Numb.

December 1, 2025December 1, 2025 Heather KightLeave a comment

Grief is weird. I’ve said this at least a hundred times since losing Steve nearly three years ago. It doesn’t wait for an invitation. It doesn’t arrive when expected. There is no dress code or checklist. There are zero boundaries — it shows up when it wants, where it wants, and how it wants. There are special occasions such as birthdays, holidays, and anniversaries when I anticipate and fully expect sadness, only to find the tears stay away. There are random workdays when, for no particular rhyme or reason, I sit at my desk and pray nobody stops to talk because the floodgates are wide open.

And then there are days like today. Numb.

As a child, my family lived in the “suburbs” of a town with a whopping population of about 6,000 people. In other words, we lived on the outskirts of the middle of nowhere. So when a new kid moved in down the road, it took about five minutes for us to become friends. Her name was Dawn, and she was friendly and bubbly, and we hit it off immediately. I believe I was in fourth grade and she was in fifth when we met, and weekends became adventures on our bikes or walking the back roads, sleepovers with Mad Libs and makeup, or afternoons listening to her parents’ albums from the 70s or our cassette tapes featuring Madonna or Cyndi Lauper.

As we got older, summers were spent sunbathing with baby oil on our skin and Sun-In on our hair. Topics turned to boys, clothes, boys, hair, boys. She started high school a year before I did, so I had the inside scoop when it was my turn to enter those daunting halls lined with lockers and smelling like floor wax and teenage dreams. Our conversations grew deeper, secrets became sacred, and tears were accepted without judgement. We called each other “Sis,” because that’s what we were.

Somewhere along the way, we grew up. Moments became memories. Life got harder. Dawn and I still talked, laughed, cried, shared secrets and dreamed dreams. When she got married, I was her maid of honor. When I was pregnant, she spent the night when my husband was working. We had each other’s backs — not because we always agreed, but because we always loved.

Like many childhood friendships, time and distance somehow slipped in; phone calls were fewer, miles were farther, and life got in the way. But when we reconnected, time wasn’t a factor. Our friendship witnessed love and loss, children growing and husbands leaving, aging parents and adult choices.

And cancer.

Steve’s cancer.

Then her cancer.

Steve’s passing.

And now, hers.

Grief is weird. Because even when you see it coming, it doesn’t always land like you think it should. It’s not always loud. It doesn’t always scream. There aren’t always tears. Sometimes, it looks like staring at old pictures and feeling nothing.

Nothing but numb.

Dear Algorithm, We Need to Talk.

November 28, 2025November 27, 2025 Heather KightLeave a comment

Dear Algorithm,
We Need to Talk.

You and I have been in a relationship for a while now. I give you my clicks, my scrolls, my late-night searches for boots and bookcases. In return, you’re supposed to get to know me.

But lately?
You’ve been getting a little too familiar… and somehow still wildly wrong.

Exhibit A: BBW Cupid

You slid into my feed whispering:
“Looking for a man who will accept you just the way you are?”

*Bless your heart, someone out there will love you!*

Sir.
Ma’am.
Binary-system of baloney.

Why are you talking to me like I just admitted my darkest insecurity into your algorithmic confessional?

You’re not uplifting me.
You’re patting me on the head.

“Oh sweetheart, don’t worry, someone will love you.”

Women don’t need pity served in a stock-photo romance wrapper. We need honesty. We need respect. We need you to stop acting like we’re projects, not people.

Exhibit B: WooPlus Gym-Bro Energy

Then came the lumbering wall of muscle proclaiming:
“Dear plus size girls… You are appreciated by gym bros.”

Appreciated.
APPRECIATED???

Algorithm, be serious.

This man looks like he drinks creatine like communion wine and benches jet skis recreationally. He has never once in his life typed the phrase “plus size.”

But you want me to believe he’s waiting to sweep me off my curvy feet?

No.
Stop it.
Be so for real.

Exhibit C: The Copy-Paste Casanova

This morning — the SAME day I wrote about false advertising — you delivered a message from a man 900 miles away who:

speaks in Victorian run-on sentences
wants to “use me as a model of beauty”
and sounds like ChatGPT’s Renaissance-fair cousin

Even Chapter 2 went:
“We will investigate this and he sounds beyond creepy.”

When the dating site itself is concerned? That’s when you KNOW.

Here’s the part I need you to hear, Algorithm:

These ads… they don’t hurt because I’m lonely.
They don’t land because I’m insecure.
They don’t sting because I think I’m unlovable.

They hurt because they treat plus-size women like we need special permission to hope.

Like we need reassurance.
Like we should be grateful.
Like love is something available —
but only if we accept a pity narrative wrapped in fake empowerment.

You take the most vulnerable demographic — women who have survived loss, divorce, trauma, disappointment — and you sell them a fantasy rooted in condescension, not connection.

You dress it up in Hallmark cinematography:
Thin pretty girl = mean.
Curvy bakery owner = warms the lumberjack’s heart.
Roll credits.

But real life isn’t a Christmas movie.
And curvy women are not consolation prizes.

So listen closely, Algorithm:

I am a plus-size woman.
I know who I am.
I know what I offer.

I don’t need your curated pity campaigns.
I don’t need validation from an ad.
And I certainly don’t need fake “appreciation” from a gym bro.

If a man wants me, he will want me — my mind, my humor, my history, my heart — not because an app “targets” me, but because I’m worth targeting on my own merits.

And so are millions of other women who deserve real love, real honesty, and real dignity.

You don’t get to define our worth.
You don’t get to diagnose our loneliness.
You don’t get to prey on our scars.

So knock it off.
Do better.

Signed,
A woman who is
Too wise for ghosting,
Too tired for games,
And way, WAY too caffeinated for your nonsense today.

— Menopause & Malarkey 🔥💙

What about you?
Have you gotten an ad that made you say, “EXCUSE ME, ALGORITHM??”
Drop it in the comments — this is a safe space, and your stories deserve to be heard (and laughed about).

The Front Porch Swing · The Soft Side of Sass

I’m Still Standing — and Somehow Standing Taller

November 27, 2025 Heather KightLeave a comment

A reflection on late-blooming strength, rediscovered creativity, and the surprising places healing takes us.

There are moments in life when you look backward, then forward, then at the ground beneath your feet — and you realize you’re standing somewhere you never imagined, stronger than you expected.

This week, I caught myself feeling something I haven’t felt in a long time:
proud.
grounded.
steady.
And maybe most importantly… ready.

Ready for what?
Not men. Not dating apps. Not romance with a side of mystery shovels.
Ready for me.

Ready to keep writing.

Not the timid scribbles I used to produce in my 20s, but the bold, layered, soulful work that only comes with time — and life — and loss — and joy — and more experience than anyone ever asks for.

My creativity didn’t return quietly.
She came back at 55 with sass, steel, and an entire toolbox of stories she refused to keep inside my chest any longer.
She came with decades of women’s wisdom, mother-worry, step-parent diplomacy, blended family chaos, heartbreak, healing, gray hair earned the honest way, and a bachelor’s degree I fought my way toward at 47.

She came back mature, fierce, vulnerable, funny, gritty, and brilliant in ways my 25-year-old self couldn’t even dream of.

Ready to honor the life I’ve lived.

Two marriages that ended on purpose.
One that ended out of my control.
Daughters who grew into women.
Grandkids who became pure magic in human form.
Parents who left too soon.
A husband whose death changed the shape of my soul.
Jobs, losses, reinventions, dogs with big personalities and tiny bladders, and holding space for my kids when their own hearts broke.

Every bit of it taught me something.
Every bit of it honed me.
Every bit of it brought me here.

Ready to embrace the quiet triumphs.

The kind that don’t make noise.
The kind that happen in soft moments.
The kind that whisper, not shout:

“You made it.
And you’re okay.”

Sometimes that looks like writing a chapter that feels like truth.
Sometimes it looks like house-sitting with three snoring dogs.
Sometimes it looks like remembering you once slept in a room with someone you loved who’s no longer here — and choosing grace for your own heart when it feels unsettled.

And sometimes it looks like taking a bucket-list cruise to Alaska and unknowingly changing the entire trajectory of your life.

Ready for whatever comes next.

Not because I’m fearless.
Not because I’m finished grieving.
Not because life suddenly makes perfect sense.

But because I’m still standing —
and I’m standing taller than before.

Here’s to the late bloomers.
The reinvented.
The resilient.
The women who rise again and again, softer and stronger each time.

And here’s to the muse who came back with a vengeance.
I’ve missed her.
But she came home.
And she brought stories with her.

Dating After Dignity · The Front Porch Swing · The Soft Side of Sass

Starting Over After 50: The Ache No One Warns You About

November 19, 2025November 18, 2025 Heather KightLeave a comment

There’s a particular kind of grief that settles into your bones when you lose the person you were supposed to grow old with. No one prepares you for it — the way it steals not just your present, but the future you built in pencil, ink, and stubborn hope.

When you’re younger, love is about becoming.
Becoming a couple.
Becoming a family.
Becoming adults together.

You grow and shift and soften with the same person beside you. You change physically — we all do — but you don’t see those changes the same way the world does.

Because when you love someone for decades, you don’t see wrinkles or gray hair or the softening around the edges.
You see the man who held your hand in the hospital waiting room.
You see the woman who laughed so hard she snorted on your second date.
You see the life you built — the shared history that becomes its own kind of beauty.

Familiarity becomes attraction.
Shared memories become desire.
Love shapes your eyes.

But when you lose that person — or when a marriage ends — you’re thrown into something no one asked for: starting over.

And starting over at 40, 50, 60 is a completely different mountain to climb.

Because now, instead of being seen through the lens of someone who lived your life with you…
You’re being seen through the eyes of strangers.

Strangers who didn’t watch you grow.
Strangers who didn’t walk your valleys or climb your victories.
Strangers who don’t know the you who existed before the wrinkles, before the grief, before the years changed your body and your face and your heart.

When you start over at this age, you feel that difference.

Even if you’re confident.
Even if you’re grounded.
Even if you know your worth.

There is a quiet voice — sometimes faint, sometimes vicious — that whispers:

“What if I’m not enough anymore?”

Not pretty enough.
Not young enough.
Not thin enough.
Not radiant enough for a world obsessed with first impressions and filtered perfection.

And the truth is, that fear isn’t vanity.
It’s human.

Because for years — or decades — you were loved by someone who saw all of you, not just the surface. Someone who saw your worth through shared life, not swipe reactions. Someone who learned you the way a favorite song becomes a part of the body that listens to it.

Losing that lens is its own grief.

And stepping into dating again — especially after loss — means presenting yourself to people who haven’t earned the right to see you deeply yet. People who only know the picture on the screen and not the lifetime behind your eyes.

But here’s the part the fear forgets:

You are not starting from zero.
You are starting from wisdom.
From strength.
From a heart that has lived, loved, broken, healed, and dared to remain open.

And you are not “less than” for aging.
You are more — more experienced, more emotionally intelligent, more discerning, more compassionate, more real.

Someone new may not see the version of you that existed decades ago…
But the right person will see the woman you’ve become because of everything you survived — and they will recognize the beauty of that immediately.

You don’t start over because you stopped loving the person you lost.
You start over because they taught you what love can be.

And that lesson — that depth, that devotion, that courage — is the very thing that makes you worthy of being loved again, exactly as you are now.

Wrinkles, laugh lines, grief lines, silver hairs, soft edges, and all.

Not in spite of them.

But because of them.

Dating After Dignity · The Front Porch Swing · The Soft Side of Sass

His Last Question, My Lifelong Answer

November 17, 2025November 16, 2025 Heather KightLeave a comment

11 years, 2 months, 15 days.
That’s how long we had.

We met. We fell in love. We eloped. We knew 50 years was a lofty goal — he was 38, I was 41 — but we were determined to “go the distance,” as he always said.

Heather and her late husband Steve stand close together in a softly lit church, smiling warmly at the camera. Heather is holding their marriage license, and Steve has one hand resting gently on her shoulder and the other on her arm. Both look happy and proud, captured on a meaningful, joyful day. — *The day I became his Mrs. 11/17/2011*

We didn’t know the distance would be so short.
11 years, 2 months, 15 days — from I do on November 11, 2011 to goodbye on February 1, 2023, when he took his last breath on earth and his first breath in Heaven.

And for the record?
Cancer sucks.

I can measure the time we were married.
What I can’t measure are the things grief refuses to quantify:

The number of tears I’ve cried
The number of times I’ve heard, “I’m so sorry”
The number of times I’ve said, “Pawpaw would be so proud of you”
The number of times I’ve thought, “Oh, I need to ask Steve—” before remembering
The number of times I’ve wished he could walk the dogs with me
The number of times I’ve felt the emptiness where his touch should be
The number of times our kids could’ve used his guidance
The number of times I’ve pulled out his half-empty bottle of aftershave just to breathe him in

The list could go on for… well, forever.

I’ll never forget the question he asked on our 11th anniversary — the one we both knew would be our last. He felt well enough for a short dinner out, but the outing took everything out of him. That night, sitting beside him on the bed, holding his hand, he looked at me and asked:

“If you knew 11 years ago how this would end, would you still have married me?”

That question hits differently when you’ve lived inside cancer hell. Our marriage took “in sickness and in health” to a level I wouldn’t wish on a single soul. Why would anyone knowingly choose a marriage of just 11 years when it meant walking through a storm like that?

Because… love.

Like I told him that night, the honor of loving him for 11 years was worth more than the idea of never loving him at all. It wasn’t a comforting line for a dying man — it was the truth.

For every heartbreak, we had a hundred memories wrapped in laughter. We loved each other fiercely.

‘Til death do us part.

Steve kissing Heather on their 11th anniversary. — Our final anniversary together – 11/17/2022

Dating After Dignity · Menopause & Mischief · Red Flags & Walking Punchlines · The Front Porch Swing

🎉500!

November 8, 2025 Heather KightLeave a comment

Menopause & Malarkey just hit 500 views! That’s 500 shared laughs, sighs, and side-eyes from women who get it. Thank you for reading, sharing, and swiping along this wild ride with me. Here’s to the next 500 —and the next round of red flags, revelations, and ridiculousness.