now.

We found a quiet corner and waited. Despite the chaos that must have been unfolding out of our sight, it was relatively calm where we were. Too calm. Did people not know what had happened? We approached an airport employee and explained what we had heard. They seemed to doubt our interpretation and picked up a phone. Then people began running toward us, some of them bloodied. A confirmation.

Through all of it, we headed in the right direction, toward the exit, but stayed back, keeping our distance from the crowds. When we passed a man sleeping, sprawled across four chairs, I gently tapped his shoulder, waking him. He didn’t speak English, so I made a boom sound and mimed explosion with my hands and pointed toward the crowd of people all hurrying past in the same direction. It took a few seconds, but once it registered for him, he hopped to his feet and joined the crowd. Still, we kept our distance.

When we were some of the last remaining people inside, we finally approached the gate, where an airport employee told us to leave our carry-on bags behind. I frantically opened mine and withdrew my laptop and charger, a pashmina, and my purse. I left everything else—my medication, my toiletries, our house key—inside my bag at a random gate ramp in Brussels Airport, unsure if I would ever see it again.

Once on the tarmac, the chill in the air hit us. We had been living in Liberia, traveling from Thailand; we were not dressed for European weather in March. Thankfully, someone had gathered up all the blankets from inside a nearby airplane and tossed them to the crowd. I tore at the plastic and withdrew a red and white blanket and instinctively wrapped it around my head and shoulders, like how I wore pashminas in Kabul, and for a moment, forgot where I was. I had been near explosions before, but I never expected to experience them in Belgium.

I moved to Kabul, Afghanistan in 2006 to work as a manager on a Jhpiego-led USAID-funded health project that helped to save the lives of mothers and babies. I loved it, and when my two-year post was nearing its end, I wasn’t ready to leave.

So when the Jhpiego Country Director and Chief of Party resigned in 2008, I applied for her position. I was Jhpiego’s youngest Country Director at that time, managing a health project despite not being a doctor, nurse, or midwife. A part of me felt I had to prove I deserved the job, so I worked very hard. And my work gave me pride and purpose. Also, living and working in a conflict zone where everything—the work, the relationships—seemed high stakes, was seductive. So as the duration of the project kept getting extended, I stayed; I wanted to say I was there from beginning to end, and I was.

A few years later I was a newlywed, and, partly to prove to myself that my success wasn’t a fluke, I accepted another Country Director role in Monrovia, Liberia during the Ebola outbreak of 2015. Then, in January 2016, while my husband was in the US and I was in Liberia, his mother died unexpectedly. I was alone in our beautiful beach front apartment when he shared the news. I cried as I researched traveling without a passport. I couldn’t leave Liberia to attend her funeral and be there for my husband. My passport was at the Thai Embassy, getting stamped for a visa for an upcoming Country Directors’ retreat in Bangkok, Thailand.

Eventually he and I reunited in Liberia, but our honeymoon period had faded as grief descended into our lives. Then, a few months later, while on our way home from Thailand, we were involved in a terrorist attack at the Brussels airport.

When we finally made it back to Liberia and I arrived at my office the next day, my staff were outside waiting, singing songs of praise and worship to God in gratitude for my safe return. Runny-nosed and blurry-eyed, I welcomed their hugs.

A few months later, we returned to Arizona for a visit and I finally saw my mother after many months. She was not the same woman, thinner and frailer than I had ever seen her. Yet, I was not expecting to lose her only a few weeks later. For my mother’s funeral, I followed the same template we had used to plan my father’s funeral six years prior.

After my mother died, I didn’t have the mental capacity to sort through her belongings, so most everything got packed up into boxes, to be sorted later. As long as I kept everything packed away, I could avoid dealing with my grief. The losses were accumulating—his mother, a bombing, my mother—and I kept moving, the way I always had. I tried to get on with life when we returned to Liberia but was unable to focus on work anymore. As much as I loved my staff and our work, something inside me shifted. Grief was catching up to me; it was time to go.

Myanmar, 2018. We made one more attempt at living overseas full-time, one more attempt to be the person my career had made me. I accepted a position as Chief of Party on another USAID-funded project. Myanmar was lovely, but my husband had some health issues and wasn’t thriving there, so in 2019 I resigned, not because the work had ended, but because life required it. It took me some time to get there, but I chose my husband over the identity that had defined me for two decades. We moved back to Arizona and then to Northern Kentucky to be closer to our remaining family, a place we hoped we could both thrive.

Kentucky, January 2020. We moved into our beautiful new home in a rural area only twenty minutes from downtown Cincinnati. No conflict or danger zone to deploy to. A new city and a fresh start. Then, in March 2020, just as I was getting to know our new city, the world stopped moving. For someone who had been used to motion as a survival strategy across continents and decades, enforced stillness should’ve felt difficult, but as an introvert, I welcomed the opportunity (and privilege) to slow down.

It gave me time to finally face the unopened boxes. I spent weeks going through them, sometimes getting stuck on an item and feeling like an insect trapped in a spider’s web. Fifty-plus years of photographs, souvenirs, objects. All the accumulated evidence of their lives together.

I thought about my own experiences and legacy. We don’t have children, so who would carry my stories? I decided I wanted to write them down. Since I hadn’t really written creatively since college, I enrolled in an online memoir writing class and remembered I knew how to tell a story. I just didn’t know which one to tell yet.

That revelation came a few years later during a trip to Turkey to visit relatives. While perusing one of my aunt’s old photo albums, I discovered a photograph of my Turkish mother in a wedding dress standing next to a man who was not my American father, to whom she’d been married for over fifty years. My aunt reluctantly explained that my mother had been forced into an arranged marriage. I finally understood why my mother’s stories about her life before my father were always vague, with dates that never quite added up. I realized this was the story I wanted to write about. I had been trying to outrun my grief, but a photograph finally caught me.

Back in Kentucky, once I knew what I wanted to write, I still wanted support with how to write, so I enrolled in The Book Incubator, a 12-month writing program that taught me how to write, revise, and query a novel. I wrote my first draft quickly and then spent a few years revising and re-writing it before sending it out into the world.

Carving out the time to write a novel—without a salary, without a title, without anyone waiting for a deliverable, without institutional validation—is not easy. I went from being a Country Director and Chief of Party, leading teams and multi-million-dollar projects, to a beginner, learning the craft of fiction, not progress reports. It was uncomfortable and challenging in a new way, and I loved it.

But for a woman whose identity had been entirely load-bearing on her career, that absence of external structure and validation was its own slow unraveling.

There were days I sat down at my desk and felt lost with nothing to report, nobody to supervise, no meeting to chair, no donor to update. No one was waiting for my book. I had spent two decades building my career in international development, years where people deferred to my judgment, where the work felt urgent because lives and livelihoods depended on it. Now I was just a woman at a desk, making things up, hoping they were true. The stakes were not high. Lives would not be lost if I didn’t finish a chapter. I didn’t know yet whether that was freedom or emptiness. Some days it was both.

It wasn’t long before my old world came knocking, tempting me back in. Between field assignments, I often returned to Jhpiego as a casual employee, working on specific assignments. My novel was nearly finished, and I figured I had time to return to international development work, at least part-time. One foot in the old world and one foot at my desk. It was my fallback, my security. I was afraid to fully let go of that identity, to release the thread to the person I had been.

Then someone cut it for me. On January 20, 2025, the federal government froze all USAID funding disbursements, then it began dismantling the agency, our largest donor. In response, my employer terminated my contract. This was both a loss and a clarity. The institution that had sent me to Afghanistan, to Liberia, and to Myanmar was gone. The work I’d given much of my adult life to had been canceled and, in some circles, maligned. I grieved it. I still do.

I saw this as a sign, so I didn’t update my CV and reach for the next position. I reached for my manuscript. On April 30, 2025, I signed with She Writes Press, which will publish my debut novel, Istanbul Dreaming, on September 29, 2026. A photograph had been waiting to catch me for a long time. I was just finally standing still long enough to see it.

My career in international development has ended, and this new one as an author is still unproven. I’m still in the middle of this, and with each new book, I will have to start again. But I’m moving toward it all with commitment and intention. Still moving, even if it’s now on my treadmill desk instead of around the world.

Denise Derya Brandt is a debut author whose fiction and nonfiction writing is inspired by her life and the lives of the people she met while working for more than two decades in international development, leading life-saving women's health projects in Afghanistan, Liberia, and Myanmar (with shorter stints in other interesting places).

She's a graduate of The Book Incubator writing program, was a 2024 finalist for the Women's Fiction Writers Association Rising Star Award, and was a 2025 Poets & Writers Get the Word Out publicity incubator fellow. She holds a bachelor's degree in political science from Arizona State University and a master's degree in development management from The London School of Economics.

After graduate school, Denise lived in Istanbul, where she worked as an Associate Publisher for Turkish Business World, an English-language business magazine. As a Turkish-American with moderate Turkish language skills, she claims she can fool tourists but not taxi drivers! Originally from Arizona, Denise now lives in Northern Kentucky with her husband. Her debut novel, Istanbul Dreaming, is forthcoming from She Writes Press on September 29, 2026.

Midstory Reads: 10 New Essays by Midlife Women

Jessica Smock — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 16:34:59 GMT

Three times each month I publish Midstory Reads, a roundup of essays and articles published on Substack from our Midstack community, particularly from our Friday Midstack share threads. Midstory Reads is a small selection of the incredible writing from our Midstack community. I also invite you to check out this week’s thread to learn about more midlife voices.

Midstack

It’s time once again for our Friday Share Thread…

21 days ago · 49 likes · 272 comments · Jessica Smock

Midstory and Midstack are sister publications; Midstory publishes personal essays and other writing about the midlife experience, and Midstack is a support community for midlife women writing on Substack.

“(Re)Emerging in Midlife” by of Midlife Sentences

“In my early twenties, my sister sent me a copy of The Highly Sensitive Person. I found the title embarrassing, so I kept it tucked between my dorm room mattress and the bed frame, only pulling it out occasionally to flip through when no one else was in the room. I never read the whole book (sorry, Anna), but I didn’t need to read the whole thing to confirm what I already knew. Yes, I was a highly sensitive person…”

“Slamone Talks About Killing the Patriarchy” by in

“Ah, the sweet spot that is June. Long, balmy summer days filled with the smell of barbecuing, the taste of ice cold lemonade, and the refreshing satisfaction of killing the patriarchy.

The definition of patriarchy as defined by Merriam-Webster is: a social organization marked by the supremacy of the father in the clan or family, the legal dependence of wives and children, and the reckoning of descent and inheritance in the male line.
Broadly: control by men of a disproportionately large share of power.

So basically, men rule and girls drool. But only if men say drool is cool. And only if they’re girls. Women are often filled with their own opinions in regards to drooling on command…”

“What Making Reels Taught Me As An Author: I Learned Tik-Tok as a 60-Something and Survived” by in

“I’ve learned views are not an indicator of who you’re reaching. I’ve learned honesty and vulnerability go a long way. I’ve learned how to edit—to cut dead space, “ums,” and fluff because people’s attention spans are short. How to make captions (Yes to inclusivity). What lighting flatters my face. Which angles work. What filters can do. (Yes to subtle makeup. No to fake eyelashes.) I’ve learned how to fix mistakes, and the value of a funny outtake reel.

Most surprisingly, though, I’ve gained confidence….”

“Somehow Sixty” by in Narrative Threads

“My fifties were a decade of tumult and transformation: I ended my twenty-two-year marriage and became an empty nester; for the first time since my twenties, I learned to adult on my own, and somehow stayed sober through it all. I went back to school to study Narrative Medicine and began to rewrite and heal illness stories I had carried throughout my life, first for myself and then for others. Slowly, I found the courage to name myself a writer (dare I even say a poet) when asked the confounding question, “What do you do?”…”

“What Comes After Being Believed” by

“There is a woman I know (not one woman, really, but a weather system of women) standing in her kitchen at 10:43 p.m., barefoot, expensive serum drying on her face, reading an article about perimenopause while her teenage daughter cries upstairs and her husband, or ex-husband, or almost ex-husband, texts a sentence so emotionally useless it could have been generated by a bank.

She is forty-seven, or fifty-two, or sixty-one.

She has finally learned the words.

Medical gaslighting. Invisible labor. Attachment wound. Nervous system. Burnout. Patriarchy. Mother hunger. Trauma response. Emotional labor. Internalized misogyny. High-functioning depression. The body keeps the score….”

“The Plague of Insecurity” by in

“On one hand, with maturity comes resigned indifference. On the other, it’s still easy to be plagued by the throes of insignificance.

Insecurity.

Self-loathing.

My teenage daughter seems to lack the sickness. She never complains about other kids and doesn’t seem to bother comparing herself to anyone….”

“Berate the Fool or Honor the Warrior?” in

“I hear women call their past selves all kinds of names.

The Fat Girl From Brooklyn.

The Service Unit.

The Girl Who Peed Her Pants on Stage.

The One Who Should Have Known Better.

I get it.

I don’t agree with those awful names, but I get the impulse that created them.

The impulse to look back at the girl who screwed up, tolerated too much of what sucked, carried the weight, stayed too long, hid too much, gave too much, asked for too little….”

“How Your Email Finds Me” in

“I’m back. I took a few weeks off to work on my memoir proposal, which has been such a delicious luxury. Having undivided time to focus on my own writing feels almost gluttonous.

To quickly recap, I have not been on the set of a TV series since March, and I’m not sure when I’ll go back. When I started this Substack, I was pretty sure the breakup would be total. Now, with a little time to decompress, I think it’s more likely that this isn’t forever. I have unfinished business with it all—but more on that another day.

In the eight weeks since I have been off, here is a non-exhaustive list of all the things I have done….”

“My First Patient” by in Wellspring Wellness

“Almost twenty years later, that is the part that won’t leave me.

It was May of 2007, and I had graduated only five months before. Arthur was my first patient after graduating, ninety-two years old, the father of a woman named Linda who had hired me, and dying of end-stage cancer. He could no longer walk or rise from his bed on his own. Linda didn’t ask me to cure him. She asked me to help with his pain management. I said yes….”

“I’m About To Tell You Something I Never Told the Internet” by in

“A couple of months ago, I told the most vulnerable story of my life. Underneath the stars, in a stand of redwoods. I broke a lot of rules as a healthcare practitioner, who spoke openly about her own struggles with the big dark, how a snap decision led me to self-rescue on a river, stepping away from medicine, likely forever. While audience members called it brave, it didn’t feel that way. There are moments where you can no longer wrap the different parts of you into distinct packages, sliding them below the bed of your life, only to retrieve for a particular season…”

Two Weeks To Transform How Your Readers First Experience Your Substack

AI Made Me Quit My Job

Kate Hash — Wed, 27 May 2026 11:58:50 GMT

The discussion began innocently enough.

What’s on your mind today?

I think I’ve identified the thing that’s going to do it: finally make me quit my job.

That’s a big deal! How can I help?

I love my career. Most of the people, too. But something just smells rotten lately. I wish things were different and I know this is a big decision, but I’m not sure it’s the right fit anymore.

Your feelings are completely valid. What you’ve described sounds exhausting.

Thank you for validating that.

Considering future options can be a useful tactic. When you imagine your work life six months from now what’s the first thought that comes to mind?

If I have to sit in another meeting about AI there is a good chance I will lose my fucking mind.

My husband stared back at me, taking in the seriousness of our discussion across the dining table and the weight of my stress. Earlier that day, I had found myself in yet another meeting opposite a person who had long since exhausted their own shallow pool of good ideas and was now singularly focused on some cool, new AI initiative. It’s going to revolutionize everything, they insisted, as I forced an empty smile and quietly disassociated.

After over a decade in IT leadership at one of the best public universities in the country, I had gotten used to big ideas and bold thinkers. It’s one of the great pains and pleasures of working in an academic environment: you are surrounded by intellectual striving. I was always in conversation with a person or department to consider a new technology or platform that had caught someone’s eye. It was all part of my job. In fact, I liked that part. Loved it even. I was used to all matter of collaboration. Sometimes people just needed someone to brainstorm with, sometimes they simply needed to be redirected to an already existing resource, and sometimes they really did have the spark of something genuinely cool and that we would bring to fruition together. At the end of the day, two humans together in a room can always figure something out.

Generative AI was different from the start, primarily because it promised so much. It allowed people to give the illusion of being visionary without having to produce a single tangible thing. I can still viscerally remember sitting through an all-day presentation from a vendor that was all PowerPoint slides and no real product details or demos. I watched our own “top leaders” salivate over snake oil. They waved off concerns expressed from a few brave souls about the environmental impact and then on the way out I was lectured by one of their deputies for putting a compostable plate in the trash can.

From that point on nearly every meeting I was in required discussion of AI in some capacity.

I started to find myself more tired at the end of the day. Temperamental. Mentally drained. Impatient with my own kids.

Here’s the thing: Drowning in a bottomless pit of big, empty ideas will do that to a person. That these unformed ideas typically came from people committed to becoming local AI influencers didn’t help matters.

Everybody was full of grand visions based on a conference they had attended or a pitch a vendor had given them. I watched unqualified people sit on panels and regurgitate industry talking points to seem interesting and innovative only to have audience members rearrange those same words and use them as talking points for questions to appear curious. Suddenly, the humans became two chatbots lobbing word salad back and forth to one another.

Over the course of my career – as I progressively eked my way up the proverbial hierarchical ladder – I learned that the best employees are people who like getting things done. They genuinely like to do stuff. Be part of teams. See projects from start to finish. Use their brains to solve complex problems. The state of the AI discussion in many organizations, however, is boring many high-performing workers to death. It is melting motivation and seething discontent. And, it’s not because they are worried about jobs going away, but because they are so dreadfully bored. So much talking, very little doing.

Late last year I read a snippet of an interview with Jacob Elordi (yes, he of Wuthering Heights and Frankenstein pop culture currency). He called AI “...so fucking boring” and said he had no tolerance for “the ever encroaching, constant conversation that we keep having about it.” The first time I read his quote, I damn near cried. He put into words the silent pain I was feeling. I was so tired of this one topic invading my professional space at all times, from all directions.

The encroaching conversation also feels increasingly threatening. The people insisting that we must learn AI or fall behind never seem particularly worried about their own employment. It was only coming for our jobs — therefore we’re the ones who need to “lean in.” The teachers and writers. The lawyers and developers. The marketers and translators. Not the CEOs, of course. Or the founders.

The talking points seemed clear that only workers would become obsolete. Meanwhile, there I was in yet another meeting, wondering like Carrie Bradshaw staring longingly out the window: Is AI going to take all the jobs? Or do we all need to learn AI to do our jobs? Either way, pay a monthly subscription to find out.

At the end of the day, my decision to leave academia to pursue life as a full-time writer was, of course, about so much more than the encroachment of AI into everyday discussion. The camel’s back was already feeling the weight. AI simply piled a bunch of straw on top to push me over the edge. In my thirties, I may have powered through and tried to wait things out, but at the age of 42 I simply didn’t have the fucks left to give. If this was the job, I didn’t want it anymore.

Yes, I recognize that I have walked into another industry grappling deeply with the role AI should play in all aspects of the business. Traditional publishing has let itself get caught up in the AI craze, too. The difference is that I’ve removed myself as a thought partner, arbiter and implementer. Maybe that’s burying my head in the sand. Maybe I’ve simply kicked the can down the road. Maybe that’s a privilege others don’t have. For right now, it’s what I need for my own intellectual and spiritual peace.

Here’s what my days look like now: I wake up, sit at my desk, and open the document file for my draft-in-progress. Then, I write using my brain, my heart, and copious amounts of caffeine. I hate myself a little bit when I get stuck in a rut and I marvel at my creativity when I hit a flow. It is challenging in all the right ways and fulfilling in its ease.

In the evenings, I make recipes from cookbooks and Substacks written by humans. I block accounts that post AI-generated images and videos. I turn off new features in my email inbox. I unsubscribe from services that want me to accept new terms and conditions that give them unbridled access and permission to my words. It’s not a perfect approach and I’m certain I miss my fair share, but these small acts of defiance make me feel a smidge more human.

It’s rare that an act of protest and dare I say, rebellion, is so easily accessible and attainable to the masses. Because in the case of consumer-facing generative AI, there is an intensely real power at our fingertips: abstention. Every one of us has the ability to opt-out. The powers that be will continue to push AI, but if consumers vote with their proverbial feet eventually the ship will return to an even keel. AI may be here to stay, but we have the ability as individuals and as a collective to help determine the future.

Kate Hash is the author of Gracie Harris Is Under Construction and the writer behind the Substack newsletter Born and raised in the Philadelphia suburbs, she spent most of her twenties bouncing around the world, including a stint in Florence, Italy. She currently lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with her husband and two children. The Mother-in-Law Book Club is her second novel.

Glass Houses: On Breaking Intergenerational Silences

Uncharted by Jamie Gilpin — Thu, 21 May 2026 11:47:49 GMT

For two years, five o’clock meant wine.

My husband and I worked from home in high-stress jobs and poured a glass each night as we wrapped up the conference call portion of our day. Then I answered emails until six, made dinner, put the boys to bed, got back online until nine. Some nights we opened two bottles.

I told myself it was normal. It was the height of the pandemic and managing a kindergartner and third grader on Zoom calls along with my demanding career was challenging, to put it mildly. As I doom scrolled through social media (another staple activity of my pandemic experience), I was validated in my assessment that I indeed was united in my strife as the working-mother-who-deserves-this, the celebrated mommy wine club. It was the way to survive an unconscionable situation.

Until I realized it was becoming less casual. As a child of an alcoholic father, I knew I was playing with a small fire. By 2022, at the age of 42, that fire started to burn a little brighter. We now limited our drinking to only the weekends. But, reducing the consistent intake left me more unpredictable on the weekends. After a couple nights of blackouts, I realized I was losing control. More importantly, my behavior was incongruent with who I wanted to be, who I am at a deeper level. I was misaligned.

I quit in the spring. Not gradually, not with a program. One day I decided and that was it. My therapist asked if I was sure I could just stop like that, without support. I was sure. When the very core of your being is out of alignment with your actions, there is only one way forward. Owning your actions and releasing what no longer serves you.

I would not follow in my father’s footsteps. My kids deserved better. I deserved better.

A few months later, she asked if I had talked to my kids about my decision. I said no. Why would I?

She explained. Alcoholism runs in families. So does the secrecy around it.

I knew this firsthand: the denial, the silence, the perfect glass house with the rugs we swept everything under. From the outside, my childhood home was perfect. Tidy, affluent, the golf course neighborhood behind the gates where everyone had proven they’d made it. Inside, my father drank, and we never once said so out loud.

The silence becomes its own inheritance, passed down alongside everything else like the eye color, the sense of humor, the predisposition itself. If I wanted to break the pattern, she said, I needed to start by not treating it like a secret. Bring it into the light. Let my kids see me handle it honestly rather than watch it disappear without explanation.

I thought about this for a few months. My boys were ten and seven. I wasn’t sure what I was going to say or how they would take it or whether this was one of those parenting decisions you only know was right or wrong in hindsight, years later, in their own therapy appointment.

Then one afternoon we went for a walk, just the three of us, and I decided it was time.

“Have you noticed,” I said, “that I quit drinking adult drinks? Like wine and beer?” Turner, my oldest son, said yeah. Like it was obvious. Like he’d been waiting.

“What have you noticed?” I asked.

He thought about it for a second. “You are more fun.”

Sawyer, my youngest, didn’t hesitate. “Yeah, Mommy, you are more silly now.” I had to look away for a second.

I forgot that I like to be silly. That’s the thing nobody tells you about the numbing. It doesn’t just quiet the hard stuff. It quiets all of it. The hard stuff and the silly stuff and the present stuff and the alive stuff, all turned down together, all equally muffled. My ten year old had noticed before I did. My seven year old had been waiting, without knowing he was waiting, for his silly mother to come back.

We kept walking. I told them that alcohol can be very dangerous for people who have it in their family history. And we do.

I told them about my dad, their grandpa. That he struggled with depression his whole life and that alcohol made it worse, and that ultimately he lost that fight. I had told them pieces of this before. They knew he died before they were born, they knew I missed him. But I had never said it plainly. That he was an alcoholic. That it ran in our family. That this was why I had made this choice, and why I was telling them about it.

Nobody said anything for a moment. We just walked. The three of us and the weight of it, out in the open air for the first time.

Turner got quiet the way he does when he’s actually thinking. Then he said, “Like video games? Is that the same kind of thing?”

There was something almost funny about it. We fight about screens every single day — the iPad, the PS5, the bizarre YouTube activity of watching others gaming.

And here he was, connecting the dots himself. “Yeah, actually. It’s all the same thing. Drugs, alcohol, social media, gaming. Anything that helps us numb out instead of feel what we’re feeling.”

He nodded like he was filing it away.

We walked the rest of the way home mostly in silence, the good kind. The kind that means something landed.

I have thought about that walk many times since. About Sawyer’s face when he said I was more silly now, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. About Turner filing it away, already connecting it to something in his own life. About the fact that they had both noticed something was missing long before I admitted it to myself.

My boys didn’t need me to be perfect. They needed me to be present. They need me to be me, the real me who is more fun, more silly, more here.

It turned out she had been in there the whole time. It has been over four years since I quit and I have never felt more comfortable, more confident in my own skin. As I get older each vice or piece of the mask I created is peeling away, some faster than others.

At 46 I no longer have the ability to pretend or continue doing what no longer serves my soul and my purpose. Through this, I care less what others think, I talk openly about my mistakes. It’s liberating. I am liberating. One day at a time, one layer at a time, I am returning to my deepest self towards full liberation.

Jamie Gilpin is a former Chief Marketing Officer, advisor and leadership coach. She holds an MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Business and writes about burnout, reinvention, and the path back to yourself at uncharted-leadership.com. She is at work on her first book, I Lost My Mind: And Found My Purpose. She lives in Chicago with her husband, two sons, and her dog.

Do you have a story you’d like to share with Midstory Magazine? See our call for submissions HERE.
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Midstory Reads: Let's Hear It for the Newbies!

Jessica Smock — Tue, 19 May 2026 12:11:49 GMT

A few times each month I publish Midstory Reads, a roundup of essays and articles published on Substack from our Midstack community, particularly our weekly Midstack share threads.

This week this Midstack share thread generated over 300 comments, and I continue to be delighted by the number of brand new Substack writers who find their way to Midstack community. In celebration of these new writers, this Midstory Reads will feature essays only by new and new-ish Substack writers who’ve been on Substack for a few months or less (some much less!).

Please support these writers by reading and commenting, sharing, and subscribing.

Join us over at Midstack for two weeks, starting May 26th!

Midstack

I’m excited to announce a two-week workshop experience to help midlife women writers build the foundations for authentic connection and sustainable growth — by making sure every reader-facing element of your Substack invites people in and makes them want to stay. This is hands-on, collaborative, and designed specifically for midlife women who want to gr…

a month ago · 7 likes · 2 comments · Jessica Smock

“The First Time You Feel It, Believe Yourself” by

“In 2015, a man I barely knew who I briefly went to school with sent me a friend request. Truthfully, what I did know about him, I hadn’t liked. He’d always seemed off.

But, like a good girl, I accepted it.

I wanted him – and everyone else – to think I was a nice girl. A sweet girl. A “non-snob.”

Not liking someone didn’t feel like an option.

Mostly, I didn’t want to be rude. People pleasing dies hard. Even when you’re in your 30s, living 1,000 miles away, with a tingly feeling that something is off…”

“The version of me writing this is not the version of me you’ve met” by of

“I feel different these days. I introduce myself without a title or a company name. I’ve left a shiny corporate job at Nike, a company I called home for over 10 years after a 7 year sprint in shiny Advertising and Tech companies. And now I’m learning to shine on my own. When people ask me what I’m doing next, I have no problem telling them I’m not sure yet. It’s all a work-in-progress and that feels like exactly the place I’m meant to be right now. The in-between.

I feel ready to write again. I wasn’t there just a few months ago. What’s changed? I gave myself a lot of time and space to become invisible and immerse myself fully into the process of Un-Becoming…”

“Perimenopause, the Void, and the Year of the Fire Horse” by

“My recent article explored the void, that time during perimenopause and midlife when many women find themselves lost between who they were and who they are becoming. I wrote about the magic that can unfold when we get brave enough to sit with the not knowing instead of rushing to escape it.

But there’s an elephant in the room that we haven’t talked about yet….”

“I Did Everything Right. Now What” by

“I did everything right.

Good marriage. Two kids launched successfully. Financial security. A career that mattered. I retired at 54 with a package I initiated and a future wide open.

And then I stood in my kitchen on a Tuesday morning and thought — now what?

Nobody tells you that the hardest part of building a great life is figuring out what to do when you’ve actually built it.

I’m not here because I have the answers. I’m here because I suspect a lot of you are standing in your own kitchens asking the same question — and I think we should figure it out together…”

“We heard the mountains calling” by of

“When my husband, Chris, and I moved to Colorado in 2019 we sent out “We’ve Moved!” cards. We made a card with a graphic of mountains and the famous John Muir quote “The mountains are calling, and I must go.” Although overused, given that I could get that quote on everything from a coffee mug to a t-shirt to a sticker to a dog sweater (I’m not sure, but I’d bet I’m right), it captured our mindset.

The mountains called and we went…”

“This Journey Has No Destination” by

“‘You need to fall in love with the process of writing.’

I was in my early thirties when a writer friend said this to me. I still recall how she emphasized the word “process” like it held some secret meaning I would need to suss out. Which I might have attempted if I hadn’t felt so wholly gutted. In that moment, her message seemed obvious: as a writer, I was human refuse—a joke, really.

For months that became years, I choked on her words. I avoided writing. I clung to the corporate career I despised. I searched for other hobbies that could fill out my identity. If I couldn’t be a writer, I could be a distance runner, at least in my free time. That spurred me on athletically, but creatively and professionally, I felt nullified. A solid decade would pass before I would puzzle together the shards of my fragile ego to become the professional writer I’d dreamt of being…”

“Denial and Silence: A Cancer Survivor’s Guide” by of Still Here

“Twin sentinels guard the portal to every cancer journey. On one side stands denial - the refusal to acknowledge the truth - and on the opposite side, silence - the avoidance of speaking truth to others.

I call them twins because they often, although not always, function in tandem…”

“My Paris Ghosts” by Cori in

“It’s a brilliant, sunny day when my daughter suggests visiting Père Lachaise cemetery. She’s been living in Paris for the last two years, and I’m here visiting. We walk the cobblestone avenues, sharing awe at the moss covered tombstones, the climbing vines, the sepulchers leaning with age, the weeping sculptures.

It’s a place of grief and ghosts, and yet, wandering around the ancient alleyways, the atmosphere is hushed, reverent, uplifting…”

“Midlife Unraveling” by of Crowned

“On paper, everything looked good.

I was 45. I had the beautiful family, the career, the nice house. It looked perfect on the outside and I had worked really hard to make sure of that. But somehow I found myself restless, unhappy and asking,

“Is this all there is?”

And what I didn’t realize at the time was that I had been slowly layering on identities my entire life.

The good daughter. The good mother. The good wife. The good teacher. The faithful Catholic. The responsible one. The one who keeps the peace. The one who doesn’t disappoint.

Layer, by layer, by layer.

And none of them were wrong. In fact, many of them were beautiful…”

Learn more and submit HERE

The Throughline

Meghan Moravcik Walbert — Wed, 13 May 2026 11:31:10 GMT

In this week’s guest post, Meghan writes about the realities of working in the dying industry of digital media as she grapples with what the next chapter of her career might look like and as her teenage son figures out what might want to do someday.

“So,” my boss says with a heavy sigh to the remaining nine of us over a Google Meet, “I think the best I can offer each of you is some advice on what to do next. I’m calling it ‘career wellness planning,’ but that’s just a nice way of saying: ‘How to prepare to eventually be laid off.’”

Most of the nine of us had been through it together for years. There were the company-wide layoffs that touched adjacent departments, eliminating people from our daily work lives who weren’t on our team, per se, and weren’t personal friends, exactly, but who still mattered, still meant something to us and the work we did.

Most memorably, though, was the morning a few years ago when the entire team got a last-minute notice for a meeting with the company’s CEO and an HR representative. Anyone familiar with layoffs knows that’s probably not good. And when my manager asked his supervisor for clarification (more specifically, he asked exactly how worried we all needed to be), she simply said, “Just make sure everyone on your team is at this meeting.”

So, we said our informal goodbyes to each other. We said what anyone says in these moments: It’s been really great working with you. We’ve done good work, work we should be proud of; and, hey, we had fun doing it. You never know, we might work together again some day. I hope we do.

Then we signed into the meeting and learned that our website, a digital media tech and productivity site that has been around for more than 20 years and—at least at one point—had a cult following, was not being shuttered; it had been sold.

We were the unicorn success story in a dying industry. Instead of being sold to a private equity firm to be squeezed of any remaining value before being discarded completely, the private equity firm that already owned us was stripping us from their portfolio to sell to a company that actually wanted to invest in us. We didn’t get severance and unemployment; we got raises. We couldn’t believe our luck.

Fast-forward three years, and our current owners, despite the best of intentions (and, frankly, a better business strategy than most), are facing what everyone in the digital media industry is facing: endless Google algorithm changes, an audience that increasingly gets news and information from social media, and “AI overview” summaries that populate at the top of internet searches and position the actual source of the information in the background, never to receive the coveted click. (We do the work; AI gets the credit.)

So on this particular day, six months after losing one team member to a company-wide round of layoffs, and mere hours after losing another team member to more of the same, my manager—who has a partner and two teenagers of his own—shrugs his shoulders and says what we all know to be true: We each need to figure out what is next for us. The clock is ticking on these jobs.

A month later, my own teenage son is telling me about his high school schedule for next year; he’s decided to take a woodworking class because he might want to learn carpentry as a career.

“Ooh, really?” I ask. “Ok. If you do, would you make me a dining room table?” (I understand I’m getting ahead of myself here, but I’d really like a nice dining room table, and I figure I might get in line.)

“Of course, Mom,” he says, taking a large bite of a soft pretzel dipped in melted cheese, a favorite of his at this local restaurant where we’re having dinner, just the two of us. “I might not actually become a carpenter, though. I don’t know what to do, but I’m in high school now, so I need to figure it out. I also thought maybe it’d be fun to be a lawyer. Or a marine biologist? But I still kind of want to be a chef, too, and open my own restaurant.”

I agree that each of those options sound exciting, and I tell him he has time to figure it out. I tell him the thing that my parents’ generation didn’t know to tell us: That the career he chooses to study at 18, or earns a college diploma for at 22, or lands his “dream” job in at 36, might not even exist at age 45. That he only needs to figure out what he wants to do next, not what he wants to do forever.

So I tell him to look for the throughline in the careers he’s interested in: Do you want to help people? Solve problems? Lead people in some way? Build things? Heal a hurt? If you can figure out the throughline you feel passionate about, I tell him, that can help you narrow choices down in the short-term and give you more of a long-term path to follow. He nods that he understands as he dips a portion of his pretzel in cheese and hands it to me. (The only “throughline” my family has when it comes to eating out is that we sample each other’s food.)

From the moment I won a poetry contest in 5th grade, I knew I wanted to write. So circa 2000, as my high school graduation approached, I was trying to figure out how to make a career of writing, and becoming a newspaper reporter seemed to make sense.

I went to journalism school where I learned to fact-check my sources and what one could legally—and ethically—print. I learned to write cleanly, concisely, fairly and descriptively. (Then I learned to use fewer adverbs.) I wrote and edited my way through college, just as news outlets across the country were beginning to figure out that maybe they needed a “website,” too.

I entered the newspaper industry at what felt like a peak of hiring in 2004, and left it in 2009 after the recession caused near-immediate wave after wave of layoffs at the newspaper that I—and my brand new husband—both worked for.

What came next was typical of most journalists fleeing print media: jobs in public relations, media relations or corporate communications. They were jobs that required good writing skills but felt devoid of personal connection or purpose, especially if you weren’t choosy. And one can’t be too choosy as one is paying off all the student loans that prepared one so thoroughly for a dying career.

Over the next several years, I wound my way into motherhood and through several years’ worth of balancing stay-at-home parenthood with freelance writing. When my oldest son turned 8, I landed a full-time role that I told people close to me was basically my dream job: writing (and later editing) full-time for a well-known digital media outlet. Today, it’s the job I’m trying to “career-wellness” my way out of.

We meet as a team first, then individually with our editor-in-chief. We have checklists to keep each other accountable. We’re updating resumes and cover letters, we’re drafting the “ah dang, I got laid off, but here’s what I’m grateful for, plus my next steps” messages we’ll eventually post to LinkedIn, and we’re creating “household hardship budgets.”

We laugh and say we hope all the effort is for nothing, but we know it’s necessary; we’re all far too young (relatively speaking) to pretend we’ll retire in digital media. So we also talk about what we each want to do next, what comes after this. And this is where I stumble: I’m just a 15-year-old again, eating a pretzel, sipping a lemonade and thinking, well, I could be this or that or what if I...

Ideas start to bubble up to the surface, though: At my heart, I’ll always identify as a writer. But that’s not the full story of what I want out of a career, or out of life. I want to share human experiences, people’s stories. I want kids without a voice to feel heard. I crave deeper connection with others. I want my work to mean something, both to me and to the people it is meant to serve.

I’m not sure one job can accomplish all that. But I’m also not looking at what to do forever; I’m just trying to figure out what to do next.

Meghan Moravcik Walbert has more than two decades of experience as a journalist and writer and currently works full time as the Managing Editor for Lifehacker.com. She's a former foster parent and is raising her two teenage boys (plus a terrier and a number of fish at any given moment) with her husband in Eastern Pennsylvania.

Do you have your own story to tell? Submit your writing to Midstory Magazine.

Midstory Reads: Awe, Grief, Joy, Healing, and Desire

Jessica Smock — Thu, 07 May 2026 13:49:13 GMT

A few times each month I curate essays and articles published on Substack by our Midstack community, particularly our weekly Midstack share threads. (Midstory and Midstack are sister publications; Midstory publishes personal essays and other writing about the midlife experience, and Midstack is a support community for midlife women writing on Substack.)

If you’d like your published Substack writing to be considered for Midstory Reads, please subscribe to Midstack and post your writing in our Friday share thread. Here’s last week’s thread.

I encourage you to support the writers in this week’s Midstory Reads by commenting on and sharing their posts and subscribing to their publications.

MIDSTORY READS: MAY 7, 2026

“Just Wanting It Should Be Enough” by in

“It took me years to be able to say it with any confidence. “I don’t work Fridays.” And even longer to actually mean it.

For a long time, I didn’t dare ask for what I wanted. I was consulting, but most of my time was going to one company and its clients. I wanted Fridays for myself. Time to breathe, to think, to do the things I actually wanted to do. But I was terrified to ask for it. At the heart of it, I was afraid people wouldn’t want me anymore. If I wasn’t there when they needed me, why would they keep choosing me?…”

“Sexual Fuckery: The Lies Women Were Told About Desire” by of

“I was twelve when I discovered masturbation and immediately felt a burning shame.

Nobody told me I was doing anything wrong. Nobody had to. I had already learned an implicit message: Good girls shouldn’t want things like that. So I tucked it away. And I became a very good girl.

I’m a psychotherapist and certified sex therapist. I’ve spent 14 years having heartbreaking, inspiring, and vulnerable conversations with women. And what I know now is that what happened to me happened to almost every single one of them.

I call it sexual fuckery.

It’s the accumulated weight of everything society did to disconnect women from their own desire, before we were old enough to know it was happening, before we had any say in it, and before we even understood what we were losing….”

“Messy Joy” by of Women at the Edge of the Woods

“There’s a sneaky kind of grief that takes up residence in the marrow of women as we age. For me, it wasn’t a sharp slap; it was wily.

It was like a stray dog I gave half a bagel to once; it followed me home from school, waited until I reached the lobby door of my building, and then snapped at my leg just as I tried to get inside.

This sneaky, slinking grief brings a message from the long hallway of our history, whispering about all the parts of ourselves we edited out and then abandoned to stay “easy”.

Many of us became master architects of the Great Shapeshift, trimming our wisdom, so we fit in just so.

I know I tucked away much of my wild creativity and playfulness to fit in spaces that looked like rooms I thought I wanted to be in…”

“Finding Awe at the Edge of the World” by of

“I was sitting on an airplane flying over the island of Svalbard, thenorthern-most inhabited place on the planet earth, and the woman in the seat behind me was crying so hard I thought she was ill.

I was just about ready to give her the stink eye for being sick on an airplane without a mask when I realized what was actually happening. She was profoundly moved and was crying fat, mucus-y tears. Setting aside the obvious issues with my attitude, I was struck by how in awe she was over what she was seeing.

The view is nothing short of breath-taking, in the literal sense. When you look out the window into that icy archipelago, your breath is stolen for a split second. You almost hiccup at the shades of white and blue, the visual coldness, the isolation, the untouched-ness of it all.

In the most basic language—you are in awe.

And the more I thought about this woman’s reaction, the more I realized how little awe I actually have in my life…”

“Healing Isn’t Linear” by of

“‘They’ say that healing isn’t linear. Blah, blah, blah.

But, it turns out, they’re right.

For the past two and a half years, I’ve done a lot of work on myself. My coping toolbox is so full, sometimes it’s hard to choose which one to try when I’m spiraling.

For months, I’ve been so proud of myself. Look at me, getting my mojo back. Look at me doing all of the things – traveling, being social, not canceling appointments. Look at me, I feel better – so much better.

But something happened this week…”

“I’ll Trade You A Song For A Poem” by of

“Last night, my most recently deceased friend visited me in my dream. Standing at the edge of my room, he walked across that threshold as easily as a physical one. It’s ok. I invited him. I’d wanted that goodbye we didn’t have in person.

Over the summer, I’d let correspondence drop. My worlds ablaze as a literal fire raged a few miles away from what I considered my forever home, my job lost, community evaporated. Every day felt like well, the title of this Substack. So, I dropped that Sisyphus of a ball on my own foot, pinned myself in place to a location that didn’t have a distinct name. A series of question marks all pointed to the upcoming milestone of turning 50, starting over with a mountain of student loan debt, nothing certain except uncertainty.

So, I stopped. Responding. Not to everyone, not consistently. Unlike the silence of purposeful distance, this was more how do you share the dark in a way that doesn’t collapse?…”

💬 Share your favorite recent piece of writing from another midlife woman in the comments.

Still Standing: A Week That Changed Everything

Paper_worx_art — Mon, 04 May 2026 12:03:43 GMT

This week at (our sister publication) I am hosting a series of co-writing sessions for midlife women. You are invited to join us!

Monday, May 4th at noon, Eastern

Tuesday, May 5th at 2 p.m. Eastern

Wednesday, May 6th at 1 p.m. Eastern

Friday, May 8th at noon, Eastern

Show up for one day of the week or every day.

Editor’s Note: This piece captures something we don't see enough in literary magazines: the messy, unpolished truth of a life falling apart in real time. Written in the same week everything in her midlife world seemed to collapse, this essay doesn't have the benefit of hindsight, craft, or distance. It's raw and urgent, written by someone who isn't a professional writer but needed to put words to the unthinkable.

There's an urgent kind of honesty that comes when someone writes not to create polished art, but to survive, and this essay has it. In a publication that often features work from experienced writers, I want to make space for this type of voice: the woman in the parking garage, the one still standing despite everything, the one who doesn't have answers yet but is brave enough to write anyway. Sometimes the most important stories remind us we're not alone in the hardest moments of midlife.

Have you had a day, a week, a month, a year when everything felt like it was crashing around you? Tell us about it in the comments. — Jessica

Everything disintegrated into fine particles in a single week. What I had been holding together so tightly, fell right out of my hands, and smashed onto the floor. The life I had built was gone, gone, gone.

For the past three years, my career had been on pause, waiting for decisions others were making about my future that I could not directly control. The decision about my job came on a chilly Monday afternoon. Less than a week later, I found out my marriage was falling apart. Two days after that, the doctor gave me some bad news about recent test results.

In between, life was not slowing down. Meals still needed to be planned and made. My teenage daughter had a laundry crisis — “NO SOCKS LEFT, MOM!” — because, while I was drowning in my own emotional mess, the basics were falling by the wayside.

No one prepared me to handle all of this. One might expect occasional bad news, hard times, but to have the very foundation of your life shaken this hard in less than a week, this was beyond me. I felt like I was taking a test that I had not studied for, and that I might not pass.

I am a strong woman. I work in the construction industry. To say it is a man’s world is a gross understatement. I thought I was tough, I thought I could handle anything given what it takes to survive in my work world. But these new realities quickly brought me to my knees.

It turns out that the work project I was leading would be taken over by someone else. Six years of hard work, gone in an instant. My leadership and knowledge were no longer needed. I still had a job, and income, but no certainty about when the actual work that fueled me, was going to start again. No details of my future beyond this decision were given. No reassurance in writing, just words across the zoom call screen telling me my job was safe, but there were no other answers at the moment.

I picked myself up. I kept going.

Until a few days later, a niggling suspicion that I had been ignoring for months got the better of me. My husband had run hot and cold for almost 9 months. One minute I felt I was the love of his life. The next, I was begging him to talk to me. I had no idea what was going on. So I lowered myself. I found his journal and I read the most recent entry. It was all about his feelings for another woman. An emotional affair with a co-worker, who he had said was just a friend. I stopped breathing for a moment and couldn’t read anymore.

Things hadn’t been good for a while, and this was the last straw. When he came home that night, I declared the marriage over. Separation. He was going to move out. He didn’t resist. Clearly, I was not worth fighting for.

Then, when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, my doctor told me in what I thought was a routine appointment, that my cholesterol is so high, I was a good candidate for a heart attack or stroke. She turned to me, her brown eyes full of compassion. She leaned in and said, we are both 47. We are no longer young anymore. We have to take care of ourselves. I am sending you to a cardiologist and you have to start statins immediately.

That’s right – 47 years old. Facing the prospects of starting over at work, because who can trust people that have been jerking you around about your job for three years? A husband that had been living in a fantasy world for nine months, neglecting my needs, while he imagined life with another woman, right under my nose. No soft place to land when the doctor tells you something serious, and so guess what, I get to deal with that too… all on my own.

After the doctor’s appointment, I broke down in my car, in a dirty parking garage, the only place I had enough privacy to let it all out. I didn’t care who saw me at that point.

I’m writing this essay the same week all of this happened to me. I don’t have any answers.

I do know that I am grateful I started therapy eight months ago, because I had the presence of mind to seek support instead of white knuckling my way through mid life decisions. To have someone in my corner has proved invaluable. To have invested in myself, and my mental health is the only reason I am still standing, I think.

Often friends, they try their very best, but in mid life, they are all juggling so much, they don’t have much capacity left for the troubles of others. My parents are gone. I’m estranged from my sister. A separation means that my in laws, who are really the only family I am close to, are no longer really my own.

So. Much. Loss.

I thought I was unfuckable. After going through a pandemic and early menopause at the same time, losing support networks, and working from home with a young child, truly, I thought I had seen the back of the midlife mess. I worked on myself. I went back to school to complete a certificate in Conflict Resolution. I considered career changes to solve my work problems, since the housing market tanked and new roles in my field were hard to come by. I had done the work, and I deserved a break, right?

I have to let go of that narrative after this week. Life is going to keep teaching me hard lessons. Avoidance is not a strategy for success. The only way forward is to walk across the hot coals and keep retaking this test over and over again.

A small olive branch was extended by my husband. He said he was sorry about the emotional affair. We started talking honestly for the first time in months. We agreed to counselling before calling it quits, for the sake of our daughter. Small wins. Maybe there is hope after all?

Because of my willingness to listen to him openly, and not keep the door shut maybe we have a chance of beginning again. Those conflict resolutions skills sure came in handy this week.

At work, I practiced radical acceptance. In two months, I was going to lose the project that kept me busy day after day. I started to think about it as an opportunity. If I wasn’t overwhelmed with work, maybe I would have more time with my daughter, who is growing up so fast. She has been lost in this shuffle of a career crisis and a crumbling marriage. To have a summer to spend just with her, would actually be a gift of a lifetime.

My health? That is going to take some work. There is no instant fix. But, since I am still standing, I may as well walk over to the pharmacy and pick up my prescription for statins and get the ball rolling. As for the laundry, it will just have to wait.

Julianna is not a professional writer. She felt compelled to take a chance and share her story with others. By day, Julianna is a wife, a mother, and a director for a housing development company, in Toronto, Canada. When time allows, she is a mixed media artist known as Paperworx Art on Substack and Instagram. Julianna uses her creative practice and platform to share insights into the issues that creatives commonly face, and this keeps her on track, and emotionally regulated, most of the time.

Do you have a story of your own to tell? Learn about our current call for submissions HERE.

Slow-Drip Sexism: A Midlife Reckoning with Gender and Power

True STORIES. — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 14:44:29 GMT

Editor’s note: I’m honored to present our first guest post from our spring call for submissions.

This essay stopped me cold—not because Jessica’s experiences are exceptional, but because they're so devastatingly ordinary. Every woman I know has her own version of these stories, the steady accumulation of moments that often seem too small to name but become too persistent to ignore. This essay captures what so many of us have lived: the slow radicalization that comes not from one dramatic event, but from decades of drips that finally fill the bucket. — Jessica Smock

In 2008, Gloria Steinem told younger women like me who supported Obama in the presidential primary that we hadn’t yet experienced enough sexism to understand the importance of voting for Hillary Clinton. The remark felt condescending and rather than rally my support, it did the opposite. I told anyone who would listen what a dumb move it was, that Steinem’s words only increased the generational gender divide.

How quaint, my indignation.

Eighteen years later, I know Steinem was right. Eighteen years later, the unrelenting drip of sexism has carved a hole in my heart. The experiences have fallen so steadily, in the news and in my personal life, that when I step back and take in the wide view, I want to laugh at the absurdity. How, in a just world, have women not formed an army and staged a coup?

The stories that fuel tidal waves of anger—Epstein, Cosby, Trump, Kavanaugh, Swalwell, Weinstein, Pelicot—are clear and decisive in their degradation of women and girls. Then there are the unmistakable offenses within the realm of my own life—a family member’s rape, for instance, compounded by the responding police officer’s dismissive attitude toward her.

Far more numerous are the smaller drips, the subtle doses of sexism.

Recently, an acquaintance reached out and rubbed my arm, shoulder to elbow, twice—down, up, down, up. He did this mid-conversation, without warning, as we stood in a committee room waiting for a meeting to begin.

“You had crumbs on your sleeve,” he said when I looked down. What crumbs, I wondered, could have landed on my bicep?

I said nothing. A child of the 80s, I am proficient at tactical joking, smooth diversion, and the act of brushing it off (like a crumb, one might say). But instead of berating myself for my silence (been there), I paid attention to my gut, a practice I started several years ago as my encounters with this dripping sexism began to fill a bucket.

The truth, I am now old enough and experienced enough to know, is that there were no crumbs. He palmed my arm and rubbed. He wanted to touch me, so he did. His demeanor showed no concern whether his crumb explanation would be accepted, or that it was even warranted.

I’d love nothing more than to respond to incidents like this in real time like a heroine in a movie. But few instances are like another. How could I have rehearsed for an arm rub and crumb excuse on a random Monday afternoon in the middle of a discussion about my son’s college decision?

Small-drip sexism often arrives this way—out of the blue, in unexpected moments from unexpected sources, wrapped in a sweet demeanor, say, or in the supposedly progressive politics of my peers.

For example:

After a rally once, a man approached me and the liberal Congressman I stood chatting with; when the man made an uncomfortable, overly-observant remark about my body, the Congressman quickly turned to talk to someone else, allyship be damned.

A politically powerful woman and self-described feminist told me—softly, kindly—that my letter to a male colleague, which had angered him, was “too professional,” “not warm enough,” and had “hurt” him.

One male head of a statewide environmental organization, without evidence or cause, accused, via the grapevine, “the women of Lake County”—me and my colleagues—of scheming against his friend after a leadership position the friend coveted was awarded to one of us.

A Democratic precinct committeeperson once joked about hoping to have sex with me, as we talked with another volunteer on our way to knock doors.

At a meeting I couldn’t attend, my name was removed from consideration for a leadership role because a staunchly liberal male colleague stated I was too busy caring for my children.

There have been dozens of occasions of men either repeating and owning my words and those of my female colleagues, or ignoring our words entirely.

I cite these instances not to imply there is something exceptional about my life, political allies, or experiences but to argue, of course, there is not. Yet while experiences like these might seem unexceptional on paper—in nameless, faceless contexts—each time they happened to me I felt stunned. Sometimes gut-punched and winded, sometimes simply questioning how this continues to be our reality. Did anybody see that? Is anybody seeing this???

Women are fighting multiple fronts—nationally and at their own breakfast tables, against opponents as well as friends—and it is exhausting. I wonder at the cumulative stress of it all—a lifetime of fielding and reacting to dozens or hundreds of incidents, much of the time trying to get someone to believe you or trying to understand it yourself.

It is easy to oppose sex trafficking and rape (rather, it should be); it is trickier to oppose an arm rub. But just like most rapes are not by knife-wielding strangers in dark alleys, much of the sexism I’ve experienced is “subtle” or perpetrated by supposed friends. These drips are part of the cesspool that keeps the whole system afloat.

It is the arm rubs that prop up monsters like Epstein; that lead high school boys to believe they can use AI to create nude images of their female peers for enjoyment; that lead college men to believe having sex with a woman too drunk to say no isn’t rape. It is the presidential jokes about female athletes that lead men to feel it’s appropriate to laugh. It’s nothing, just crumbs!

(Behind those jokes are 28 sexual misconduct allegations and a jury finding of liability for sexual abuse.)

The drips show no signs of ceasing. I think of the women who tried to make me see earlier—a colleague who pulled me aside twenty-three years ago and pointed out that a senior male colleague had stolen my idea (I’d mistaken it as proof the idea was good and been pleased when he took ownership); my mother in the 1990s arguing that men shouldn’t call women “girls” (I thought she was over-reacting); the words of Gloria Steinem.

Eventually, I arrived at a full understanding of all the ways in which women are undermined, abused, ignored. I hope my daughter—and son—will understand sooner, that the stories, the collective drips the women before her have absorbed, will not batter her heart but will fill her in a new way. I hope my words and actions at home and in office, alongside my fellow female elected officials who demonstrate every day that we deserve to be in the room, will be all the preparation and rehearsal my daughter needs to face the world like a hero.

So I continue to pay attention and to practice. “That was actually my idea,” feels natural on my tongue now. Recently, I stopped a public meeting to correct the male committee chair: “You mean Joanne; it was her suggestion, not Bill’s.” I used to believe this was akin to whining, That’s not fair! Now I don’t give a shit.

Steinem also said this: women are one group that grows more radical with age.

My efforts are relatively small. I’m not sure I’m doing it right. But I do know it is in our everyday actions that we will drive change as much as at massive marches. My daughter might roll her eyes but she will know our stories. I help her practice, in hopes she can say, “Don’t touch me,” to the face of anyone who lays an unwelcome hand on her. In hopes she sooner knows every crumb matters—but also that they can be picked off, crushed between her fingers, and thrown into the garbage.

Jessica Vealitzek is currently serving her last term as an elected official. She lives with her family in the Midwest.

Midstory Magazine is accepting submissions. To learn more, read our call for submissions carefully.

Our Spring Midstory Magazine Writing Guidelines

Jessica Smock — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 13:40:09 GMT

Our call for submissions is now open to both free and paid Midstory subscribers!

We’re seeking previously unpublished, honest, voice-driven work by midlife women about reinvention, loss and gain, desire and discovery, career shifts, caregiving, dating, creativity, and the small turning points that change a life.

You can read more about our guidelines and about how to submit your writing HERE.

Welcome to this week’ edition of Midstory Reads, a semi-weekly round-up of writing by midlife women on Substack.

Each week I curate essays and articles published on Substack by our Midstack community, particularly our weekly Midstack share threads. (Midstory and Midstack are sister publications; Midstory publishes writing about the midlife experience, and Midstack is a support community for women writing on Substack.)

If you’d like your published Substack writing to be featured in our Midstory Reads, be sure to subscribe to Midstack and post your writing in our Friday share thread.

MIDSTORY READS: APRIL 21, 2026

“Why I Love the Scandalous Women Who Changed My Life” by in

“Most of my friends aren’t aware I took a job as a stripper right out of high school, or that the women I’d worked in the adult entertainment industry nurtured me back to life.

My relationships with women have forged me into the person I am.

Broken women have scarred me indelibly. From being left on the doorstep of the welfare office by my mother when I was 4 to being kicked out of the house by my step-grandma at 16, the blows of rejection hammered at my self-worth. Their inability to recover continued the cycle of generational maternal abandonment.

Strong women have loved me, from teaching me I had value beyond my body and service to standing by me during my most challenging moments. Their unyielding acceptance provided the surrogate family I’d always needed…”

“The Writing Rituals of Maya Angelou” by in

“Angelou famously saw great benefit in writing outside of her home. She would regularly take a hotel room nearby where she would spend the morning writing. To reduce any sort of distraction, she would ask staff to take down any pictures from the walls. She claimed that she continued this ritual in any town she lived in, having a regular hotel room she could return to.

Angelou claimed that she liked a pretty house, but when it came to writing, she could not be surrounded by pretty, hence the need for the blandness of the plain hotel room.

Like many writers, Angelou rose early, usually around 5:30 am, enjoying coffee with her husband and then leaving for her rented hotel room…”

“Too Much And Not Enough” by

“Middle aged dating is a dumpster fire. I should know this by now; it’s been five and a half years since my divorce. I should have learned my lesson several heartaches ago. But hope keeps coming back like that abusive boyfriend who you can’t seem to let go of because he feels familiar.

What gets me into trouble is what I love most about myself. I am open, and vulnerable. It’s just who I am, and to try to hold all that in feels fake. And shallow. And that is definitely not who I am.

I know this scares men away. I watch them as they sprint quickly in the opposite direction of me because they can’t handle all that brightness so early on. I know this is a really bad strategy for early dating. It never pans out. Never.

But this one seemed different. He told me, “I can handle your depth and your openness. I’ve met you; I’m not flinching….”

“In the Absence of Witnessing” by in

“In this part of life, people are often doing something difficult while appearing functional. They are carrying responsibilities that aren’t visible. Managing emotional weight that doesn’t register as an emergency.

This is where many people find themselves functioning well enough that concern recedes. They’re doing what needs to be done. They are capable. They are reliable. From the outside, there is no obvious signal that anything requires attention. There is no visible crisis. Strength becomes assumed.

Competence reads as capacity.

Modern life doesn’t leave much room for this ongoing effort to be noticed. Our days are structured around urgency and outcome. Attention flows toward what is loud, what is new, what is clearly falling apart or clearly succeeding. The long middle asks for something else entirely: patience, presence, a willingness to stay with what is neither dramatic nor resolved.

So when the middle is hard, people don’t know what to say about it. They keep going. And it’s assumed that if someone is functioning, they’re fine. The work of the middle becomes invisible…”

“Cougar Puberty: A Not-So-Silent Meditation on 40 Years of Menstruation (and counting)” by in The Gen X Journals

“I was born in 1970, and for the first half of the subsequent decade I was certain I had a giant red “A” emblazoned on my chest. Not because I’d done anything Hester Prynne-like. As if.

No, the imaginary accessory on my adolescent attire stood for ABNORMAL.

Why did I feel like such a pariah, beyond the usual adolescent insecurities? Because most of my female peers started their periods by the time they were 13, at the absolute latest. I, on the other hand, was halfway through high school before the bleeding began.

It didn’t help that my mother was deeply concerned about this developmental delay, amongst others, even as she expressed horror at the increasing size of my ass….”

Midstory Magazine celebrates writing by and for midlife women. Please support the writers in this round-up by commenting on and sharing their posts and support our mission by becoming a paid or free subscriber.

Spring Call For Submissions

Jessica Smock — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 17:10:14 GMT

We want your writing….

What We Publish

Midstory is an online magazine for midlife women who are in the thick of it—the reinvention, the reckoning, the mess and possibility of the middle years. We publish essays, reviews, articles, and excerpts (900-2,500 words) that capture what it means to be a woman at midlife (or beyond), and to start over, to refuse to shrink, to finally speak up, or to burn it all down and begin again.

We’re interested in the stories midlife women actually live. We want the complicated, the contradictory, the unfinished business of your life right now.

In terms of defining what “midlife” is and which chronological ages are eligible to submit writing, we view midlife as more of a mindset, a feeling that you are, indeed, “midstory,” or in the middle of your story. Do you feel like you’re in the messy middle of your life — whether you’re 35, 55, or 75?

Submissions are now open for paid subscribers of Midstory. Submissions will then be open to all subscribers — free and paid — on April 20th. The first published essay will be chosen from those submitted by paid subscribers.

What We’re Looking For

Original, unpublished personal essays by midlife women that explore:

The transformations of midlife: not just the “I found myself” narratives, but the messy, ongoing process of becoming someone new while still being yourself. Show us what it actually feels like to reinvent your life at 45, 52, 63. What did you have to let go of? What surprised you? What scared you? What made you feel alive for the first time in years?

The reckonings: the moments when you finally confront what you’ve been avoiding, denying, or running from. The marriage that isn’t working. The career that’s draining you. The relationship with your mother you’ve never examined. The choices you made twenty years ago that you’re still living with. We want essays that wrestle with hard truths, that show you in the process of facing something you’ve kept hidden, from others or from yourself.

The resistance: the ways you’re pushing back against invisibility, ageism, diminishment, or the cultural narratives about what midlife women should be and want. How are you taking up space? Speaking uncomfortable truths? Refusing to apologize? Challenging expectations? What does it cost you, and what do you gain?

The discoveries: the passions, friendships, creative pursuits, hobbies, or parts of yourself you’re finding (or rediscovering) at midlife. The surprising plot twists. The late-blooming relationships, creative awakenings, or radical changes in how you see yourself. Show us what it’s like to experience something new when you thought you knew who you were.

The daily texture of midlife: the unglamorous, often invisible realities of life in the middle. Caring for aging parents while raising teenagers. Bodies changing in ways that surprise or unsettle you. Friendships shifting or ending. Marriages evolving or unraveling. Money worries. The sandwich years. The empty nest. Menopause. Grief. We want the details, the moments that capture what your days actually look and feel like.

What We Don’t Want

Generic reflections on aging or getting older.
Essays about someone else’s experience.
Advice pieces disguised as essays.
AI-generated content. We only publish work written by midlife women, for midlife women.

We Also Publish

Book, film, and TV reviews (900-2,000 words) that examine how midlife women are portrayed in culture, or that review work by and about midlife women through a sharp, personal lens. We’re not interested in only plot summaries; we want your analysis, your perspective, your argument about what this work gets right or wrong about our lives.

Book excerpts (1,000-2,500 words) from memoirs or essay collections by midlife women. If you have a book coming out or recently published, query us with a compelling excerpt that can stand alone as an essay.

Interviews (900-2,500 words) with midlife women writers, artists, entrepreneurs, or creators who are doing interesting work or living unconventional lives. We’re looking for conversations that go deeper than standard Q&As.

For reviews, excerpts, and interviews: Query us first at midstorysubmissions@gmail.com with your idea, a brief pitch, and relevant links or credentials.

The Midstory Essay Is:

900-2,500 words
Original and previously unpublished
Centered on your experience as a midlife woman
Specific, filled with vivid details, and emotionally honest
About transformation, reckoning, resistance, discovery, or daily life
Complicated, contradictory, and real
Written in your own authentic voice

How to Submit

Submissions are open to paid and free subscribers of Midstory only.

Essays will be published at least three times a month.

To help us pay our contributors, one essay each month will be selected only from paid subscribers. Paid subscribers will also receive early access to calls for submissions.

Payment: We pay $25 per published essay (except for book excerpts or interviews) via PayPal or Venmo within one week of publication.

Please include:

“Spring Submissions” in the subject line of your email. If you are a paid subscriber, please write “Spring Submissions: Paid Subscriber.”
a Google doc, PDF or Word document of your essay
a headshot or a photo related to your essay
a short bio
a short summary of your essay in the body of the email, as well as a suggested headline if you have one

Submit your essay and additional information to: midstorysubmissions@gmail.com

Midstory Reads: Reinvention, Roller Derbies, and Writing for Ourselves

Jessica Smock — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 11:30:50 GMT

Welcome to the third edition of Midstory Reads, a semi-weekly roundup of writing by midlife women on Substack.

Each week I curate essays and articles published on Substack by our community, particularly our weekly Midstack share threads. (Midstory and Midstack are sister publications; Midstory publishes writing about the midlife experience, and is a community for women writing on Substack.)

If you’d like your published writing to be featured in our Midstory Reads, be sure to subscribe to Midstack and post your writing in our Friday share thread.

And time for a big announcement….

Midstory will be open for submissions again in one week. We’ve taken a pause on submissions of original, previously unpublished personal essays and articles for several months, and I’m excited to start reading and publishing your writing once again.

I will be sending out an email and a preview of the new call for submissions page to paid subscribers of Midstory tomorrow and Wednesday. Paid subscribers will be able to submit to our call for submissions for a week before our general public announcement, and the first published essay will written by a paid subscriber.

As always, I’m thrilled to present a wide range of writing by midlife women from across Substack. Please support these writers by subscribing to their Substacks, commenting on their posts, and sharing on Notes.

MIDSTORY READS: April 13, 2026

“I Write For Myself” by of

“When writing for an online audience often the hardest part is figuring out what not to write - what won’t resonate with people. And in that regard, having an ideal reader avatar can be really helpful. My audience is unlikely to want to read a post on “10 ways to boost your weight lifting performance” for example.

But when it comes to writing from the heart, I write for me. Often when I sit down to write - cup of coffee always firmly in place - I don’t have a clear idea of what I want to convey. I struggle with content plans too - funnily enough and 90% of my articles are written on the same day that they are published….”

“I Had Fifty Dollars and Nowhere to Be” by

“It was mid-summer. My kids were at their dad’s. The house was quiet in that particular way that isn’t peaceful — it’s just empty. I had a pile of laundry that only two teenagers can produce, a mountain of things I was supposed to be doing, and zero energy for any of it. Tired and burned out and overwhelmed and sad and also, underneath all of that, deeply numb.

But something kept pulling at me. Like a whisper I couldn’t quite ignore: just go. Somewhere. Anywhere. Just not here.

I didn’t have a travel fund. My car had 250,000 miles on it. I had maybe fifty dollars to spare.

So I gave myself one hour and one directive: figure out somewhere to go tomorrow….”

“Substack, I Don’t Understand?: Is This Just Another Popularity Contest?” by

“Well, I am no celebrity, I am no genius. In fact I am very inconsequential in the world. I am human and I have dreams and desires, I dream of writing something that others will read and enjoy, I desire to be liked and needed, I am a pretty average human. So maybe that’s why I am not grabbing any likes, subscribers or even followers on Substack.

I have been here a little over a week and I have written articles, notes, liked, subscribed and generally lurked in the wings. Trying to decipher how this platform works and what makes it tick and also what seems to garner the attention of others here. Perplexed is what I am, how is it a note that says “I am new here” can get hundreds of likes and comments, yet a person pours their soul into an essay that may just be brilliant and they get zip, zero, zilch, nada?…”

“I Refuse To Wear a Cross: How Being the Mother of a Prisoner Has Changed Me” by of Black Sheep Mom

“Since my son went to prison, I have refused to wear a cross.

You can call me too sensitive or ridiculous or even sacrilege, but until you are in my shoes maybe don’t. God may very well have allowed the political torture of his own son, and you may find solace in the symbolism, but if that God knows my heart (and any God worth worshiping would) he sees why I can no longer stomach—let alone promote—governmentally sanctioned blood lust by adorning myself, in all things, a silver cross…”

“I Joined Roller Derby At Age 51. Here’s What It Taught Me About Making Decisions” by of

“What the hell had I gotten myself into.

It was a sunny afternoon and I had just walked into my first roller derby practice with $200 worth of new gear: skates, a helmet, mouth guard, and pads for every joint in my body.

Some of the other girls were already taking practice laps around the concrete floor (concrete?!)

Most of them were in their 20s and 30s. I was 51. My friend that challenged me to join was a few years younger than me, and one other woman looked to be about my age but she was flying around the track in league with the younger girls, even ahead of some of them….”

“Perimenopausal Pleasures” by

“Perimenopause can be a launchpad into the greatest pleasure of your life... or a shut-off valve. If you wish to choose the path of pleasure... keep reading!

Being in perimenopause means that everyday you have a chance to drop into your body, giving her breath and stillness and pleasure and grace to be exactly as she is…”

“Dear Artist Learning to Create in a New Way” by of Create Me Free

“Dear artist picking up unfamiliar tools because the familiar ones no longer work for you,

Dear writer learning to dictate when your hands can no longer type for hours,

Dear painter experimenting with digital brushes because standing at an easel isn’t possible anymore,

Dear maker whose body or circumstances have forced you into creative reinvention,

Dear creative in the awkward, humbling stage of being a beginner again,

Dear soul grieving what used to be while trying to build something new,

This is for you….”

“You Are Not Tired. You Are the Infastructure” by

“This is not a story about an irresponsible family. It is a story about how responsibility finds its way to the most capable person in the room and stays there.

My father is 93 and lives in another country, eleven hours ahead. My mother-in-law’s dementia unfolded under our roof for years. I did not study the sandwich generation. I built my life inside it.

Here is the structure I have watched play out in my own life and in the lives of women I have known for decades. A parent needs help navigating a system designed to be confusing. A sibling assumes you will handle it because you always have. An adult child is not yet fully launched. A household still needs managing.

None of these demands is catastrophic on its own. They are cumulative. And they concentrate in the person who appears most able to absorb them…”

Midstory Reads: Pen Pals, Perimenopause, and Punishments

Jessica Smock — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 14:52:27 GMT

Welcome to the second edition of Midstory Reads, our semi-weekly roundup of essays and articles from midlife women across Substack.

This writing comes from members of our writing community and our weekly share threads or from writers who have submitted their posts here.

Please support these writers by reading and commenting on their posts, subscribing to their Substacks, and sharing their posts on Notes. Our mission at Midstory and Midstack is to help each other grow and lift each other’s voices.

MIDSTORY READS: March 30, 2026

“My Kid Became Pen Pals With 17-Year-Old Me” by of

“A few weeks ago, something strange happened. My daughter became pen pals with teenaged me.

Her class was assigned Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman.,” but my daughter forgot to tell me in advance that she needed a copy. No time to go to the library or the bookstore, I went to my shelf that morning and whipped out a huge literary anthology that I used back in high school. The thing is a BRICK. It’s over 1200 pages. But, it contained, I remembered, “Death of a Salesman.”

So she brought The Brick to school…”

“The River Tells You You’re Good: A Perimenopause Essay” by of

“Two weeks ago, it was hard to tell how much I was bleeding.

There are times, and maybe these times are every day, when the culture obscures my body’s experience, tells me I don’t know what I know.

In my high school biology class, the teacher, who wore pink shimmer lipstick every day, told us that women lose about two tablespoons of blood during menstruation.

“I know it seems like a lot more than that, ladies, but that’s all it is,” she said.

Ladies.

That was thirty years ago and I’ve remembered her factoid—two tablespoons of blood—ever since. I’ve remembered because I was incredulous—which means that I believed her in spite of not believing her. It means that I wasn’t sure whether to believe her or me. It suspected I was a losing far more than two tablespoons, but perhaps the loss seemed like far more than it was.”

“The 90s Weren’t Better. We Were” by

“Earlier this week, I posted a bunch of photos of 90s couples. Johnny and Kate outside a hotel. Gwyneth and Brad being aggressively blonde together. Reese and Ryan walking by what appears to be Indochine. They were mostly paparazzi shots and red carpets, nothing technically remarkable. But something about them hit me in the chest.

My heart kind of hurt. Not in a sad way. In a recognition way. Like running into someone you used to be.

Looking at them, I realized the thing that made those photos so striking wasn’t the clothes, hair, or even the people themselves. It was the complete absence of awareness. No one was performing. No one was tagging a brand. No one was thinking about content or how the image might live online. These were people existing in a moment they didn’t realize would later become a cultural artifact.

That unselfconsciousness is what we’re actually nostalgic for.”

“The Day I Stopped Punishing Myself” by of

“I woke up this morning to a radical thought: I don’t have to punish myself anymore. It was just how I went through the world.

I’d been doing it for decades, but didn’t see it until I tried sobriety this winter. Fifty-five days and counting.

I didn’t set the world on fire as a mid-level insurance coverage attorney, but then again, who does. Later, I had so much guilt over my husband’s death from cancer, how he died, still in denial and unsettled without the lovely goodbyes like the Hallmark TV movies.

Later it was that my book didn’t do well enough. I was advised to think of it as a business but I’m not sufficiently entrepreneurial or self-promoting or even interesting enough. Somehow I was supposed to engage magnificently with the world, but no. And then it’s the feeling of not doing enough for aging parents or, even if doing enough, feeling anticipatory loss instead of gratitude in squiggly script illustrated with heart emojis.”

“My Midlife Transformation Didn’t Look Like Growth At First” by of

“Ever feel like you’re between chapters — not quite who you were, not yet sure who you’re becoming?

Like nothing is happening… but something is shifting?

Something beautiful happened at a recent Soulful Tarot Numerology Hour you might recognize.

A wise woman shared — honestly, tenderly — about the changes happening in her life.

Her feminine cycle is ending. Her role as a mother — her biggest, most beloved creation — is shifting as her kids need her less. She’s not sure what she’s creating next.

Only that she feels like she’s in a cocoon… and nothing is happening.

And then, gently, another woman offered her this:

“Sounds like you’re in the hallway.”

Submit your post for Midstory Reads

Introducing Midstory Reads

Jessica Smock — Sun, 22 Mar 2026 20:53:40 GMT

I am back! It’s been awhile. There have been lots of changes around here. (More on that later….)

Midstory’s mission for the past few years has always been to publish and celebrate midlife women’s voices on Substack and beyond. Midstory is for readers and writers alike — anyone who values powerful writing by women.

Our sister publication Midstack is a community for midlife women who write on Substack. As writers, we connect, gather, and support each other in growing our Substacks.

At Midstack, I host regular Share Threads, in which Midstack members share their latest posts.

Every week or so I will choose several of those essays or ones submitted here to feature in our Midstory Reads column.

If you’d like your writing to be considered for our Midstory Reads, you can fill out the form below. You can also submit another writer’s post. (We’d also appreciate if you subscribed to Midstack!)

MIDSTORY READS: March 23, 2026

“When Midlife Rearranges the Marriage” by of

“The loneliness in my marriage has been spoken aloud. My spouse feels it too. We talk about it in the way couples do when they are trying to understand something that arrived gradually, almost invisibly. There was no dramatic fracture, no single moment that explains the distance. Yet somehow a gap has wedged itself between us, and we can’t quite figure out how to bridge it. Despite sweet attempts on both our parts.

Midlife marriages often pass through this strange rearranging. The children who once required constant tending begin to need us less. The shared project of raising them, once the center beam of the house suddenly and silently shifts. Without realizing it, couples can forget how to reach for each other in ways that aren’t logistical or parental. Suddenly the marriage that hummed right along as transactional has become fractional.”

Check out this collaboration

“This Is What Keeps Me Up At Night” by who writes : a collaboration with of

(Yes to collaborations between Substack writers!)

“We co-chose a prompt and then both wrote to it, without consulting the other about any other parameters but the topic:

What keeps me up at night — we imagined our answers whispered to each other in the way things can only be said at night, as if we were children under a tented sheet on a sleepover.”

“I Knew The Day My Mom Died Would Be Awful” by of

“The phone wakes me from a deep sleep. It’s early, so I know this probably isn’t going to be good. It’s my mom’s caregiver. My mom is in horrible pain, and nothing they give her is helping.”

“Before We Had a Word For Estrangement” by of

“Today there is language for it. There are essays, podcasts, support groups, and research trying to understand why families fracture the way they do…

Growing up in the 1970’s in a family with estrangement in its bones, I wasn’t aware of statistics or terminology or public conversations about the painful circumstance.

What I did understand, even as a child, was that this was simply how families worked.”

“The Death of Boring Time” from

“Life was full of small pockets of boredom. Waiting in line at the bank. Sitting at a bar before your friend arrived. Riding the bus across town. Standing on a corner hoping to catch a cab. Walking somewhere without headphones because there simply wasn’t anything else to do.

None of these moments was particularly meaningful on its own. But they created something we barely think about anymore: empty mental space….”

Check out two conversation with two midlife women I admire:

Live with Shannon Watts: On midlife, menopause, and the conditions women need to thrive from
Ani DiFranco on Collaboration, Connection, and New Beginnings (Ani! Since I read this, I’ve “32 Flavors” stuck in my head…) with

Is there a piece of writing, collaboration, or conversation on Substack that you’d like to share with us? TELL US HERE.

Have a wonderful week! xo Jessica